Background Percutaneous sclerotherapy is an effective treatment for lymphatic malformations (LM) of the head and neck in adults. The purpose of this study was to examine the indications and efficacy of sclerotherapy for head/neck LM in the neonate and infant population. Methods We retrospectively reviewed patients treated with percutaneous sclerotherapy for LM of the head/neck at age ≤12 months at a single vascular anomalies clinic. The clinical, anatomic, and technical aspects of each treatment, complications, and post-treatment clinical and imaging outcomes were analyzed. Results 22 patients underwent 36 treatments during the first year of life. Median age at first treatment was 6.2 months (range 2–320 days). Severe airway compromise was the most frequent indication for treatment (31.8%). Sclerosants included doxycycline (80.5%), sodium tetradecyl sulfate (55.5%), bleomycin (11.1%) and ethanol (2.8%). There were no immediate procedure-related complications; sclerosant-related laboratory complications included transient metabolic acidosis (8.3%) and hemolytic anemia (5.5%). Median follow-up was 3.7 years (IQR 0.6–4.8). 47.6% of patients showed >75% lesion size reduction and 19.0% showed minimal response (<25% improvement). At last follow-up, 71.4% of children were developmentally normal and asymptomatic, 23.8% had recurring symptoms, and 4.8% required permanent tracheostomy. Patients with ongoing symptoms or limited response to percutaneous sclerotherapy (33.3%) were treated with long-term sirolimus. Conclusions Percutaneous sclerotherapy is a safe and effective treatment for symptomatic LM of the head and neck in neonates and infants. Treatment strategy and management of recurrent symptoms requires consensus from an experienced, multidisciplinary team.


For the first time, an asymmetric lightly doped Schottky barrier carbon nanotube field effect transistor (SB_CNTFETs) is proposed and simulated using quantum simulations. Comparisons are made among four SB_CNTFETs structures for electrical characteristics. One is the conventional SB_CNTFET with an intrinsic channel. The other proposed and studied designations are an asymmetrically doped SB_CNTFET with a doped region near the source only, a symmetrically doped source and drain SB_CNTFETand an asymmetric lightly doped SB_CNTFET which shows the ultimate performance among all. The results show that the new asymmetric lightly doped design decreases significantly the leakage current and thus increases on/off ratio as well as cutoff frequency. It is also demonstrated that this structure possesses two perceivable steps in potential profile of the channel, which lead to another lateral electric field peak inside the channel which leads to the immunity against short-channel effects. The cutoff frequency characteristics of the four structures of SB_CNTFETs have been discussed. Results show that for channel lengths >30 nm cutoff frequency of the asymmetric lightly doped SB_CNTFETis greater than others. The effect of different doped region lengths in a 30 nm SB_CNTFET has been discussed as well. The proposed new design is promising from several points of view discussed in the study.


The purpose of this study was to examine how high school and middle school band directors in the state of North Carolina currently implement technology into their band programs. Selection of participants for this study involved identifying middle school and high school band directors in the state of North Carolina. The participants were selected based on their membership in the North Carolina Bandmasters Association and maintaining an active email address. Therefore a total of 489 band directors including 221 middle school and 268 high school directors were selected as potential participants. Out of the initial 489 band directors selected as potential participants for this study one hundred twenty-nine band directors (N = 129) completed the survey. Participants completed an online questionnaire that asked them to list types of technology that they currently use would like to use and how prepared they feel to integrate technology into their band rehearsals. "Proper Sound System Equipment " "Internet Resources " "Smart Board " "Audio Recording Devices " and "Play-Along Software" were the top five most frequently listed responses for what types of technology are currently being used in North Carolina band rehearsals. Directors were asked to list what types of technology resources they would like to be able to use given unlimited resources. The top five most frequently listed responses included "Play-Along Software " "Music Notation Software " "Tablet Computers or other smart devices " "Smart Board and Peripherals " and "Audio Recording Devices." "Play-Along Software " "Audio Recording Devices " "Music Notation Software " and "Tuners and Metronomes" were listed among the most common and beneficial types of technology available for bands. Further the majority of band directors in North Carolina surveyed indicate they feel adequately prepared to teach using technology. Analysis of the data revealed some similarities among North Carolina band directors. Based on conclusions from the present study and previous research given (a) adequate funding (b) administrative leadership (c) time (d) support (e) access to resources and (f) applicable professional development the appropriate implementation of technology should be pursued in order to enhance the quality of music education for music students.


The principal objective of this paper is to investigate the question of the Romanian literary language creation as it was viewed by Gheorghe Asachi at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Since the writer remained known more as a poet by the public, our purpose is to focus on the linguistic preoccupations of Gheorghe Asachi, precisely to reveal the way he positioned himself towards the problematic of the language formation. To answer to this interrogation, we intend to analyze his theoretical points of view from the prefaces of his volumes and also from other articles. In order to have a wider perspective of the subject, we cannot leave beside his cultural initiatives which were important for the language development and also for the awareness of its importance in the epoch. The idiom was still in search for a norm in those times, lacking grammatical rules and, thus, being pursued by the danger of receiving ill-fated influences. In the middle of the struggle for imagining a national language, the contribution of Gheorghe Asachi is pertinent, some of his theoretical ideas being even continued by his predecessors.


