With the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT), fog computing has emerged to help traditional cloud computing in meeting scalability demands. Fog computing makes it possible to fulfill real-time requirements of applications by bringing more processing, storage, and control power geographically closer to end devices. However, since fog computing is a relatively new field, there is no standard platform for research and development in a realistic environment, and this dramatically inhibits innovation and development of fog-based applications. In response to these challenges, we propose the Fog Development Kit (FDK). By providing high-level interfaces for allocating computing and networking resources, the FDK abstracts the complexities of fog computing from developers and enables the rapid development of fog systems. In addition to supporting application development on a physical deployment, the FDK supports the use of emulation tools (e.g., GNS3 and Mininet) to create realistic environments, allowing fog application prototypes to be built with zero additional costs and enabling seamless portability to a physical infrastructure. Using a physical testbed and various kinds of applications running on it, we verify the operation and study the performance of the FDK. Specifically, we demonstrate that resource allocations are appropriately enforced and guaranteed, even amidst extreme network congestion. We also present simulation-based scalability analysis of the FDK versus the number of switches, the number of end devices, and the number of fog devices.


Our work focuses on Extreme Sensitive Robotic that is on multi-robot applications that are in strong interaction with humans and their integration in a highly connected world. Because human-robots interactions have to be as natural as possible, we propose an approach where robots Learn from Demonstrations, memorize contexts of learning and self-organize their parts to adapt themselves to new contexts. To deal with Extreme Sensitive Robotic, we propose to use both an Adaptive Multi-Agent System (AMAS) approach and a Context-Learning pattern in order to build a multi-agent system ALEX (Adaptive Learner by Experiments) for contextual learning from demonstrations.


The article analyses Patricia Grace's novel Baby No-Eyes (1998) in light of debates about the Human Genome Diversity Project and its research on indigenous communities. Focusing on the story of a miscarried Māori baby whose eyes are removed for medical testing, Grace highlights the continuities between extractive colonial practices such as land dispossession and new, "biocolonial" activities regarding the mining of the human body. Her dramatization of culturally fraught medical encounters contributes to debates about "cultural safety" in healthcare, while the novel's exploration of indigenous genealogy, ghosting, and health advocacy challenges the HGDP's language of "vanishing communities" and "extinction." Baby No-Eyes asserts powerful arguments for more robust ethical protocols in genetic research, humanizing debates that often take place on the level of bioethics, health policy, and international law. The article concludes that the novel's ethical recommendations provide conceptual foundations that could contribute to the decolonization of genetic science.


This paper studies the effect of international oil prices on civil conflict in Nigeria. Our analysis uses time variation in global oil prices and cross-sectional variation based on the initial distribution of oil production across Nigerian districts. According to our estimates, an increase in oil price increases the risk of civil conflicts in districts that produce oil by at least 63 percent. Using data on intergovernmental transfers, labor outcomes and firm characteristics, the study tests for popular theoretical mechanisms of the resource curse and shows that positive oil price shocks magnify conflict through rising competition for resource rents and grievance against foreign firms. No evidence is found in favor of mechanisms related to changes in the opportunity cost of engaging in conflict.


ABSTRACT Anderson, T.R. and Frazer, L.N., 2014. Toward parsimony in shoreline change prediction (III): B-splines and noise handling. The traditional single-transect method for predicting long-term shoreline change uses far more parameters than necessary because it assumes that erosion/accretion (change) rates at adjacent alongshore positions (transects) are independent. Such overfitting can cause poor predictions of future shoreline location, so recent work has modeled change rates as linear sums of polynomials, or linear sums of principal components. Here we introduce an alternative method that uses linear sums of B-splines. As in earlier work, an information criterion is used to identify the optimal number of basis functions. The local nature of B-spline models makes them less susceptible to the Gibbs effect than polynomial models, and their smoothness makes them more robust to noise than principal components regression. We also compare three noise-handling techniques by examining their effects on the posterior probability density functions of rates. We find that noise handling affects both predicted rate and its uncertainty, and that correlated noise is best addressed by iteratively constructing a full covariance matrix from data residuals. We illustrate our procedure using synthetic data and shoreline data from Assateague Island and Ocean City, Maryland.


Our food system is experiencing dramatic changes as the expansion of e-commerce, introduction of new products, and innovations in supply chain structures all pose to transform how we buy, sell, and distribute food. However, the environmental impacts of these transformations remain unclear. This feature reviews existing literature on environmental implications of e-commerce, discusses relevant trade-offs, and identifies pressing gaps in research. Some trade-offs discussed are those between centralized and decentralized delivery service types, those unique to a rural landscape, and those within the interplay of transportation and consumer behavior. The impacts of fulfillment centers, of refrigerated logistics, of e-commerce on consumer shopping and food waste habits, and of e-commerce services in rural regions are identified as pressing knowledge gaps.


Cyclic peptides have undergone a renaissance in medicinal chemistry, as studies into structure–property relationships have revealed that passive cell permeability can be designed into synthetic cyclic peptide scaffolds when conformational factors are considered. The elucidation of cyclic peptide conformations in low-dielectric, membrane-mimicking solvents such as chloroform has therefore become an important tool for studying passive permeability in cyclic peptides, while aqueous conformational ensembles correlate both to target engagement and aqueous solubility. This chapter reviews a variety of NMR and computational techniques for the study of cyclic peptide conformations in solution, with a focus on the use of coupling constants to obtain dihedral information, NOESY- and ROESY spectra to obtain through-space distances, and residual dipolar couplings to obtain the relative orientation of bond vectors. Hydrogen–deuterium exchange and temperature shift methods are also discussed as tools for evaluating hydrogen bonding, and computational methods that employ NMR-based restraints are compared.


MOTIVATION
Tandem repeats consist in approximate and adjacent repetitions of a DNA motif. Such repeats account for large portions of eukaryotic genomes and have also been found in other life kingdoms. Owing to their polymorphism, tandem repeats have proven useful in genome cartography, forensic and population studies, etc. Nevertheless, they are not systematically detected nor annotated in genome projects. Partially because of this lack of data, their evolution is still poorly understood.

RESULTS
In this work, we design an exact algorithm to locate approximate tandem repeats (ATR) of a motif in a DNA sequence. Given a motif and a DNA sequence, our method named STAR, identifies all segments of the sequence that correspond to significant approximate tandem repetitions of the motif. In our model, an Exact Tandem Repeat (ETR) comes from the tandem duplication of the motif and an ATR derives from an ETR by a series of point mutations. An ATR can then be encoded as a number of duplications of the motif together with a list of mutations. Consequently, any sequence that is not an ATR cannot be encoded efficiently by this description, while a true ATR can. Our method uses the minimum description length criterion to identify which sequence segments are ATR. Our optimization procedure guarantees that STAR finds a combination of ATR that minimizes this criterion.

AVAILABILITY
for use at http://atgc.lirmm.fr/star


Numbers of waterbirds were counted monthly from May 1994 to April 2004 at Paarl Waste Water Treatment Works, South Africa. Seventy-two waterbird species were recorded, of which 33 species (46%) were recorded breeding. Mean summer and winter counts were 2822 ± 504 and 1651 ± 251 birds, respectively. Summer peaks were driven primarily by large numbers of White-winged Terns (mean summer count = 858 or 34% of total count). Resident species dominated from December to April, whereas Palaearctic migrants peaked from December to March. Ducks and geese had greatest numbers from December to April and resident waders and grebes peaked from April to July. Flamingos peaked in October and November with another small peak in June. Gulls and terns had two peaks, one in November–March, driven by migrant White-winged Terns, the other in July and August, driven by abundance of resident Benguelan (Hartlaub's) Gulls. White-winged Terns showed the greatest decline (82%) of all species. Influx of Little Grebe and Red-billed Teal during winter showed a positive correlation with rainfall, while Egyptian Goose, Yellow-billed Duck and Cape Shoveler numbers declined as winter and spring rainfall increased. Paarl Waste Water Treatment Works ranked as the second-most important wastewater treatment works for waterbirds in the Cape Town metropole. It supported globally and regionally important numbers of 11 species and qualifies as a global and/or subregional Important Bird Area and Ramsar Site.


Abstract. We present a collection of data relating to microzooplankton physiological traits collected from the literature. We define microzooplankton as unicellular zooplankton (protozoans). The collected data mostly relates to grazing rates collected either in the field or through laboratory experiments. There is an equal number of grazing and growth rate measured through laboratory experiments and a smaller number of Gross Growth Efficiency (GGE), respiration and egestion values. Although the collected data showed inconsistencies in units, or gaps in knowledge of microzooplankton (e.g. effect of prey nutrient content, combined measurement of grazing and growth), they also contained information on microzooplankton functional response, and how some external factors affect them (e.g. prey concentration, prey offered, temperature). Link to the repository: doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.820368 and doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.826106 . Note that the sum of all data sets differs from the present data compilations which provides harmonized units and temperature adjusted metabolic. Within the repository there is a link to the "raw" dataset.