Voltage-Source Converter-Based High-voltage dc (VSC-HVdc) technology has received growing interest during recent years due to its benefits for separated active and reactive power control. Before the installation of VSC-HVdc links, different simulation-based studies need to be performed, usually by different parties and using different electromagnetic transient (EMT) simulation platforms. This paper provides a systematic method to assess discrepancies between simulation tools. Models of the VSC and its control systems are implemented from scratch in two different tools. A metric and a methodology to quantitatively assess the discrepancies between simulation results is proposed and illustrated. The paper shows that even with a pedantic re-implementation of the models from the ground up, simulation results are still inconsistent. The objective of this paper is to develop a quantification method for comparing the models developed in different EMT simulation tool and to emphasize differences that can arise with the numerical solvers in such tools.


This study examines the magnitude of alcohol-related premature death in the French population, which still has the highest average alcohol intake in the world and a relatively low coronary heart disease mortality rate. Two data sources were used: the national mortality data in 1990 and a prospective mortality experience in a cohort of 2,687 middle-aged working men examined in 1980-1985 and followed-up during an average of 9.3 years. In the general population study, alcohol-related premature mortality (35-64 years) was calculated using alcohol-attributable fractions (AAFs) derived from studies of alcohol involvement in deaths from various causes. In the cohort, it was estimated from AAFs and attributable risk using both alcohol exposure prevalence and relative risks of death according to alcohol intake categories. In 1990, estimates of 19.1% and 13.0% of all premature deaths in French men and women were attributed to alcohol. Digestive diseases followed by malignant neoplasms in men and by unintentional injuries in women were major contributors to the total number of alcohol-related premature deaths. In the cohort study, 90 deaths occurred during the follow-up period. The estimation of alcohol-related premature mortality using AAFs was 24.4%. The relative risk of total mortality (adjusted for age, smoking habits, and body mass index) for men who consumed > 60 ml/day of alcohol, compared with those who consumed 0-25 ml/day was 1.9 (95% confidence interval: 1.1-3.5). The consumption of 26-60 ml/day was not associated with reduced risk of mortality, and the adjusted relative risk for this group was 1.3 (95% confidence interval: 0.7-2.5). The estimated attributable risk of premature mortality caused by consumption of > 25 ml/day of alcohol was 29.9%. This study reports the persisting high alcohol-related premature mortality in the French general population, as well as in middle-aged working men. The results suggest that efforts should be paid to reduce further the consumption of alcohol in France.


Radar sensors have become an integral part of advanced driver assistance systems. Merely detecting targets will not, however, advance their contribution. Rather, an object classification capability is required to distinguish vulnerable road users from other objects, such as vehicles. In this paper, we present a novel pedestrian classification procedure, which uses image features from the range-Doppler-Matrix created by a 79 GHz chirp sequence radar. Experiments show single measurement success rates of 88% for a bandwidth of 1.6 GHz. Moreover, the robustness of the classification process is consolidated with a tracking algorithm. Implemented in vehicles, this can be a major contribution to protect vulnerable road users.


The Charpy test is used throughout the world in a wide range of industries because of its low cost and the fact that notching and dynamic loading produces a crack tip stress field that is conservative for many applications. As a result of its widespread use, there is a compelling motivation to extract as much data as possible from the Charpy test. In a Charpy impact test, three key measurements are typically made: total absorbed energy, lateral expansion, and percent shear fracture area. At present, the measurements of absorbed energy and lateral expansion are quantitative and well defined, but the methods used by most laboratories in the measurement of percent shear are qualitative at best. This is ironic for a 100–year-old test because, as discussed in this paper, it can be reasonably argued that percent shear is the most fundamental and physically meaningful of the three Charpy parameters for brittle fracture characterization. Digital image analysis for shear fracture area is shown to have low uncertainty and be both repeatable and easy to use on a routine basis. Recommendations for changes to the ASTM E23 standard are provided.


Two different mixtures (Alaska pollock surimi with grass carp fish protein isolate (FPI) and grass carp surimi with grass carp FPI) were investigated for their compatibility and functionalities. As the proportion of FPI increased, it was observed surface hydrophobicity and surface reactive sulfhydryl (SRSH) content increased significantly, indicating the degree of fish protein unfolding prior to gelation was much higher than surimi alone. Comparable results were shown as measured by storage modulus (G′) in oscillatory dynamic rheology, demonstrating the gelling temperature was reduced when the proportion of FPI increased. Effects of mixing surimi and FPI on gel functionality (hardness, cohesiveness, and whiteness) exhibited a linear pattern when the proportion of surimi was larger than or equal to that of FPI. However, there were no linear relationships when the proportion of FPI exceeded that of surimi.

Practical applications
Commercial surimi has been successfully used in the Western world over 30 years. Unlike surimi which is a refined fish myofibrillar protein composite, fish protein isolate (FPI) is a refined composite of myofibrillar protein and sarcoplasmic protein. The former is made by avoiding any chemical/physical denaturation, while the latter can be made by inducing chemical denaturation and renaturation with pH shift. Even though FPI is not currently available in a commercial scale, it has a great potential to replace all or a part of surimi for the manufacture of fish protein gel products. This study reveals how to optimally mixed these two differently refined fish proteins based on their functional properties. The results suggested that blending surimi and FPI may be feasible only when the proportion of FPI does not exceed 50%.