The benefits of improved tax enforcement in Pakistan through simulations of a model of the Pakistani economy is studied. We begin by documenting that the effective tax rate facing firms is increasing in firm size, with firms in the modern sector facing tax rates nearly ten percentage points higher than in the traditional sector. In addition, larger firms face substantially higher tax rates than small firms. Effective tax rates range from 5% for smaller firms to 10% for middle-sized firms and 15% for the largest firms. We then build a two-sector (modern and traditional) model of the Pakistani economy. Simulations of the model show that improvements in tax enforcement could increase revenues (by 8% in our middle scenario) but also reduce informality (by 3.3 percentage points) and increase GDP (by nearly 2%). We contrast this with a one percentage point increase in the tax rate, which increases tax revenues, but reduces GDP and increases the rate of informality


: Control of intragastric pH with antacids or H2-receptor antagonists is a standard prophylactic treatment routinely used to prevent or control bleeding from acute erosive gastritis (AEG) in critically ill patients on trauma and surgical services. The incidence of bleeding from AEG was documented on these services retrospectively before and after the institution of standard prophylaxis treatment to determine the relative morbidity, mortality, and risk factors of each era. During the preprophylaxis and postprophylaxis era, the incidence of bleeding was the same, 2.3 per cent (13 of approximately 550 patients in each study period). Prior to prophylaxis, three times as many patients required operation (1 versus 3 patients) although the average transfusion requirement was the same (4.4 units of blood). During both eras the majority of patients were septic and showed other signs of organ failure. Inadequate prophylaxis (failure to prescribe or early discontinuation) was documented in over half of the patients who bled and in the patient requiring operation in spite of a departmental interest in stress gastritis prophylaxis. If antacids and H2-receptor antagonists are used routinely, complications from AEG should be reduced. Even with improved methods of pH control, it appears unlikely that this problem will be eliminated.


ABSTRACT Inch, K.; Davidson, M.; Masselink, G., and Russell, P., 2016. Accurate estimation of wave reflection on a high energy, dissipative beach. In: Vila-Concejo, A.; Bruce, E.; Kennedy, D.M., and McCarroll, R.J. (eds.), Proceedings of the 14th International Coastal Symposium (Sydney, Australia). Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue, No. 75, pp. 877–881. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Noise induced error in estimated wave reflection coefficients using an array method is investigated using simulated time series of water surface elevation with known reflection coefficients and added uncorrelated noise. Reflection coefficients are found to be increasingly overestimated with the addition of noise and this positive bias is more significant for lower levels of true reflection. Coherence between the water surface elevation time series changes systematically with the bias and, along with the estimated reflection coefficients, is used to create a "look-up table" which serves as a function to correct for the observed bias. Bias and corresponding coherence levels are found to be independent of frequency allowing the same correction function to be applied across all frequencies and for frequency-averaged (e.g., across the infragravity band) reflection coefficients. Root-mean-square error associated with infragravity-averaged reflection coefficients, across all known reflection levels and noise-to-signal ratios up to 1, is reduced from 0.22 before the correction to 0.01 following the correction. Field data from a natural, dissipative beach is used to demonstrate the application of these results.


In this paper, we analyze node mobility for reliable packet delivery in mobile IP networks. In mobile IP, packets destined to roaming nodes are intercepted by their home agents and delivered via tunneling to their care of addresses (CoA). A mobile node may roam across multiple subnets. At each boundary crossing, a handoff is initiated such that the CoA is updated and a new tunnel is established. We consider both basic mobile IP handoff and smooth handoff. We find that reliable packet delivery in mobile IP networks can be modeled as a renewal process, because the retransmission over a new tunnel after each boundary crossing is independent of the previous history. We then derive the probability distribution of boundary crossings for each successful packet, based on which the packet reliable delivery time can be obtained. Our analytical model is derived based on a general distribution of residence time in a subnet and a general distribution of successful retransmission attempts in each subnet. The results can be readily applied to any distributions for both items. We also provide numerical examples to calculate the probability distribution of boundary crossings, and conduct simulations to validate our analytical results


In 1673, Yoshimasu Murase made a cubic equation to
obtain the thickness of a hearth. He introduced two kinds of recurrence
formulas of square and the deformation (Ref.[1]). We find that the three
formulas lead to the extension of Newton-Raphson's method and Horner's method at the same
time. This shows originality of Japanese native mathematics (Wasan) in the Edo
era (1600- 1867). Suzuki (Ref.[2]) estimates Murase to be a rare mathematician in not only the history
of Wasan but also the history of mathematics in the world. Section 1 introduces Murase's
three solutions of the cubic equation of the hearth. Section 2 explains the Horner's method. We give the generalization
of three formulas and the relation between these formulas and Horner's method. Section 3 gives definitions of Murase-Newton's method (Tsuchikura-Horiguchi's method), general recurrence
formula of Murase-Newton's method (Tsuchikura-Horiguchi's method), and general
recurrence formula of the extension of Murase-Newton's method (the extension of Tsuchikura-Horiguchi's method)
concerning n-degree polynomial equation. Section 4 is contents of the title of this paper.


With Multi-channel MAC protocols, transmission pairs can send data packet simultaneously. Hence, higher network throughput can be achieved. The developing of 802.11s standard provides the power saving model multi-channel MAC protocol (PSM-MMAC) framework, which divides into negotiation phase and data phase. All the users select appropriate channels to transmit data in dedicated channel during negotiation phase, then the users will switch the transceivers to the selected channel to transfer data packet by RTS/CTS handshake. While taking the size of data window constraints, therefore how to design the data packet size is the key issue of PSM-MMAC in saturation network case. In this paper, we propose a new policy that can adjust the size of data packet based on the channel occupancy and the fairness of user access for unsolicited Grand Service, which has strict requirements on the delay jitter and maximum reserved traffic rate. We also develop the probabilistic statistical analysis model to compare the performance of previous policy and our proposed policy. Simulation results verify our analysis model, and show our policy has the superior performance of the PSM-MMAC to the previous scheme.


The roles of the endoplasmic-reticulum lectins calnexin and calreticulin in the folding of tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA) have been investigated using an in vitro translation system that reconstitutes these processes as they would occur in the intact cell. Using co-immunoprecipitation of newly synthesized tPA with antibodies to calnexin and calreticulin, it was demonstrated that the interaction of tPA with both lectins was dependent upon tPA glycosylation and glucosidase trimming. When tPA was synthesized in the presence of semi-permeabilized cells under conditions preventing complex formation with calnexin and calreticulin, the translation product had a specific plasminogenolytic activity identical with that when synthesized under conditions permitting interactions with both lectins. Furthermore, complexes of tPA bound to calnexin and calreticulin were shown to be enzymically active. These results demonstrate that calnexin and calreticulin can form a stable interaction with correctly folded tPA; however, such interactions are not required for the synthesis of enzymically active tPA.


We explore two adaptation approaches of deep Transformer based neural language models (LMs) for automatic speech recognition. The first approach is a pretrain-finetune framework, where we first pretrain a Transformer LM on a large-scale text corpus from scratch and then adapt it to relatively small target domains via finetuning. The second approach is a mixer of dynamically weighted models that are separately trained on source and target domains, aiming to improve simple linear interpolation with dynamic weighting. We compare the two approaches with three baselines - without adaptation, merging data, and simple interpolation - on Switchboard (SWBD) and Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Experiments show that the mixer model generally performs better than baselines and finetuning. Compared with no adaptation, finetuning and the mixer approach obtain up to relative 11.5% and 14.1% WER reductions on SWBD, respectively. The mixer model also outperforms linear interpolation and merging data. On WSJ, the mixer approach achieves a new state-of-the-art WER result.


OBJECTIVES
: To examine age- and sex-related differences in risk and protective factors for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in community-based elderly individuals.

DESIGN
: Cross-sectional study.

SETTING
: The population-based Sydney Memory and Ageing Study.

PARTICIPANTS
: A total of 757 nondemented, community-dwelling elderly individuals from an English-speaking background categorized as younger (70-79 years) or older (80-90 years).

MEASUREMENTS
: Risk of MCI was determined for sociodemographic, lifestyle, and cardiac, physical, mental, and general health factors using age- (and sex-) adjusted multiple regressions comprising initially significant univariate factors.

RESULTS
: The point prevalence of MCI within our sample was 39.1% overall: it was lowest in younger women (32.3%) and similar across men and older women (41.9%-43.6%). The risk of MCI across all participants was increased by the APOE ∊4 allele, high homocysteine, and heart disease; and decreased by better odor identification, visual acuity, and mental activity. Risk factors in all younger participants were slow 6-m walk, poor odor identification, and high homocysteine. Risk of MCI was associated in younger women with history of depression, less mental activity, slower 6-m walk, poorer visual acuity, and higher homocysteine; and in younger men with poorer odor identification and higher homocysteine. Older participants showed no significant risk factors for MCI, except for poorer visual acuity in men. Supporting these findings were statistically significant interactions that reflected the differences in risk factor profiles between age and/or sex groups.

CONCLUSIONS
: Risk factors for MCI differ in men and women and vary with age. This has implications for preventing MCI and possibly dementia.


In this review, we disclose a selection of serum/plasma biomarkers of (anti)oxidant status related to nutrition, which can be used for measurements in large-scale epidemiological studies. From personal experience, we have come to the following proposal of a set of biomarkers for nutritional intake, (anti)oxidant status, and redox status. We have selected the individual antioxidant vitamins E and A, and the carotenoids which can be measured in large series by HPLC. In addition, vitamin C was selected, which can be measured by an auto-analyzer or HPLC. As a biomarker for oxidative stress, the ROM assay (reactive oxygen metabolites) was selected; for the redox status, the total thiol assay; and for the total antioxidant status the BAP assay (biological antioxidant potential). All of these biomarkers can be measured in large quantities by an auto-analyzer. Critical points in biomarker validation with respect to blood sampling, storage conditions, and measurements are discussed. With the selected biomarkers, a good set is presented for use in the risk assessment between nutrition and (chronic) diseases in large-scale epidemiological studies. Examples of the successful application of these biomarkers in large international studies are presented.


Insects of the genus Sitophilus are among the most destructive pests in rice storage, and the best strategy to control it is to use resistant genotypes. In this study, 26 upland rice elite lines were evaluated for Sitophilus weevil reaction on grain weight. The seeds were placed in plastic recipients stored in a room with temperature and lightning simulating a warehouse environment. The number of living weevils and the grain weight were obtained in two evaluations, one 35 days after storage, and the other 35 days after infestation. The lines differed statistically for number of living weevils and for grain weight in both evaluations. The correlations between these two characters were - 0.99 and - 0.47 for the first and the second evaluation (P < 0.05), respectively. The lines BRS Pepita, AB 112089 and AB 112090 were the most susceptible. Seventeen of the twenty-six elite lines were resistant in both evaluations and could be successfully used in upland rice breeding programs.


Under the hypothesis that modifying nitrogen sources and doses could increase nitrogen fertilization efficiency and productivity and improve forage quality, this study aimed to evaluate the morphological composition, structural characteristics and chemical composition of Panicum maximum cv. Massai forage cultivated under different urea sources (common and coated with Policote®) and nitrogen doses (200, 400 and 600 kg ha-1 year-1) during the autumn, winter and spring of 2014 and the summer and autumn of 2015. The experiment was carried out in Seropedica, RJ, under a randomized complete block design in a factorial arrangement (3x2) + 1 with four replications. High nitrogen rates promoted higher percentages of leaf blade dry mass and lower percentages of dead material dry mass in the forage mass and provided higher tiller population density and forage accumulation rate of Massai grass during the studied seasons. The use of coated urea promoted higher levels of crude protein in the forage than did the use of common urea in all seasons. The intensification of nitrogen fertilization reduced the nitrogen use efficiency but benefitted the structural characteristics, forage accumulation and chemical composition of Massai grass forage. The use of coated urea promoted greater of nitrogen use efficiency during all seasons of the year.


Six polymers with different structure were investigated. The polymers studied were as follows: methylcellulose, hydroxyethylcellulose, carboxymethylcellulose sodium, polyacrylate sodium-polyacrylamid copolymer (Hostacerin PN 73), poly(vinylpyrrolidone)-poly(vinylacetate) copolymer (Kollidon VA 64) and poly(ethylenoxide)-poly(propylenoxide) blockpolymer. Physical networks from polymers in aqueous media were prepared. The flow curves of these systems were determined. Polynoms, multiplicative functions and linear ones were fitted to the flow curves. The close packing was characterised by correlation coefficient. Physical content of function constants was delineated. Practically the constants expressing the binding forces has a great importance. It was established, that the binding forces in cellulose derivates gels and that of acrylic acid-acrylamide polymer gels are similar. Other structure binding forces act in the poly(ethylenoxide)-poly(propylenoxide) block-copolymer systems. The difference are well demonstrated by the constants values of functions.


Computer security remains an important issue in the management of organizational information systems. Losses resulting from computer abuse and errors are substantial, and IS managers continue to cite security and control as a key management issue. With continued expansion of clistributed data processing and storage, the need to both prevent and detect violations also increases. This latter aspect, detection of computer abuse incidents, is the focus of this study. This empirical study examines the prevalence and sophistication of security software system installations across the United States. Using a victimization survey of 528 randomly-selected DPMA members, the study examines discovered incidents of computer abuse in organizations and attempts to identify relationships between comprehensive (i.e., sophisticated) security software and successful discovery of abuse. More comprehensive security software was found to be associated with greater ability to identify perpetrators of abuse and to discover more serious computer abuse incidents. Larger organizations used both a greater number and more sophisticated security software systems than smaller organizations. Wholesale/retail trade organizations used less comprehensive software than average, while manufacturing organizations and public utilities used more comprehensive software. Surprisingly, no relationships were found between the maturity of an organization's security function and the number and/or sophistication of security software systems utilized.


The association between alcohol intake and blood pressure has been known for nearly 70 years. It was postulated that the alcohol blood pressure association was not causal but linked to common factors such as stress, obesity or salt intake. Recently large population studies have shown that the association is independent of these factors. Alcohol dependent persons have a high incidence of hypertension which is a common clinical problem. It is probably due to alcohol withdrawal and is mediated via increased cortisol and catecholamine production. Alcohol has also a direct effect causing arteriolar vasoconstriction. This direct effect may result from an alcohol associated alteration of intracellular Ca in arteriolar smooth muscle leading to supersensitivity to circulating pressor agents.


Summary

Ultrasonic velocity profiling with pressure difference (UVP-PD) was demonstrated to be a successful, non-invasive, in-line measurement system for instantaneous velocity and rheological flow profiling of complex, opaque fat blends. Model systems of 25% Akomic, 75% rapeseed oil; and 25% Akomic, 74% rapeseed oil and 1% Grindsted® Crystalliser 110 were compared under real process conditions with UVP-PD. Results indicated that the sample containing the crystalliser had twice the viscosity of the control. These in-line results are in agreement with previous off-line results, and offer the chance to probe the mechanics of fat blend physics under real, dynamic conditions.


Four herbicides [glyphosate (GLYT), an amino acid synthesis inhibitor; glufosinate (GLUF), a glutamine synthetase inhibitor; fomesafen (FOME), a protoporphyrinogen oxidase inhibitor; and chlorimuron ethyl (CLIM), an acetolactate synthase inhibitor] were used to examine the influence of time of day of application on the control of a variety of annual broadleaf weeds in field studies conducted in Minnesota (five studies on GLYT and GLUF, three studies on FOME and CLIM). All herbicides were applied with an adjuvant at recommended high and low (half or quarter strength) rates every 3h between 06:00 and 24:00h local time. Visual ratings of percent weed control evaluated at 14d were analyzed by herbicide and application rate for each study and across studies for time-of-day effect by analysis of variance (ANOVA) and single cosinor. A circadian response to each herbicide was found, with greatest weed control observed between 09:00 and 18:00h. Increasing the herbicide application rate did not overcome the time-of-day effect (ANOVA: p≤0.008 for time-of-day effect for each herbicide and application rate). The least-squares fit of a 24h cosine was significant (p≤0.001) for each herbicide and application rate, with double amplitudes of 18–82% (units=% visual control) and estimated peaks (acrophases) near midday between 12:40 and 13:35h. Analysis of residuals obtained from multiple regression that included weed height, herbicide rate, temperature, and relative humidity as independent factors also found a significant time-effect by both ANOVA and cosinor for each herbicide and rate, with acrophases advancing significantly by 3 to 7h for GLYT and GLUF, but not for FOME or CLIM. These results suggest that the four herbicides, while belonging to different families with different modes of action, may reveal different peak times of efficacy when adjusting for environmental factors. Nonetheless, each displays similar circadian patterns when influenced by these factors under natural seasonal field conditions. The within-day rhythmic differences found in weed control are large enough to warrant consideration of the practical financial and environmental importance of the time-of-day that these and other herbicides are applied.


We genotyped Salmonella serovar infantis (referred to as S. infantis), which is the most widespread serovar among animals and the third most common cause of human salmonellosis in Finland. Molecular fingerprinting of the 16S rrn locus and the Salmonella-specific insertion sequence IS200 was used to type the 131 isolates originating from the main sources of S. infantis infection. The number of IS200 elements in S. infantis varied from zero to seven; three or more copies were present in 97% of the isolates, and 71% had four copies. There were four conserved chromosomal positions of IS200, which allowed us to group the isolates into three major clonal groups. We defined 11 unique IS200 profiles and five different ribotypes which, in combination, generated 15 genotypes highly restricted to the infection sources: 8 genotypes were typical of isolates from broiler chickens and cattle and seven genotypes were typical of isolates from humans. The eight genotypes of isolates from chickens represented two clonal groups which were differentially associated with chicken-producing companies. The typing scheme allows efficient discrimination between isolates from various infection sources and within sources and, therefore, provides a unique molecular tool for use in the study of the epidemiology of S. infantis infection.


Mannose-6-phosphate (man-6-P)/insulin-like growth factor-II (man-6-P/IgF-II) receptors are involved in the activation of recombinant human prorenin by cardiomyocytes. To investigate the kinetics of this process, the nature of activation, the existence of other prorenin receptors, and binding of native prorenin, neonatal rat cardiomyocytes were incubated with recombinant, renal, or amniotic fluid prorenin with or without man-6-P. Intact and activated prorenin were measured in cell lysates with prosegment- and renin-specific antibodies, respectively. The dissociation constant (K(d)) and maximum number of binding sites (B(max)) for prorenin binding to man-6-P/IGF-II receptors were 0.6 +/- 0.1 nM and 3,840 +/- 510 receptors/myocyte, respectively. The capacity for prorenin internalization was greater than 10 times B(max). Levels of internalized intact prorenin decreased rapidly (half-life = 5 +/- 3 min) indicating proteolytic prosegment removal. Prorenin subdivision into man-6-P-free and man-6-P-containing fractions revealed that only the latter was bound. Cells also bound and activated renal but not amniotic fluid prorenin. We concluded that cardiomyocytes display high-affinity binding of renal but not extrarenal prorenin exclusively via man-6-P/IGF-II receptors. Binding precedes internalization and proteolytic activation to renin thereby supporting the concept of cardiac angiotensin formation by renal prorenin.


This study investigated the attitudes of secondary teachers to inclusion in schools. Three hundred and ninety-one teaching and management-level staff from 19 mainstream and 6 special schools in one local authority in Scotland completed a survey. Overall, teaching staff were pro-inclusion, conditional on adequate support and resources. There was a significant gender difference, with female teachers being more inclusive than their male colleagues. Head Teachers (School Principals) were the most inclusive group overall, followed by Deputy Head Teachers (Vice-Principals). Both were significantly more inclusive than teachers. There was no significant difference between practical and non-practical subjects, but there were differences between departments, with the Special Needs/Support for Learning department being the most inclusive. After the first year in teaching, there was a significant negative change in the attitude towards inclusion. However, length of service was not a significant factor in attitude. Whilst 68% of teachers indicated that they had no qualification in special education, studying for a module in special education after qualifying had a significantly positive impact on attitudes to inclusion. These findings suggest that inclusive education policies have to be more in tune with the views of practising teachers in order to work effectively. Suggestion is also made of the importance of studying inclusive education effectively at the teacher-training stage, and this finding has implications for how institutions prioritise inclusive education.