We evaluated relationships between persistent organic pollutant (POP) levels in the blood of children with leukemia and POP levels in dust from their household vacuum cleaners. Blood and dust were collected from participants of the California Childhood Leukemia Study at various intervals from 1999 to 2007 and analyzed for two polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), two polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and two organochlorine pesticides using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Due to small blood sample volumes (100 μL), dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE) and BDE-153 were the only analytes with detection frequencies above 70%. For each analyte, depending on its detection frequency, a multivariable linear or logistic regression model was used to evaluate the relationship between POP levels in blood and dust, adjusting for child's age, ethnicity, and breastfeeding duration; mother's country of origin; household annual income; and blood sampling date. In linear regression, concentrations of BDE-153 in blood and dust were positively associated; whereas, DDE concentrations in blood were positively associated with breastfeeding, maternal birth outside the U.S., and Hispanic ethnicity, but not with corresponding dust-DDE concentrations. The probability of PCB-153 detection in a child's blood was marginally associated with dust-PCB-153 concentrations (p = 0.08) in logistic regression and significantly associated with breastfeeding. Our findings suggest that dust ingestion is a source of children's exposure to certain POPs.


Safety assessment of nuclear waste disposal in a deep geological repository requires understanding and quantifying radionuclide transport through the hosting geological formation. Determining diffusion parameters under real conditions is necessary for the performance assessment of a deep geological repository where high level wastes are placed for safety disposal. The in situ diffusion and retention (DR) experiments are designed to study the transport and retention properties of the Opalinus clay formation. In this paper, a scoping numerical simulation is performed in Opalinus Clay, The simulated results for all the traces illustrate that the maximum transport distance perpendicular to the bedding is larger in the isotropic case and those along the bedding is larger in the anisotropic case. Tracer depletion in the isotropic case is a little larger than in the anisotropic case. Deuterium and iodide can be detected in the other interval but strontium can't. Since the length of injection interval is shorter than the transport distance, the anisotropy effect is clearly measurable. This numerical simulation of diffusion experiment aims at contributing to the optimum design of the experiment. The results of this experiment will provide additional insight into the role of diffusion anisotropy and sorption parameters for radionuclides in clays.


Sequence to sequence models attempt to capture the correlation between all the words in the input and output sequences. While this is quite useful for machine translation where the correlation among the words is indeed quite strong, it becomes problematic for conversation modelling where the correlation is often at a much abstract level. In contrast, humans tend to focus on the essential concepts discussed in the conversation context and generate responses accordingly. In this paper, we attempt to mimic this response generating mechanism by learning the essential concepts in the context and response in an unsupervised manner. The proposed model, referred to as Mask & Focus maps the input context to a sequence of concepts which are then used to generate the response concepts. Together, the context and the response concepts generate the final response. In order to learn context concepts from the training data automatically, we mask words in the input and observe the effect of masking on response generation. We train our model to learn those response concepts that have high mutual information with respect to the context concepts, thereby guiding the model to focus on the context concepts. Mask & Focus achieves significant improvement over the existing baselines in several established metrics for dialogues.


Well-preserved submarine landforms from the continental shelf and fjords of northwest- ernmost Svalbard provide an example of ice-sheet deposition in an inter-ice-stream setting. EM1002 swath-bathymetric imagery covering 1280 km 2 was examined. At the shelf edge, a distinctive and continuous belt of hum- mocky topography represents the grounding zone of a slow-moving Late Weichselian ice sheet. Active ice on the outer shelf is inferred from subtle lineations orientated parallel to fl ow. Low-amplitude transverse moraines crosscut the lineations, suggesting ice retreat across the outer shelf with brief stillstands. On the middle and inner shelf, large moraine ridges indicate multiple stillstands during de- glaciation. There are arcuate moraine ridges at fjord mouths. Streamlined crag-and-tail landforms are preserved from when ac- tive full-glacial ice fl owed out of the fjords. Clusters of smaller transverse ridges indi- cate slow retreat of grounded ice through the fjords. Holocene sedimentation is by rainout from sediment-rich meltwater, producing smooth basin fi ll. Small slides from the fjord walls are common. Little Ice Age glacier readvance produced another set of terminal moraines and smaller retreat moraines in the innermost fjords. A schematic model of this inter-ice-stream glacial landform assem- blage summarizes the geomorphic record. It is compared with a model derived from sev- eral Svalbard cross-shelf troughs occupied by fast-fl owing Late Weichselian ice streams. In general, the seafl oor morphology of continen- tal margins affected by ice streams is domi- nated by streamlined, subglacially produced landforms oriented in the former ice-fl ow direction, interrupted by major grounding- zone wedges formed during temporary halts in ice retreat. By contrast, between ice streams, shelf and fjord morphology records submarine landforms of various dimensions oriented mainly transverse to ice fl ow, pro- duced at slowly retreating, grounded ice- sheet margins. There is little evidence for channeled subglacial water fl ow in the form of eskers and ice-contact fans on the Sval- bard margin, implying that basal water is drained or advected mainly within soft sub- glacial sediments.


Several attempts to define formal logics for some type of default reasoning have been made. All of these logics share the property that in any given state, a proposition p is either held to be true, it is held to be false, or no belief about it is held. But if we ask what default reasoning really is, we see that it is form of likelihood reasoning. The goal of this paper is to show that if default reasoning is treated as likelihood reasoning (similar to that of Mycin), then natural solutions emerge for several of the problems that are encountered when default reasoning is used. This is shown by presenting 7 such problems and showing how they are solved.


The distribution of C-heterochromatin blocks and nucleolar organizer regions (NORs) in the Taurus ground squirrel from Turkey was studied. The karyotype of Spermophilus taurensis comprised 40 chromosomes, the fundamental chromosome number (NF) was 80, and there were 76 autosomal arms (NFa). All autosomes and the X chromosome had pericentromeric C-heterochromatin, whereas the Y chromosome appeared to be entirely heterochromatic. NORs were observed in the terminal regions of the short arm of 2 pairs of submetacentric and 2 pairs of subtelocentric chromosomes. All the NORs were homomorphic and of medium size. The S. taurensis karyotype differs from that of S. xanthoprymnus by a low diploid number, by a C-positive Y chromosome, and by the number and localization of NORs. It was also determined that its Y chromosome resembles that of S. citellus, in terms of its heterochromatic nature.