ABSTRACT Truancy is a problem associated with a range of negative consequences at the individual and societal level, both in the short and the long term. Few earlier studies have investigated the association between school effectiveness and truancy. The aim of this study is to examine the links between three teacher-rated features of school effectiveness – school leadership, teacher cooperation and consensus, and school ethos – and student-reported truancy. Data were collected in 2016 among 4,956 students and 1,045 teachers in 46 upper secondary schools in Stockholm. Results from two-level binary logistic regression analyses show that higher teacher ratings of the school leadership and of the school ethos (but not of teacher cooperation and consensus) are associated with a lower likelihood of truancy at the student-level, even when adjusting for student- and school-level sociodemographic characteristics. The findings indicate that effective school characteristics may contribute to reducing students' inclination to play truant.


We report the synthesis of a novel naphthalene diimide (NDI) monomer containing two (tributylstannyl)vinyl groups. The utility of this building block is demonstrated by its copolymerization with five different electron-rich comonomers under Stille conditions. The resulting high molecular weight polymers show red-shifted optical absorptions in comparison to the analogous polymers without the vinylene spacer and a significant increase in the intensity of the low-energy intramolecular charge transfer band. The polymers all exhibit ambipolar behavior in bottom-gate, top-contact organic thin-film transistors. The insertion of a solution-processed barium hydroxide layer between the polymer and the gold electrode led to unipolar behavior with improved electron mobilities.


It has been shown that humans are able to selectively control the endpoint impedance of their arms when moving in an unstable environment. However, directional instability was only examined for the case in which the main contribution was from coactivation of biarticular muscles. The goal of this study was to examine whether, in general, the CNS activates the sets of muscles that contribute to selective control of impedance in particular directions. Subjects performed reaching movements in three differently oriented unstable environments generated by a robotic manipulandum. After subjects had learned to make relatively straight reaching movements in the unstable force field, the endpoint stiffness of the limb was measured at the midpoint of the movements. For each force field, the endpoint stiffness increased in a specific direction, whereas there was little change in stiffness in the orthogonal direction. The increase in stiffness was oriented along the direction of instability in the environment, which caused the major axis of the stiffness ellipse to rotate toward the instability in the environment. This study confirms that the CNS is able to control the endpoint impedance of the limbs and selectively adapt it to the environment. Furthermore, it supports the idea that the CNS incorporates an impedance controller that acts to ensure stability, reduce movement variability, and reduce metabolic cost.


This case study examines the experience of two sixth grade girls who participated in a game-design class in a class taken by all students at their school. Questions were: How do the experiences observed demonstrate engagement with a story drawn from the participants' own lives?; and: How does the experience observed reflect experiences leading to competency, perseverance and science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) self-efficacy and the development of interest in STEM careers? Findings were that the students were highly engaged with the chosen topic and demonstrated growth in the attribute of perseverance and self-efficacy in STEM skills.


To take advantage of the full potential of highly automated vehicles (AVs), users need to trust the system enough to be willing to engage with the novel technology. In this context, users of automated vehicles face the challenge of understanding the system capabilities. While interacting with an AV users need to calibrate between overtrust (trusting the vehicle beyond its capabilities and underestimation of the consequences if the system fails) and undertrust (not relying on the vehicle even though it is capable of handling the situation perfectly well). For this work I look at crucial aspects which should be considered for the calibration of trust, such as: proper training, appropriate user interfaces and how to possibly measure trust. I believe it is very important that users of AVs understand the systems capabilities and calibrate their trust accordingly. The findings and ideas of this work are mainly based on previous work which has been revised regarding trust in AVs. The most important takeaway is that users of AVs need specific training and a mental model that differs from concepts for manually driven vehicles.


Background: One medication commonly used by HIV-1-infected individuals is the antimicrobial sulphamethoxazole (SMX), which is used in the treatment and prophylaxis of pneumocystis pneumonia. However, SMX is responsible for a very high incidence of hypersensitivity adverse drug reactions (ADRs) in the HIV-1 population. While the pathophysiology of ADRs in general is unknown, sulphamethoxazole-mediated ADRs have been linked to its reactive metabolite sulphamethoxazole-hydroxylamine (SMX-HA). Our previous work has shown that increased expression of the HIV-1 Tat protein in T cells correlated with increased apoptosis after incubation with SMX-HA. In this study we sought to determine the region of the Tat protein responsible for this effect and the mechanism by which Tat contributed to SMX-HA mediated apoptosis. Methods: We established Jurkat T and Cos 7 cell lines that stably expressed full-length Tat (Tat101) and deletion mutants (Tat86, Tat72, Tat48 and TatΔ). These cell lines were then incubated with SMX-HA and assayed for cell viability and production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). We further used confocal microscopy to assess the intracellular distribution of the Tat proteins and to determine if changes in the expression and/or localization of key cytoskeleton proteins contributed to Tat-mediated apoptosis after SMX-HA treatment. Results: Deletion of regions of Tat that lead to increased cytoplasmic accumulation significantly contributed to increased cell death in the presence of SMX-HA. The increased cell death did not require induction of ROS. Quantitative analysis also showed that the Tat-expressing cell lines had significantly lower levels of β-actin and α-tubulin present both before and after treatment with SMX-HA. Increased cytoplasmic localization of Tat correlated with greater disturbances in the distribution of actin filaments. Conclusion: The presence of cytoplasmic Tat in T and epithelial cell lines increases their sensitivity to SMX-HA induced cell death, an effect mediated by the first 48 amino acids of TAT.


1Rwanda Resilience and Grounding Organization (RRGO), Kigali, Rwanda; 2Prison Fellowship Rwanda, Kigali, Rwanda; 3Department of Child Development, Protection and Promotion, National Child Development Agency (NCDA), Kigali, Rwanda; 4National Rehabilitation Service (NRS), Kigali, Rwanda; 5Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Rwanda, Kigali, Rwanda; 6Department of Social Work and Social Ecology, School of Behavioral Health, Loma Linda University (LLU), Loma Linda, CA, USA Background: Mental health among survivors of the 1994 Tutsi genocide in Rwanda remains poor, even after multiple efforts to assist those recovering from this trauma. The Community Resilience Model (CRM) is a biologically based set of skills that can be delivered in community settings by trained lay persons and has shown to significantly improve mental health in a number of settings and populations, though it has not been used with genocide survivors in Rwanda. This study assessed if the CRM training was able to improve mental health among genocide survivors. Methods: A quasi-experimental design was used to evaluate the CRM intervention among Tutsi genocide survivors from the Huye, Nyamagabe and Nyaruguru districts in Southern Rwanda. Consenting participants completed a questionnaire before and six months after the training to assess their level of trauma, secondary traumatic stress, depression and skills to teach CRM skills to others. Results: The findings revealed significant improvements across all trauma symptoms between the intervention and control group (t = 37, p<0.001). The CRM trainings also resulted in significant within-person declines of depressive symptoms (p < 0.001), perceived secondary traumatic stress (p = 0.003) and trauma-related symptoms (p = 0.002). Training participants also reported significant increases in perceived CRM benefits and satisfaction (p < 0.001). Conclusion: The CRM intervention was found to be effective for improving mental health in 1994 Tutsi genocide survivors. Since CRM can be delivered by trained persons to groups of persons in community settings, it has a high potential for successful broader implementation and sustainability, which is critically important in an environment with few mental health resources.


Abstract Recombinant baculoviruses that express insect-specific toxins under the control of viral late gene promoters can kill susceptible lepidopteran hosts faster than the wild-type virus. In an effort to improve the efficacy of genetically engineered baculovirus pesticides, we have produced a recombinant that contains an insect specific toxin gene (AaIT) under the control of the promoter from an immediate early gene (ie1) ofAutographa californicanuclear polyhedrosis virus (AcNPV). AaIT protein was detected as early as 4 h postinfection in cultured insect cells infected with this recombinant. The protein continued to accumulate as the infection progressed and, even as late as 24 h postinfection, the amount of AaIT was about equal to that provided by a recombinant that expressed AaIT under the control of the very latep10promoter. Similar results were obtained with a recombinant that expressed a modified insect juvenile hormone esterase (JHE–KK) underie1control, confirming the ability of this promoter to provide early and abundant expression of gene products with potential pesticidal activity. Bioassays showed that theie1–AaIT recombinant killedHeliothis virescenslarvae faster than wild-type virus, but not faster than thep10–AaIT recombinant. However, larvae infected with theie1–AaIT recombinant were smaller than those infected with thep10–AaIT recombinant, suggesting that expression of AaIT earlier in infection enhanced the ability of the virus to reduce the feeding activity ofH. virescenslarvae.


: The proventriculus of the flea X. cheopis was studied by means of scanning electron microscopy. The external surface of the proventriculus is a rigid structure with an alveolate surface ("wasp nest") formed by muscular cords. The internal surface of the proventriculus is represented by numerous acanthae which fall close together. They have a shape of bent dens with longitudinal sharply angular edges and concave spaces between them. Some edges are crenate.


The aim of the present experiments was to determine the effect of arthropod-induced galls on photochemistry of photosynthesis, defense enzyme activity and ethylene production in host plant tissues. In total, 10 arthropod gall-inducer–host plant combinations, including seven tree species infected with five species of eriophyid mites, four aphid species and one sawfly species were analyzed. The presence of gall tissues differentially affected photochemistry of photosynthesis in non-galled adjacent leaf tissues. Localization of leaf vein pocket galls induced by Colopha compressa on leaves of Ulmus laevis resulted in photoinhibition of photosynthesis in parallel with decreased electron transport rate and increased non-photochemical quenching. The degree of infestation with eriophyid mite Eriophyes padi was associated with decrease in photochemical efficiency of photosystem II and concomitant increase in nonphotochemical quenching in leaves of Prunus padus. Both peroxidase and polyphenol oxidase activity increased with increasing number of sawfly Pontania vesicator galls per leaf of Salix fragilis. Similarly, peroxidase activity in leaves of Acer saccharinum increased along with increasing level of infestation with Vasates quadripes. The presence of aphid Pemphigus spirothecae-induced petiole spiral galls resulted in significant decrease of both enzyme activities in leaf blades of Populus nigra with no changes in leaf petioles. Gall formation resulted in significant increase in ethylene production from leaf blade tissues of Populus nigra. The presence of leaf vein pocket galls on leaves of Ulmus laevis resulted in more than two-fold increase of ethylene production rate in affected leaf tissues. Increased rate of ethylene production was found also in other gall forming arthropod-host plant combinations. The variable effect of gall formation on host plant photochemistry of photosynthesis and oxidative enzyme activity might be explained by specific gall-inducer–related signals at the site of activity, in combination with specific endogenous plant signals involving ethylene.


The issue of afforestation of non-forest land (e.g. agricultural land use) is currently a significant trend in land management. Sustainable development and maintenance of its ecological stability are among the reasons. The paper compares the 30-year development of the beech stand originated from artificial regeneration on former agricultural land in the area where the Ipeľ River rises in central Slovakia. Two methods of tending were used on three long-term research plots (LTPs) established at the age of 20 years: negative crown thinning, free crown thinning and the third LTP was left to its spontaneous development. The results confirmed the positive impact of tending on the development of these stands. Compared to naturally regenerated stands under comparable site conditions, their higher quantitative production was found. Regarding the qualitative production expressed by the number of trees of selective quality, the worst results were obtained on the control plot. Based on these results, it is recommended to pay more attention to the planting stock quality used for afforestation.


Tracking growth in the Indian economy would be best performed using a measure like GDP. Unfortunately official estimates of this indicator are released with quarterly frequency and with considerable delay. This paper compares different approaches to the short term forecasting (nowcasting) of real GDP growth in India and evaluates methods to optimally gauge the current state of the economy. Univariate quarterly models are compared with bridge models that exploit the available monthly indicators containing information on current quarter developments. In the forecasting exercise we perform a pseudo real-time simulation: by properly taking into account the actual publication lags of the series, we replicate the information set available to the policymaker at each point of time. We find that bridge models perform satisfactorily in predicting current quarter GDP growth. This result follows from the actual estimation technique used to construct the official quarterly national accounts, still largely dependent on a narrow information set. Our analysis also suggests mixed evidences about the additional predictive power of Indian survey data with respect to the hard data already used in the national accounts. JEL classification: C22; C32; C53


Nowadays, the Human Resource (HR) function is in the midst of a complete operational transformation. Human Resources Management (HRM) is the strategic and coherent approach to the management of a company's most valued assets- the employee which is the people working there who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the business. According to Tang, Roberto, Toto & Tang (2004) from United States and Spain, job satisfaction is an effective reaction to a job that results from the incumbent's comparison of actual outcomes with those that are desired or expected. Job satisfaction of the employees is just as important as customer satisfaction in terms of organizational performance. Therefore, employers must make sure all their employees are satisfied with their job and the key to ensure the staffs are satisfied with their job is the compensation and benefit. Compensation and benefits are one of the fastest changing fields in Human Resources, as many company are continue to investigate various ways of rewarding employees for increases their job satisfaction and their performance. The compensation and benefits in every company are very important to make sure their employee's welfare is secure during work or after retirement in the organization. Employee benefits are various non-wage compensations provided to employees in addition to their normal wages or salaries. Some of these benefits are; housing (whether provide by the company or paid by the company), insurance (health, life, dental etc) retirement benefits, sick leave and other specialized benefits.


Many mechanical systems are large and complex, despite being composed of simple subsystems.
In order to understand such large systems it is natural to tear the system into these subsystems.
Conversely we must understand how to invert this tearing procedure.
In other words, we must understand interconnection of subsystems.
Such an understanding has been already shown in the context of Hamiltonian systems on vector spaces via
the port-Hamiltonian systems program, in which an interconnection may be achieved through the identification of shared variables, whereupon the notion of composition of Dirac structures allows one to interconnect two systems.
In this paper, we seek to extend the program of the port-Hamiltonian systems on vector spaces to the case of Lagrangian systems on manifolds and also extend the notion of composition of Dirac structures appropriately.
In particular, we will interconnect Lagrange-Dirac systems by modifying the respective Dirac structures of the involved subsystems.
We define the interconnection of Dirac structures via an interaction Dirac structure and a tensor product of Dirac structures.
We will show how the dynamics of the interconnected system is formulated as a function of the subsystems, and we will elucidate the associated variational principles.
We will then illustrate how this theory extends the theory of port-Hamiltonian systems and the notion of composition of Dirac structures to manifolds with couplings which do not require the identification of shared variables.
Lastly, we will show some examples: a mass-spring mechanical systems, an electric circuit, and a nonholonomic mechanical system.


As cultural institutions once founded on privacy, protocol and practice, museums must now choose how best to navigate the transparency presented by social media including Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter. When the Ontario based organization Archives and Museum Informatics held its first "Museums and the Web" conference in 1997, nascent concerns emphasized the frame rather than the function of social media who will use the Internet rather than how. Over the last twelve years, major museums such as New York's Museum of Modern Art have evolved from a static web presence to the cultivation of a participatory museum culture through the skillful implementation of social media. The Australian Museum is conducting an online blog experiment to determine if they are able to engage their audience in exhibition development. Social media is a participatory platform fortified by freedom of expression. This platform can alternate between pedestal and soapbox as users are given a public forum for personal ideologies. Though public in nature, museums are notoriously private in practice. Logic suggests that such a lack of transparency leads easily to a disconnect from constituents and hinders the development of a community base. Engagement in social media revives the original conception of museum as forum. This research project examines the issues surrounding the shifting discourse between museum and patron and the impact of social media on the development of a museum community.


Abstract Early documentary records of the British colony of New South Wales, Australia, have been examined for evidence of droughts. The years of occurrence of these early droughts were compared with the chronologies of El Niñ:o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events, as determined by Hamilton and Garcia (1986) and Quinn et al. (1978) from documentary evidence of northern Peruvian rainfall. Most droughts were associated with ENSO events, and vice versa, confirming the relationship found in many studies using more-recent instrumental data. The study demonstrates the stability, over a long period, of the correlation between Australian droughts and ENSOs.


This study was carried out to assess the contribution of locust bean seed processing to the household of rural women in Oyo State Nigeria. Means of livelihood, existing processing techniques, level of income, contribution of locust bean and constraints hindering locust bean processing by women in the study area were examined. Multi stage sampling technique was used to select 12l women processors as respondents. Questionnaires were administered to the sampled respondents of which 120 were retrieved. The data were subjected to descriptive (frequency, percentage, mean) and inferential statistics. The results revealed that 33.3%% of processors were between the ages of 51 years and above. Majority (76.7%) of the respondents relied on locust bean processing as means of livelihood. All the respondents used traditional method of processing. The result revealed that there is no significant (p>0.05) relationship between the selected socioeconomic characteristic variables and contributions of locust bean seed processing. The result also showed positive and significant (p<0.05) relationship between livelihood income, perceived constraints and contributions of locust bean seed processing to the household of rural women. Difficult in locust bean processing (35.8%), scarcity of water/flowing river (18.3%) and inadequate capital (11.7%) were reported as most important constraints to locust lean processing in the study area. It was concluded that locust bean processing has the potential to improve the processors' household economy thus allowing agricultural development and sustainability provided the constraints are adequately addressed.


The current wireless networks will not be able to cope with the expected growth in data and multimedia services in a flexible and cost-effective manner. This paper presents the wireless multimedia service opportunities. It includes a discussion on wireless multimedia services and their characterization. A practical model is given to estimate the diffusion of wireless multimedia services in the network. It discusses the benefits of using IP centric solutions for wireless, and the challenge of QoS and wireless mobility to make this IP centric solution realizable. It proposes network and service architecture solutions that combine the current wireless access standards into the core IP network. It also shows how an IP addressable terminal can be connected to this IP wireless network to make the multimedia service implementation simpler. If a convergence of the mobile and Internet technologies can be achieved, it would be a powerful force in realizing vast economies of scale and enabling a wireless lifestyle.