A powerful way for students to master a subject is to engage them in teaching it to someone. This is especially true for mastering concepts in mathematics. In a traditional classroom we can give markers to students and send them to the whiteboard to solve problems. In an online course the electronic whiteboard is not quite as friendly. Though recent innovations make it possible to "write mathematics" on the online electronic whiteboard, the process is quite time-consuming. In our online pre-calculus course we supply a student with a PDF file containing the solution to a problem and ask the student to create a YouTube video in which they play the role of instructor. They are required to explain the steps involved in solving the problem and why each particular step "makes sense." We then provide a critique of their video and require them, if needed, to supply a revised video. The revised videos are made available online for the entire class. In our poster session we present three student videos, the corresponding instructor feedback, and the revised videos.


The FIGO classification for the clinical staging of carcinoma of the cervix does not adequately express primary tumour extent or volume, and contains anomalies which probably lead to a wide variation in therapeutic results between centres (particularly in Stages II and III). A box diagram method of recording primary tumour extent is proposed and was applied to a retrospective study of 191 women aged 35 years and under with invasive carcinoma of the cervix. Patients who scored one or two boxes (Stages IB, IIA and IIB with unilateral parametrial infiltration) have a similar actuarial 5 years survival rate: 70% and 69% respectively. Those with 3 boxes (Stage IIA and B, bilateral Stage IIB and unilateral IIIB) and 4 boxes or more (Stages IIA and B, bilateral IIIB) involved had a substantially worse survival: 44% and 22% respectively. No patient, with more than five boxes involved was cured. The further study of this system, its potential in clinical research, and as part of a possible revised staging system are discussed.


This article presents the findings of an analysis making use of a stated choice survey looking at bus travellers' preferences for specific fare structures. Specifically, respondents were given the choice between the current fare structure, which is largely distance based, a fixed fare structure, and a zonal fare structure. It was anticipated that there might be two sources of substantial respondent uncertainty, in relation to the current fare as well as the number of zones a specific journey covers. These two types of uncertainty could create a significant level of bias in the results, and in this article, we put forward a modelling approach based on a latent class structure that allows us to accommodate this respondent uncertainty and avoid the source of bias. Latent class structures are used widely to allow for variations in sensitivities across individual decision makers; here, we show how such a structure is equally well suited to deal with respondent uncertainty expressed through variations in the perceived fares of different journey options.


Many recent works on understanding deep learning try to quantify how much individual data instances influence the optimization and generalization of a model. Such attempts reveal characteristics and importance of individual instances, which may provide useful information in diagnosing and improving deep learning. However, most of the existing works on data valuation require actual training of a model, which often demands high-computational cost. In this paper, we provide a training-free data valuation score, called complexity-gap score, which is a data-centric score to quantify the influence of individual instances in generalization of two-layer overparameterized neural networks. The proposed score can quantify irregularity of the instances and measure how much each data instance contributes in the total movement of the network parameters during training. We theoretically analyze and empirically demonstrate the effectiveness of the complexity-gap score in finding `irregular or mislabeled' data instances, and also provide applications of the score in analyzing datasets and diagnosing training dynamics. Our code is publicly available at https://github.com/JJchy/CG_score


Background Patient satisfaction is an important determinant of health care quality. Decreasing waiting time is imperative in achieving patient satisfaction. Objectives The aim of this study was to determine the mean waiting time at medical outpatients and to assess waiting time satisfaction. A further aim was to identify factors that affect the patients' perceived waiting time. Methods Data was collected through questionnaire responses from 190 patients attending medical outpatients between 20th March and 9th April 2013. This included demographic data, waiting time and service satisfaction, expected and perceived waiting time, level of boredom and comfort while waiting. Moreover the actual waiting time was noted by the observer. The relationship between expected and perceived waiting time; and between actual and perceived waiting time were in turn analyzed using scatter plots and correlation coefficients. Approval to carry out this study was obtained from the University Research and Ethics Committee. Results The participants had a mean age of 53 (range 19 to 86), of which 59% were females. On a 10-point Likert scale, the mean waiting time satisfaction was 7.1, while the mean service satisfaction was 9.3. The mean expected waiting time was 65 minutes and the mean perceived waiting time was 55 minutes. The mean actual waiting time was 51 minutes.This study revealed that as perceived waiting time increased, patient satisfaction tended to decrease consistently and significantly (p<0.001). On the other hand, regression analysis revealed that perceived waiting time has a positive and significant linear relationship with the actual waiting time (p<0.001) and the boredom levels of patients (p<0.001). Patients seated comfortably had a significantly lower perceived waiting time that those who were not (p<0.001). Perceived waiting time was not influenced by whether the patient was accompanied (p=0.313) or being seen for the first time (p=0.712). The patients reported that the provision of free tea or coffee, magazines or television, could help reduce boredom and divert their attention, thus reducing perceived waiting time and in turn enhancing satisfaction. 11% (21 patients) suggested that the operation of free wireless internet in the waiting areas would also reduce the level of their boredom during their wait. Conclusions Overall service satisfaction was extremely positive, while waiting time satisfaction was moderate. Although reducing the actual waiting time may be difficult, altering patients' perceived waiting time may be beneficial to increase their satisfaction. This could be done by increasing their comfort and decreasing their boredom while waiting. Disclosure of Interest None declared