Introduction: In Nepal, a number of private sector medical schools have opened recently; although sufficient numbers of doctors are graduating there continues to be a doctor shortage in rural areas. This article analysed the rural doctor shortage in Nepal and reviewed the international literature for strategies that may be suitable for use in Nepal. Methods: Original research articles, reviews, magazine articles and project reports dealing with Nepal and other developing countries during the period 1995 to 2010 were sourced via Google, Google Scholar and Pubmed. Full text access was obtained via WHO's HINARI database. Results: The health workforce in Nepal is unevenly distributed resulting in doctor shortages in rural areas. The recent introduction of mandatory rural service for scholarship students was aimed to reduce the loss of medical graduates to developed nations. High tuition fees in private medical schools and low Government wages prevent recent graduates from taking up rural positions, and those who do face many challenges. Potential corrective strategies include community-based medical education, selecting ruralbackground medical students, and providing a partial or complete tuition fee waiver for medical students who commit to rural service. Traditional healers and paramedical staff can also be trained for and authorized to provide rural health care. Conclusions: A range of strategies developed elsewhere could be used in Nepal, especially community-oriented medical education that involves rural doctors in training medical students. The reimbursement of tuition fees, assistance with relocation, and provision of opportunities for academic and professional advancement for rural doctors should also be considered. Government investment in improving working conditions in rural Nepal would assist rural communities to attract and retain doctors.


PURPOSE
Degrees of nutrient intake and food groups have been linked to differential chronic disease risk. However, intakes of specific nutrients may also be associated with differential diet costs and unobserved differences in socioeconomic status (SES). The present study examined degrees of nutrient intake, for every key nutrient in the diet, in relation to diet cost and SES.

METHODS
Socio-demographic data for a stratified random sample of adult respondents in the Seattle Obesity Study were obtained through telephone survey. Dietary intakes were assessed using food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) (n = 1,266). Following standard procedures, nutrient intakes were energy-adjusted using the residual method and converted into quintiles. Diet cost for each respondent was estimated using Seattle supermarket retail prices for 384 FFQ component foods.

RESULTS
Higher intakes of dietary fiber, vitamins A, C, D, E, and B12, beta carotene, folate, iron, calcium, potassium, and magnesium were associated with higher diet costs. The cost gradient was most pronounced for vitamin C, beta carotene, potassium, and magnesium. Higher intakes of saturated fats, trans fats and added sugars were associated with lower diet costs. Lower cost lower quality diets were more likely to be consumed by lower SES.

CONCLUSION
Nutrients commonly associated with a lower risk of chronic disease were associated with higher diet costs. By contrast, nutrients associated with higher disease risk were associated with lower diet costs. The cost variable may help somewhat explain why lower income groups fail to comply with dietary guidelines and have highest rates of diet related chronic disease.


This third edition of The Stages of Economic Growth, first published in 1991, has a new preface and appendix, Professor Rostow extends his analysis to include economic and political developments as well as the advances in theory concerning nonlinear and chaotic phenomena. For those coming to his work for the first time, the original text and the introductions and appendices from earlier editions are included. This volume will not only be of interest to those concerned with the theory of economic growth, but also to students of policy since the 1960s. In the text Professor Rostow gives an account of economic growth based on a dynamic theory of production and interpreted in terms of actual societies. Five basic stages of economic growth are distinguished with detailed discussions of each stage including illustrative examples. He also applies the concept of stages of growth to an examination of the problems of military aggression and the nuclear arms race. The final chapter includes a comparison of his non-communist manifesto with Marxist theory. Materials from the second edition include an appendix in which he responds to some of his critics.


In a high-resolution flat panel system, a conventional interface that directly connects a liquid crystal display (LCD) controller to a flat panel cannot overcome the problems of excess EMI (electromagnetic interference) and power caused by full-swing transmission signals in parallel lines. This paper presents a high-speed digital video interface system implemented with a low-cost standard CMOS (complimentary metal-oxide-semiconductor) technology that can mitigate EMI and power problems in high-resolution flat panel display systems. The combined architecture of the high-speed, small number of parallel lines and low-voltage swing serial interface can support resolutions from VGA (640/spl times/480 pixels) up to XGA (1024/spl times/768 pixels) with significant power improvement and drastic EMI reduction. To support high-speed, low-voltage swing signaling and overcome channel-to-channel skew problems, a robust data recovery system is required. The proposed digital phase-locked loop enables robust skew-insensitive data recovery of up to 1.04 GBd.


Author(s): JARVIS, MARIA ISABEL | Advisor(s): Mitragotri, Samir | Abstract: Drug carrier development is a financially taxing process. There are a plethora of ongoing studies in academia and industry aimed towards understanding and solving problems within every stage involved in drug discovery, design, and testing starting from the bench top in vitro continuing onwards to in vivo animal models and finally, concluding with FDA approved clinical trials. This dissertation belongs to the body of knowledge aimed at facilitating a smoother transition of drug development from in vitro to in vivo. Specifically, in vitro to in vivo drug carrier transition studies are plagued with a unique problem which often results in the undue desertion or abandonment of a particular drug or drug carrier. In vitro development and testing of drug carriers, though foundational and necessary prior to all other advances in drug formulations, are traditionally conducted under static, homogenous, monolayered conditions. Drug formulations and carriers developed under these conditions often and understandably exhibit different behavior when transitioned into in vivo animal models due to the strikingly different test environments between in vitro and in vivo testing. Recognizing the importance of canonical in vitro studies and the need to bridge the knowledge gap between benchtop development and animal model performance, microfluidic devices of different architectures, morphologies, and make-up have emerged as a viable and useful intermediary step; linking in vitro to in vivo studies as a means to facilitate smoother and more successful transitions for drug carrier development studies. The microfluidic devices chosen differ in the architectural construction of their chambers, they were selected to help address a variety of pressing questions regarding drug carrier performance under physiological flow while subjected to shear and tensile stresses, complex architectures, and in the presence of a multi-cellular environment. Due to the complexity of addressing multifaceted cellular research questions, a set of specialized devices were required to begin teasing apart the impact these various factors have on drug carrier performance. To fully extract enough information from the microfluidic devices chosen, a consistent drug carrier or drug delivery platform was needed which could be tracked easily through the thick polymer gels comprising the microfluidic devices, would not stick to the polymer surfaces of the devices, and could be tested before and after flow using a variety of rigorous chemical analytics techniques. With this criterion in mind, idealized co-culture, microvascular networks, and linear channel devices were studied using in-house synthesized nanocrystals as a model drug delivery probe within this collection of diverse microfluidic devices. The nanocrystals were a unique design and therefore required extensive chemical characterization and validation prior to their infusion through the microfluidic devices. A major portion of this dissertation will focus on the description of their synthesis and methods utilized for their processing and analyses necessary for their validation and use within the mammalian cell seeded microfluidic devices chosen. A select few nanocrystalline constructs containing different targeting ligands and polymer coatings were culled from a library of potential biologically decorated nanocrystalline constructs for drug performance studies subjected to flow, in the presence of mammalian cells, within the microfluidic devices. These studies were intended to tighten the link between their studied performance in vitro and their future performance in vivo. The results from these microfluidic studies reported here and in published work provide a precedent for other researchers working with various drug delivery carriers to utilize as-is and build upon to obtain seamless and guided transitions from in vitro experiments to their counterpart, in vivo.


Compentency in Generalist Practice features an original and timely social work practice model that will transform the way generalist and evidence-based practice are taught. Writing with outstanding clarity and sense of purpose, Elizabeth Moore Plionis shows students to use a decision tree that will help them take a conscious, intelligent approach to solving problems they will be faced with as social workers. With both traditional and new theories incorporated into the discussion, linked to technique and set in the context of direct and indirect methods at each step of the decision hierarchy, this book is a concise but powerful tool for learning effective social work method.


Introduction: This systematic review aimed to evaluate the accuracy of different optical impressions of tooth preparations. Methods: An electronic search in PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Medline Complete, and ScienceDirect was performed to identify articles comparing the accuracy of different optical impressions (OI) published up to the 1st of March 2022. The inclusion criteria enclosed the accuracy of optical impressions acquired for tooth-supported fixed prosthodontics. Exclusion criteria were defined as studies focused on orthodontic impressions and implant-supported restorations. This review was registered to Prospero; CRD42021287758. Results: Eleven included studies had in vitro design and a low risk of bias. Considering scanned objects, 5 studies evaluated the accuracy based on a single preparation, 2 studies evaluated the accuracy of OIs based on fixed partial denture (FPD) restoration, 3 studies included both single preparation and preparations to receive FPD restorations, and 1 article included a fullarch scan. Mean values of the trueness and precision of OI systems varied according to methodological differences. Conclusions: Optical impression has certain advantages. However, stating a particular optical impression system as the most accurate or superior to conventional impression is not feasible because of the heterogeneity of the accuracy results presented in this systematic review.


This paper proposes a concept of multimedia lane and station that use an ROF transmission technique for ITS road-to-vehicle communication. In the developing stages of ITS, its service infrastructure is expected to be limited to a relatively small portion of the road system due to incompleteness of ITS structure. The proposed ITS service structures make the most of this environment, by providing intermittent and non-real-time services by using high-bit-rate package transmission. Moreover, we propose an adaptive resource management scheme for radio on fibre (ROF) cells in order to improve the capacity of the multimedia lane system. Computer simulation confirmed that the proposed scheme is very effective in reducing the blocking rate and improving system capacity of the multimedia lane system.


Harmful algal blooms (HABs) have increased in abundance and severity in recent decades. Whereas the implications for human impacts and intoxication resulting from blooms have been extensively studied, the ecological implications of these microalgae are less well understood. Many HAB species produce biologically active, secondary metabolites and the fate of these toxins through the foodweb is generally not well understood unless it culminates in extensive fish mortalities or human poisonings. This review focusses on one HAB species, the cyanobacterium Lyngbya majuscula, and presents a hypothetical role for its involvement in fibropapillomatosis (FP), a neoplastic disease of marine turtles. FP is expressed as benign tumours that grow both internally and externally on marine turtles, preventing vision, movement and organ function. The aetiology of FP is currently not conclusively understood, but virus material has been associated with tumours and previous studies have suggested a role for naturally produced tumour promoters. In this review, we present a hypothesis regarding the involvement of L. majuscula in FP, either through direct intoxication and action of tumour-promoting compounds or indirectly by causing seagrass loss and compromised immune function, thus leaving the turtles more susceptible to disease.