Decision Support Systems (SPK) are designed to support all stages of decision making starting from identifying problems, selecting relevant data, determining the approach used in the decision making process, to evaluating alternative choice


Privacy preservation and the protection of speech data is in high demand, not least as a result of recent regulation, e.g. the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU. While there has been a period with which to prepare for its implementation, its implications for speech data is poorly understood. This assertion applies to both the legal and technology communities, and is hardly surprising since there is no universal definition of 'privacy', let alone a clear understanding of when or how the GDPR applies to the capture, storage and processing of speech data. In aiming to initiate the discussion that is needed to establish a level of harmonisation that is thus far lacking, this contribution presents some reflections of both legal and technology communities on the implications of the GDPR as regards speech data. The article outlines the need for taxonomies at the intersection of speech technology and data privacy - a discussion that is still very much in its infancy - and describes the ways to safeguards and priorities for future research. In being agnostic to any specific application, the treatment should be of interest to the speech communication community at large.


In order to find an airfoil for a predetermined pressure distribution, the problem must be posed so that the pressure distribution creates no drag. Another fundamental difficulty is that it is impossible to specify a pressure distribution without first knowing the place where these pressures are to be applied, i.e., the wing-section shape. This difficulty may be avoided by directing the pressure distribution along the contour of the wing section. Then it becomes possible to define the change in wing-section shape which effects a certain modification of the wing-section shape. The limitations underlying the required pressure distribution are discussed and it is found that the sole essential limitation is zero drag. The method is illustrated with an example.


Using archaeological evidence for chicken domestication from China, Asia and Europe, as well as palaeoclimatic evidence from China, it is concluded that chickens were first domesticated from the red junglefowl Gallus gallus in Southeast Asia well before the sixth millennium BC and taken north to become established in China by c . 6000 BC, whence they were later introduced to Japan via Korea during the Yayoi Period ( c . 300 BC-300 AD). Domestication occurred in India much later ( c . 2000 BC?), either independently or as a diffusion from Southeast Asia. Although the Iron Age was the main period for dispersion of chickens throughout Europe, they were already present in some areas during the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age. It is proposed that the earliest European material may be derived from China via Russia. Because the key is likely to lie in central areas of the USSR, the finding of positive or negative evidence for the theory will depend on the interest of archaeologists working in the Soviet Union. Their collaboration is invited.


Psychology and other disciplines have exceptionally documented sexual orientation and gender identity disparities in mental and physical health outcomes with psychological antecedents. Research on sexual and gender minority (SGM) health has seen impressive growth, including the launch of dedicated conferences, journals, and designation as a disparity population for U.S. federal research purposes. From 2015 to 2020, the number of SGM-focused research projects funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) increased by 66.1% (cf. 21.8% for all NIH projects). SGM health research has expanded beyond HIV (73.0% of NIH's SGM projects in 2015 down to 59.8% in 2020) into other domains, such as mental health (41.6%), substance use disorders (23%), violence (7.2%), and transgender (21.9%) and bisexual (17.2%) health. Yet, only 8.9% of projects were clinical trials testing interventions. The need for more research on later stages in the translational research spectrum (i.e., mechanisms, intervention, implementation) to eradicate SGM health disparities is the focus of our Viewpoint article. First, research to eliminate SGM health disparities must move toward multilevel interventions aimed at cultivating health, wellbeing, and thriving. Second, research to test how psychological theories apply to SGM people can inform new theories or extend existing ones, which can spur new areas of inquiry. Third, translational SGM health research would benefit from a developmental lens to identify protective and promotive factors across the life span. Finally, using mechanistic findings to inform, develop, disseminate, and implement interventions to reduce SGM health disparities is crucial at this time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).


Aclarubicin, discovered by Umezawa in 1975, is a new cytostatic anthracycline antibiotic. It is one of the anthracyclines with the lowest cardiotoxicity, it is not mutagenic and it stimulates differentiation of tumour cells. The therapeutic index of aclarubicin (efficacy related to toxicity) is higher than that of doxorubicin and daunorubicin, using a proper dose schedule. Single dose therapy of aclarubicin shows only marginal efficacy, whereas multiple divided dose therapy exhibits efficacy comparable to that of doxorubicin and daunorubicin. Thus for clinical trials two dose schedules were designed: 25 mg/m2/day, days 1-7 for acute leukaemia; and 30 mg/m2/day, days 1-4 for solid tumours. Aclarubicin was shown to be highly active in acute leukaemia with 58% complete remissions in first relapse of AML. Good results were also seen in acute leukaemia in combination with cytosine arabinoside and thioguanine. In clinical trials with breast cancer and thyroid cancer the efficacy was in the same range as would be expected for doxorubicin, but side-effects were markedly reduced. Anorexia, mild nausea and infrequent vomiting were observed. Myelosuppression was common but dose reduction was not necessary. There was no alopecia and no congestive heart failure.


In Reply. —The WWW is an advanced Internet service that incorporates telnet, ftp, gopher, and other services into a coordinated package. A distinguishing feature of WWW is that data are presented as hypermedia in which text and images contain links to other resources that describe the data in more detail. A user can access one of these links by choosing reference numbers (for text) or by using a mouse to click on key words or icons in graphical images. There has been an explosive growth in WWW servers and access to them in 1994. To access this service, a client program such as Mosaic or Cello must be run on the local computer. These programs are graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and require a Windows environment (a Macintosh, PC with Windows, or an X Window platform with Unix). These programs require a direct connection to the Internet. For an individual with


Atherosclerosis is a complex inflammatory disease involving aberrant immune and tissue healing responses, which begins with endothelial dysfunction and ends with plaque development, instability and rupture. The increased risk for coronary artery disease in patients with rheumatologic diseases highlights how aberrancy in the innate and adaptive immune system may be central to development of both disease states and that atherosclerosis may be on a spectrum of immune-mediated conditions. Recognition of the tight association between chronic inflammatory disease and complications of atherosclerosis will impact the understanding of underlying pathogenic mechanisms and change diagnostic and therapeutic approaches in patients with rheumatologic syndromes as well as patients with coronary artery disease. In this review, we provide a summary of the role of the immune system in atherosclerosis, discuss the proposed mechanisms of accelerated atherosclerosis seen in association with rheumatologic diseases, evaluate the effect of immunosuppression on atherosclerosis and provide updates on available risk assessment tools, biomarkers and imaging modalities.


Ubiquitous computing tasks, such as human activity recognition (HAR), are enabling a wide spectrum of applications, ranging from healthcare to environment monitoring. The success of a ubiquitous computing task relies on sufficient physical sensor data with groundtruth labels, which are always scarce due to the expensive annotating process. Meanwhile, social media platforms provide a lot of social or semantic context information. People share what they are doing and where they are frequently in the messages they post. This rich set of socially shared activities motivates us to transfer knowledge from social media to address the sparsity issue of labelled physical sensor data. In order to transfer the knowledge of social and semantic context, we propose a Co-Regularized Heterogeneous Transfer Learning (CoHTL) model, which builds a common semantic space derived from two heterogeneous domains. Our proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art methods on two ubiquitous computing tasks, namely human activity recognition and region function discovery.


In this thesis we consider sequential probabilistic programs. Such programs are a means to model randomised algorithms in computer science. They facilitate the formal analysis of performance and correctness of algorithms or security aspects of protocols. We develop an operational semantics for probabilistic programs and show it to be equivalent to the expectation transformer semantics due to McIver and Morgan. This connection between the two kinds of semantics provides a deeper understanding of the behaviour of probabilistic programs and is instrumental to transfer results between communities that use transition systems such as Markov decision processes to reason about probabilistic behaviour and communities that focus on deductive verification techniques based on expectation transformers. As a next step, we add the concept of observations and extend both semantics to facilitate the calculation of expectations which are conditioned on the fact that no observation is violated during the program's execution. Our main contribution here is to explore issues that arise with non-terminating, non-deterministic or infeasible programs and provide semantics that are generally applicable. Additionally, we discuss several program transformation to facilitate the understanding of conditioning in probabilistic programming. In the last part of the thesis we turn our attention to the automated verification of probabilistic programs. We are interested in automating inductive verification techniques. As usual the main obstacle in program analysis are loops which require either the calculation of fixed points or the generation of inductive invariants for their analysis. This task, which is already hard for standard, i.e. non-probabilistic, programs, becomes even more challenging as our reasoning becomes quantitative. We focus on a technique to generate quantitative loop invariants from user defined templates. This approach is implemented in a software tool called Prinsys and evaluated on several examples.


The relation between viewing television coverage of a mass disaster and the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is poorly understood. A cohort of New Yorkers without baseline probable PTSD (N = 1787) was assessed 1 year following the September 11, 2001, attacks. The primary outcome was new-onset probable PTSD assessed through a validated scale, and the primary exposure was number of hours of September 11 anniversary news coverage viewed. A total of 99 (5.6%) of participants had developed probable PTSD at the 1-year follow-up. Watching 12 or more hours of September 11 attack anniversary news coverage was associated with a 3.4-fold increased risk of new-onset probable PTSD (p = 0.004). Exposure to television coverage of the September 11 anniversary was associated with new-onset probable PTSD among a cohort of New Yorkers with no probable PTSD at baseline.


CRISPR-based functional genomics screens are a powerful tool for identifying synthetically lethal cancer drug targets. Current strategies for analyzing pooled CRISPR screens usually rely on signals from single guide RNAs (sgRNA) with differential relative abundance between two experimental conditions. However, conventional approaches are susceptible to false positives and false negatives driven by outlier cell clones, since the sgRNA abundance does not account for the heterogeneous phenotypes resulting from different editing outcomes of the same sgRNA. To overcome this, we added DNA barcodes to each sgRNA to create unique molecular identifiers (UMIs) for CRISPR libraries and developed a companion analytical platform that enables robust, industry-scale CRISPR screens. Here, we present UMIBB, a novel nonparametric Bayesian approach for analyzing UMI-CRISPR data. The number of UMIs with normalized count depletion or enrichment compared to the control experimental condition for each sgRNA is modeled by a beta-binomial distribution. The gene level statistics are derived by combining z-scores of the sgRNAs level posterior probabilities weighted by the number of UMIs in each sgRNA. This approach minimizes the impact of outlier cell clones on statistics and prioritizes genes with consistent count differentials across multiple UMIs in each gene. To assess the power of UMIBB, we benchmarked it on a low coverage (200X) genome-scale negative-selection screen, comparing with results from a high coverage (1000X) screen. These screens were conducted on KRAS mutant cancer celllines (A549) treated with trametinib or vehicle control. Despite the high noise level usually observed in lower coverage screens, our method was able to uncover most of the validated sensitizer genes for trametinib and achieved the highest sensitivity compared to conventional methods. Furthermore, we applied UMIBB on a genome-scale positive-selection screen and successfully identified novel genes (RAD18 and UBE2K) as key mediators of USP1 dependency in BRCA1 mutant cell lines. Our studies demonstrate that UMIBB is highly robust against false positives due to clonal heterogeneity and is more likely to identify true genetic interactions.
 Citation Format: Ashley Choi, Samuel Meier, Silvia Fenoglio, Tianshu Feng, Justin Engel, Binzhang Shen, Shangtao Liu, Teng Teng, Tenzing Khendu, Alan Huang, Jannik Andersen, Xuewen Pan, Yi Yu. UMIBB: A novel nonparametric Bayesian method improves robustness and sensitivity of analysis in pooled CRISPR-Cas9 screens leveraging unique molecular identifiers [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr 1224.