THE Great Irish Famine Curriculum was founded on initiatives that came from both sides of the narrow street in Albany that separates the chambers of the New York State Legislature from the New York State Education Department. In 1996, the State Education Department started distributing copies of its new Learning Standards, the performance-based learning criteria designed to improve the quality of education in the state's public schools. Schools' accountability for ensuring that new standards are met would be measured by a new set of assessments in all subjects for pupils in grades four, eight, and eleven. Tests like the Regents would no longer be optional; all students would be examined. Because the assessments would be performance-based, no set curricula were provided with the new standards. The following year, across the street, Irish-American members of the New York State Legislature, led by Assemblymen Joseph Crowley and John McEneny, proposed to observe the 150th anniversary of the worst year of the Great Irish Famine by requiring that the State's Human Rights Curriculum for public schools, which includes American slavery and the European Holocaust, also cover the Great Irish Famine. The legislature passed the amendment with enthusiastic bipartisan support, and approved an appropriation bill to support the development of a Great Irish Famine curriculum. At Hofstra University, a team of educators responded to the State Education Department's call for curriculum proposals by linking the teaching of the Great Irish Famine to the new Learning Standards. Members of the Hofstra University team included Professor of Secondary Education and English, Maureen Murphy, Director; Professor of Elementary Education, Maureen McCann Miletta; and Associate Professor of Secondary Education and Social Studies, Alan Singer. Murphy's research interests are in Irish Studies; Singer's are in the American labor movement; and Miletta's are in children's literature. We are all teacher-educators with regular working relationships with networks of cooperative teachers, department chairs, and administrators. We are in touch with our former students teaching in the area. Murphy and Singer also work with the Hofstra New Teacher Network, a mentoring program for first-year secondary school teachers, many of whom teach in schools designated as having high needs. We believed that we could use the Great Irish Famine Curriculum in schools that were facing the new standards and assessments without the resources of wealthier suburban districts. We were especially fortunate in our Advisory Board. Chaired by Dr. Margaret MacCurtain, O.P., Chair of the Advisory Council of the National Archives of Ireland, the board included Professor Mary E. Daly (University College, Dublin); Professor James S. Donnelly, Jr. (University of Wisconsin); Professor Margaret Kelleher (National University of Ireland, Maynooth); Noel Kissane (Keeper of Manuscripts, National Library of Ireland); Professor Joe Lee (University College, Cork); New York State Senator Michael Holbrook; Professor Kerby Miller (University of Missouri, Columbia); Peter Quinn (Time-Warner); Professor Cormac O'Grada (University College, Dublin); Professor Kevin O'Neill (Director of Irish Studies, Boston College); and Professor Robert Scally (Director, Ireland House, New York University). Their willingness to share their own work with us, to meet with us to discuss the project, and read through drafts of the Great Irish Famine Curriculum helped us create a document informed by their high standard of scholarship. We proposed to create twenty-four interdisciplinary lesson plans for grades four through twelve. As stipulated by the terms of the grant, we promised to provide a resource guide for teachers in the state's eight thousand schools, a Website, and a CD-ROM. We created one hundred fifty interdisciplinary lessons using art, career development, dance, economics, family and consumer science, geography, government, history, literature, mathematics, music, science, technology, and theatre. …


When downsizing technology, confinement and interface effects become enormously important. Shear imposes additional anisotropy on a liquid. This may induce inhomogeneities, which may have their origin close to the solid interface. For advancing the understanding of flow, information on structures on all length scales and in particular close to the solid interface is indispensable. Neutron scattering offers an excellent tool to contribute in this context. In this work, surface sensitive scattering techniques were used to resolve the structure of liquids under flow in the vicinity of a solid interface. Our results are summarized as follows. First, for a Newtonian liquid we report a depletion distance on the order of nanometers which is far too small to explain the amount of surface slip, on the order of micrometers, found by complementary techniques. Second, for a grafted polymer brush we find no entanglement–disentanglement transition under shear but the grafted film gets ripped off the surface. Third, by evaluating the local structure factor of a micellar solution close to the solid interface it turns out that the degree of order and local relaxation depends critically on the surface energy of the solid surface.


We initiate the study of the heterogeneous facility location problem with limited resources. We mainly focus on the fundamental case where a set of agents are positioned in the line segment [0,1] and have approval preferences over two available facilities. A mechanism takes as input the positions and the preferences of the agents, and chooses to locate a single facility based on this information. We study mechanisms that aim to maximize the social welfare (the total utility the agents derive from facilities they approve), under the constraint of incentivizing the agents to truthfully report their positions and preferences. We consider three different settings depending on the level of agent-related information that is public or private. For each setting, we design deterministic and randomized strategyproof mechanisms that achieve a good approximation of the optimal social welfare, and complement these with nearly-tight impossibility results.


The Darboux transformations from arbitrary solutions of reduced Maxwell–Bloch equations is constructed in this article. Hence, in principle, we can find multi-soliton solutions by algebric algorithm, and the formula will be given explicitly.


: Asbestos removal in any building can pose a health risk to both workers and occupants of the building. This is especially true in hospitals. What precautions should the hospital safety and security directors take to minimize health risks? This article discusses ways to develop and implement an asbestos abatement program for hospitals that is both safe and effective.


Our goal is to develop a feature based framework for data mining and forecasting from geophysical data fields. These data may be generated from either numerical simulation models or space based platforms. This paper focuses on pertinent features from sea surface temperature (SST) fields that are observed with the AVHRR satellite. Our contribution consist of three components: (1) A method for tracking feature velocities from from fluid motion with incompressibility constraint, (2) a method for localizing singular events such as vortices and saddle points from underlying feature velocities, and (3) application of our protocol to 12 years of high resolution real data to reveal novel seasonal and inter-annual trends based on computed events.


Silica materials show a high ability to physisorb the 2nd generation Hoveyda–Grubbs catalyst (HG2) in organic solvents. The interaction with the complex, likely proceeding through hydrogen bonding, is particularly strong with surfaces rich in silanols, wherein geminal silanols show the highest affinity, and therefore mesoporous silicas are the supports of choice. As long as the silica material is sufficiently pure and free of cages, in which high HG2 concentrations can accumulate, the immobilization of HG2 occurs in a very stable manner. Despite the complex stability, exploration of HG2-loaded mesoporous silica supports in metathesis of cis-cyclooctene indicated significant diffusional and confinement effects, and therefore control of pore size, pore architecture and morphology in balance with the intrinsic catalytic activity is essential for catalyst design. As metathesis of cis-cyclooctene apparently proceeds through the initial formation of linear polymers, followed by backbiting forming cyclic oligomers, potential interference of mass transport and space restriction issues is not surprising. This study shows that the catalyst requirements are best met with the TUD-1 silica support (1.24 wt% HG2). Under such conditions, the heterogeneous catalyst performs as good as the homogeneous one, presenting a thermodynamic distribution of cyclic oligomers. The latter catalyst also showed high catalyst stability in a continuous fixed bed reactor, corresponding to a catalytic turnover number of 18 000. The catalytic rates and catalyst stability are lower when operating in a diffusional regime, therefore long reaction times are required to reach the thermodynamic product distribution. Water removal from the catalyst is also important, not because of HG2 stability reasons, but of lower reaction rates which were measured for hydrated samples, likely due to inhibition of cis-cyclooctene uptake in the pores. Mild removal of physisorbed water before immobilization is therefore advised, for instance by thermal treatments, but care has to be taken to keep the silanol density high for firm HG2 immobilization and also to avoid formation of reactive siloxanes, which chemically react with and destroy HG2. Surprisingly, reactive siloxane formation conditions strongly depend on the silica type, with TUD-1 being fairly sensitive to their formation. Finally, the best HG2-loaded TUD-1 catalyst is used successfully in a broad set of other metathesis reactions.


OBJECTIVE
To describe the population of women in southwestern Ontario who were diagnosed with potentially preventable BRCA mutation-related breast cancer.

DESIGN
Retrospective chart review.

SETTING
The Cancer Genetics Clinic of the London Regional Cancer Program in London, Ont.

PARTICIPANTS
Patients younger than 52 years of age who were referred to the London Regional Cancer Program Cancer Genetics Clinic between 1997 and 2007 for BRCA testing after being diagnosed with breast cancer (N = 1017).

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
The proportion of women with BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations and the proportion of women who would have qualified, based on family cancer history, for referral for genetic counseling and testing before their breast cancer diagnoses.

RESULTS
Among the 1017 women referred for BRCA testing, 63 women younger than 52 years of age who had been diagnosed with breast cancer were found, subsequent to this diagnosis, to have BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations. Of these, 41 (65%) had family cancer histories that would have qualified them for genetic counseling and testing, according to provincial criteria, before their own breast cancer diagnoses. Of the 63 women, most (81%) had been referred for BRCA gene mutation testing by their oncologists or surgeons.

CONCLUSION
Our results suggest that the diagnosis of breast cancer could have been anticipated, and perhaps in some cases prevented, in up to two-thirds of high-risk women younger than 52 years of age in southwestern Ontario. If the high-risk status of these women had been recognized, they might have had the opportunity to choose genetic counseling, testing, more effective cancer surveillance, and potentially preventive options. The results of this study call for increased public and care provider awareness about hereditary breast cancer risk to promote women's ability to choose to access genetic counseling.