We determined if the thromboxane A2 antagonist SQ 30,741 can reduce ultimate myocardial infarct size and reperfusion injury. Anesthetized dogs were subjected to left circumflex coronary artery occlusion for 90 min at which time reperfusion was instituted. In one study, SQ 30,741 (1 mg/kg + 1 mg/kg/hr) was given either 10 min postocclusion (n = 7) or 2 min (n = 9) before reperfusion along with their appropriate vehicle controls in a model of 90 min of occlusion and 5 hr of reperfusion. Infarct size was reduced 50% (P less than .05) when SQ 30,741 was given 10 min postocclusion and 30% (P less than .05) when given only during reperfusion. Flow reserve using maximally dilating doses of adenosine was determined 3 hr postreperfusion in vehicle (10 min postocclusion, n = 10), SQ 30,741 (10 min postocclusion, n = 6) and nonischemic (n = 5) animals. Maximal subendocardial flow was reduced during reperfusion in ischemic animals, but SQ 30,741 improved this compared to vehicle animals (400 +/- 95, 88 +/- 25 and 208 +/- 48 ml/min/100 g; nonischemic, vehicle, SQ 30,741 groups, respectively). To determine if myocardial salvage can be observed 24 hr postocclusion with SQ 30,741 or the cyclooxygenase inhibitor aspirin, dogs were given vehicle (n = 9), SQ 30,741 (10 min postocclusion up to 4 hr postreperfusion) or aspirin (n = 9, 40 mg/kg 30 min preocclusion) and infarct size was determined 24 hr postocclusion (90 min left circumflex coronary artery occlusion + reperfusion).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


The 2012 U.S. presidential campaign revealed a sharp divide between Republicans and Democrats on the role of government in American society, sparking a philosophical debate on how much citizens should rely on lawmakers, courts, and bureaucrats to stimulate economic growth, promote fairness for all, and protect basic human freedoms. Politics aside, the influence of government has undoubtedly grown along with the increasing complexity of American society--taking on a major role in regulating commerce and financial transactions, shielding buyers from unfair practices, and providing infrastructure and services for such basic needs as transportation, communication, and water. To better understand the influence of government on our everyday lives, faculty members in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management (PAM) are investigating policies and regulations, as well as the financial costs to taxpayers, put forth by government. They also are training students to evaluate the myriad functions of government, with a new undergraduate minor in Law and Regulation (see sidebar on page 17) launched last fall. Watching the watchdog PAM associate professor Sharon Tennyson examines government regulation of private transactions between firms and consumers, studying laws and policies designed to prevent businesses from engaging in unfair practices. Her work has spanned areas including pharmaceuticals, credit cards, insurance, and the airline industry. Editor of the journal of Consumer Affairs, Tennyson described her research as "looking at data from a market that is being regulated and trying to assess whether the regulation is having an effect--positive or negative." Tennyson explained: "The question to ask is how close the market comes to looking like a perfectly competitive market. If we feel a market is not functioning well, we have to think about what we could do to help that market work better. That could be something done through the court system, through legislation passed by Congress, or through rules that regulatory agencies make." Most recently, Tennyson has evaluated the effect of "black box" warning labels on prescription drugs, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires when a medicine is found to have potentially fatal side effects. In a recent paper co-authored with Kosali Simon, professor at Indiana University; Joseph Price, PhD '07, assistant professor at Brigham Young University; and Cornell labor economics doctoral student Kristy Parkinson, Tennyson looked at how consumers' use of antidepressant drugs changed in response to a black box label that warned of potential suicidal thinking among teens who start antidepressants. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] They found that fewer teens began taking antidepressants once the label was used, but fewer adults also began using the drugs, even though the warning doesn't apply to adults. "The research suggests that the label conveys more negative information than is intended, which may have negative health consequences for adults," Tennyson said, explaining that the label may have been too restrictive. In other research, Tennyson, Cazilia Loibl, associate professor at Ohio State University, and PAM doctoral student Lauren Jones examined the effects of new disclosures required on credit card billing statements. After the 2008 financial crisis, these disclosures were designed to help consumers better understand the cost of credit. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] They found that since the disclosures have been included, more consumers are fully paying off their credit cards each month. However, among those who did not pay off their credit cards each month, there was little behavioral change. "So, in our view, the new disclosures are a partial success," Tennyson said. A cure for ailing infrastructure America's infrastructure is on shaky ground: In March, the American Society of Civil Engineers graded its bridges, roads, tunnels, water systems, and other assets a D+ on its quadrennial report card. …


Diseases of the central nervous system are among the most devastating to patients and their families. Despite this, treatments for these diseases have lagged behind other therapeutic areas. Although social and economic factors may be partly responsible for the paucity of therapeutic agents, a particularly daunting challenge for CNS drug discovery is the need for compounds to cross the blood brain barrier. Recent analyses of successful drugs have shown that their chemical properties have not changed substantially over the past 40 years while the properties of compounds entering the clinic have become inflated. This property inflation has only exacerbated the challenges of CNS drug discovery as the requirements for delivery to the brain are even more stringent than those for other tissues. New approaches are needed to meet these challenges. In this review, we discuss the merits of fragment based lead discovery and how it may be used to address the challenges of CNS drug discovery. We also summarize compounds discovered by high-throughput screening, substrate evolution and fragment-based lead discovery for well known CNS targets. The results indicate that FBLD may be a key method for discovery of brain penetrable CNS therapeutics.