Abstract. In this paper, the stellar occultation instrument GOMOS is compared with ozonesondes from the SHADOZ network. We only used nighttime O3 profiles and selected 8 Southern Hemisphere stations. 7 years of GOMOS datasets (GOPR 6.0cf and IPF 5.0) and 11 years of balloon-sondes are used in this study. A monthly distribution of GOMOS O3 mixing ratios was performed in the upper-troposphere and in the stratosphere (15–50 km). A comparison with SHADOZ was made in the altitude range between 15 km and 30 km. In the 21–30 km altitude range, a satisfactory agreement was observed between GOMOS and SHADOZ, although some differences were observed depending on the station. The range for monthly differences generally decreases with increasing height and is within ±15%. It was found that the agreement between GOMOS and SHADOZ declines below ~20 km. The median differences are almost within ±5%, particularly above 23 km. But a large positive bias was found below 21 km, in comparison to SHADOZ.


Water stress (25% water saturation) inhibits coleoptile howth in maize but at the same time dramatically increases osmotic potential indicating that water stress inhibits growth even at elevated turgor pressure. Direct rheological measurements of cell wall extensibility using an electronic extensiometer showed that water stress reduced cell wall extensibility. Water stress greatly improves the ability of coleoptiles to elongate in response to auxin. It is concluded that water stress inhibits coleoptile growth by interfering with auxin metabolism leading to the stiffening of growth limiting cell walls by reducing their extensibility. The water stress-induced inhibition of in-vivo extensibility is entirely due to the reduction of plasticity (E p1 ) rather than the elasticity(E e1 ) of cell walls.


The margins of layered igneous intrusions can host ore deposits of nickel, copper, and platinum group elements (PGEs). These marginal deposits are characterized by a complex geologic history, which obscures direct evidence for the mineralization process. Mass-independent fractionation of sulfur isotopes is a distinguishing feature of Archean sedimentary rocks, and reflects processes operating solely in the Archean surface environment. As a result, mass-independent fractionation of sulfur isotopes is a chemically conservative tracer that indicates the involvement of crustal sulfur in marginal Ni-Cu-(PGE) deposits. In this study we use mass-independent fractionation of sulfur isotopes to evaluate the sulfur budget of the Platreef—the marginal PGE-bearing horizon of the northern limb of the Bushveld Complex, South Africa. Our multiple sulfur isotope measurements demonstrate that crustal sulfur in the Platreef originated from a restricted stratigraphic horizon (the Duitschland Formation) in the Platreef footwall. As this signature is spread out over the ≈100-km strike length of the Platreef, it does not reflect sulfur inputs from the local footwall. Nonlocal crustal sulfur isotope anomalies are unexpected given the high metal tenors in the Platreef. These features can be reconciled if a preformed Ni-Cu-(PGE)–rich sulfide melt assimilated sulfur in a staging chamber bounded completely by the Duitschland Formation, and then was emplaced into the Platreef. Such a model is supported by long-standing observations of lithologic, geochemical, and stratigraphic similarities between the Merensky Reef and the Platreef, as well as by recent suggestions that the northern limb represents an "escape structure" for the rest of the Bushveld Complex. Crustal sulfur assimilation is often thought to initiate the ore-forming process by producing an immiscible sulfide melt that can collect base metals and PGEs. In the Platreef, however, crustal sulfur assimilation apparently diluted a preexisting PGE-rich sulfide melt instead.


Aspergillosis is an opportunistic deep mycosis that occurs in immunocompromised patients, often in the paranasal sinuses. However, it sometimes occurs in healthy subjects, producing symptoms similar to those of a chronic sinusitis that is unresponsive to conventional treatment. A possible entry point for Aspergillus is the oroantral communication originated by perforation of the dental root cavity during root canal of a molar with penetration of material. We report the clinical case of a patient with symptoms of chronic sinusitis who was diagnosed as sinus aspergillosis after radiological and histological study. The origin may have been a third upper molar in which a root canal was performed.


A one-stop resource for understanding current International Financial Reporting Standards As the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) makes significant strides in achieving global convergence of accounting standards worldwide, the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) become extremely important to the accounting world. Wiley IFRS 2011 provides the necessary tools for understanding the IASB standards and offers practical guidance and expertise on how to use and implement them.* Covers the most recent International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and IFRIC interpretations* An indispensable guide to IFRS compliance* Provides a complete explanation of all IFRS requirements, coupled with copious illustrations of how to apply the rules in complex, real-world situations Written by two well-known international experts on the subject with hands-on experience in applying these standards, this book is an indispensable guide to IFRS compliance.


New relationships among the low-temperature alkali feldspars were deduced in part and implied in whole by recent crystal structure analyses of low and high albite and consideration of the electrostatic charge distributions in all the known alkali feldspar structures by Ferguson, Traill & Taylor. In general the most stable low-temperature forms are not those most highly ordered with respect to Al-Si as suggested by Goldsmith & Laves, but those most highly balanced electrostatically: slightly ordered orthoclase and largely ordered low albite. Because of the mobility of the alkali atoms at higher temperatures, appreciable amounts of Na in a cooling K-Na feldspar tend to make the Al-Si framework triclinic so that, after exsolution, the K component is triclinic microclirie. There thus exists a series of low-temperature K feldspars varying from orthoclase formed in the presence of relatively little Na, through intermediate microcline to maximum microcline formed in the presence of considerable excess of Na over K. It is shown that tie (dimensional) monoclinic to triclinic change in the low-temperature K feldspars occurs at an original alkali feldspar composition of about 20la NaAlSiaOe. Intermediate microclines very similar to the low-temperature forms may also result from processes involving rapid cooling from intermediate temperatures of K feldspars in which Na again played an earlier essential role. The theory also predicts an analogous series of low-temperature Na feldspars varying from ordinary low-temperature albite formed in the presence of relatively little K, through low-temperature "intermediate albites" to a "maximum albite" formed in the presence of considerable excess of K over Na. Evidence for the existence of such a series is discussed. Intermediate albites formed by rapid cooling from intermediate temperatures apparently also exist. The ionic picture of the alkali feldspars thus leads to the following low-temperature phases on the phase diagram: orthoclase, orthoclase f maximum albite, intermediate microcline * intermediate albite, maximum microcline * low albite, low albite. Sonie of the many implications of the theory are discussed.


Within the heterogeneous amalgam that constitutes "depression" exists dysthymia—a chronic, mild subtype that is rarely the sole focus of public discussion or academic research on the subject of depression. If depression in general is an experientially and linguistically ambiguous phenomenon, as is often claimed, then dysthymia can be considered especially ambiguous given that its chronic, low-grade symptoms are difficult to distinguish from one's habitual self. Informed by Kenneth Burke's views on the rhetorical productivity of ambiguity, this dissertation provides a rhetorical account of dysthymia's ambiguity. It traces a rhetorical history of the conditions that led to dysthymia's construction as a strategically ambiguous diagnostic entity in the DSM-III, as well as the conditions that led to dysthymia's replacement with "Persistent Depressive Disorder" in the DSM-5. In addition to providing historical context, this dissertation rhetorically analyzes interactions in online health communities for dysthymia, identifying the ways in which dysthymia's ambiguity functions as a rhetorical resource. Despite conventional wisdom suggesting that recent biopsychiatric explanations of depression have fully displaced previous psychoanalytic explanations, Chapter 2 of this dissertation observes that explanatory aspects of both paradigms blend together in dysthymia online health communities, which provides a useful strategy for negotiating matters of agency. Focusing on temporality, Chapter 3 argues that the temporal perspectives present in online accounts of dysthymia are marked by temporal expansion rather than the temporal contraction often seen in accounts of chronic physical illness. In contrast to temporal contraction, which is thought to often bolster an individual's felt sense of agency in the present, this chapter argues that temporal expansion may tend to attenuate one's felt sense of agency in the present. Chapter 4 explores online health community members' widespread dissatisfaction with the label of dysthymia, most of which centers upon the disorder's designation as "mild." This chapter describes the rhetorical conundrum occasioned by being diagnosed with a "mild" or "high-functioning" mood disorder, and identifies the strategies used to challenge the aptness of "mild" as a descriptor for the subjective experience of dysthymia.


Sickle cell disease (SCD) is caused by an inherited mutation in hemoglobin that leads to sickle hemoglobin (HbS) polymerization and premature HbS denaturation. Previous publications have shown that HbS denaturation is followed by binding of denatured HbS (a.k.a. hemichromes) to band 3, the consequent clustering of band 3 in the plane of the erythrocyte membrane that in turn promotes binding of autologous antibodies to the clustered band 3, and removal of the antibody-coated erythrocytes from circulation. Although each step of the above process has been individually demonstrated, the fraction of band 3 that is altered by association with denatured HbS has never been determined. For this purpose, we evaluated the lateral diffusion of band 3 in normal cells, reversibly sickled cells (RSC), irreversibly sickled cells (ISC), and hemoglobin SC erythrocytes (HbSC) in order to estimate the fraction of band 3 that was diffusing more slowly due to hemichrome-induced clustering. We labeled fewer than ten band 3 molecules per intact erythrocyte with a quantum dot to avoid perturbing membrane structure and we then monitored band 3 lateral diffusion by single particle tracking. We report here that the size of the slowly diffusing population of band 3 increases in the sequence: normal cells<HbSC<RSC<ISC. We also demonstrate that the size of the compartment in which band 3 is free to diffuse decreases roughly in the same order, with band 3 diffusing in two compartments of sizes 35 and 71 nm in normal cells, but only a single compartment in HbSC cells (58 nm), RSC (45 nm) and ISC (36 nm). These data suggest that the mobility of band 3 is increasingly constrained during SCD progression, suggesting a global impact of the mutated hemoglobin on erythrocyte membrane properties.