Background: Intensive physical activity is known to induce oxidative stress. Contrarily, there are enzymatic and non enzymatic defence systems against Reactive oxygen Species (ROS) and oxygen radicals in aerobic organisms. As compared to non aerobic excersie, during aerobic exercise the need for oxygen increases up to 10-200 times that of rest time; therefore increasing cell metabilism and stress oxidative. The purpose of this research was to determine the effect of 8 weeks continuous and regular exercise on Total Antioxidant (TAC), Superoxid Dismutase (SOD), Glutathion peroxidase(GSH-px) enzymes activity and Malondialdehyde (MDA- as the index of lipid peroxidation) in young soccer players. Methods: The study was of semi-experimental type. For this purpose 32 young male volunteer soccer players were selected and then randomly divided in two groups (experimental and control). The above healthy young men, aged 14-17 years old, did not have any programmed physical activity. Erythrocyte lipid peroxidation, ACT, SOD, GSH-px erytrocyte activities and MDA, were determined in fasting blood samples which were taken (twice) before and after the end of 8 weeks training program at rest. For statistical analysis t-test and SPSS V.15 was used. Results: At the end of training, aerobic and anaerobic capacity increased significantly (respectively p<0.000 and p<0.000). Also MDA (index of erythrocyte lipid peroxidation) and SOD activity after 8 weeks of exercise increased significantly(p<0.000), (p<0.000), while TAC activity decreased significantly (p<0.05); increase in GSH-px was observed which was significant in the experimental group. Conclusion: The present research reveals the fact that continuous and regular exercise increases oxidative stress and SOD activity which is followed by decrease in lipid peroxidation levels. We conclude that exercise makes individuals stronger against oxidative stress and provides a healthy life.


At present the food and grocery segment contributes about 60 per cent of the retail sales in India and is the largest segment of the Indian retail industry. Retail competition is intensifying and consumers are on the lookout for more information, better quality and hygiene as well as increased customer service. Providing excellence in service delivery is what expected by retailers today. This paper studies the application of SERVQUAL in measuring the gap between customer expectations and their perceptions about the service quality of food retailing in India. Statistical analyses were performed to test the reliability of the instrument and the validity of the scale in Indian retail context. The results show high value of Cronbach's coefficient α for the overall instrument but serious problems in 'responsiveness' and 'tangibles' dimensions. Further factor analysis showed five factor structures are not valid in Indian context. Overall the findings indicate that the SERVQUAL instrument suffers from serious reliability and validity problems and further research is necessary to understand dimensionality of service quality in India. The gap analysis showed significant negative gap in all items and the highest perceived service gap lies in the responsiveness dimension calling for the need to improve service quality significantly in all the aspects. Managerial implications and suggestions for improvement are discussed.


The data-flow graph (DFG) is an important graph-theoretic model for multiprocessor implementation of real-time digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms. Given a time schedule for a DFG, we consider the problem of the processor-optimal assignment for a fully static schedule. Previously, the solution of this problem was found by solving an integer programming problem. We propose a linear programming approach to solving the problem.


BACKGROUND
Placental vessels are not innervated. Therefore the vasomotor activity and vascular tone is not regulated by the nervous system.

AIM
To assess the existence of pacemaker mechanisms related to rhythmic motor activity of blood vessels.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Isometric contractions of rings from umbilical and chorionic vessels of term human placentas were monitored.

RESULTS
Recordings of the circular layer of chorionic and umbilical vessels revealed rhythmic spontaneous contractions with a frequency of 1.4 +/- 0.05 cycles/min, the duration of each cycle was 42.8 +/- 0.24 s (n = 12). The amplitude of contractions was larger in veins than in arteries, predominating in umbilical vein biopsies, proximal to the fetus. Both the frequency and the amplitude of contractions were relatively constant during the first 30 min. However, after an hour, the frequency declined while the amplitude increased. The absence of the endothelium neither modified the frequency nor the amplitude of the rhythmic activity. Blockage of voltage dependent sodium channels or calcium channels did not alter the frequency of spontaneous contractions, although their magnitude was reduced. Glibenclamide, an ATP-dependent K+ channel blocker or the blockade of gap junctions ablated the frequency and amplitude of spontaneous contractions.

CONCLUSIONS
We propose that rhythmic contractions are triggered by pacemaker cells located in the circular layer of the smooth muscle of blood vessels and spread via gap junctions; they likely contribute to the control of blood flow.


Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), as hazardous gaseous pollutants, have attracted much attention due to their potential threat to both human health and the environment. Accordingly, photocatalysis technology is seen as a promising technology to control low concentration VOCs due to its mild operation conditions, low energy consumption, and mineralization ability. However, there are some issues with photocatalysts, such as low light utility and fast photogenerated carrier recombination, which need to be addressed for practical applications. In this work, novel nitrogen-doped carbon dot (NCD)-modified ZnFe2O4 yolk-shell nanostructure photocatalysts were fabricated for the first time. The yolk-shell structure of ZnFe2O4 efficiently shortened the photogenerated carrier migration path and enhanced light scattering in its void, while the decorated NCDs accelerated the charge transfer from the bulk to the surface. A series of characterizations was conducted to investigate the crystal structure, elemental status, optical properties, and photocatalytic performance of the obtained composite photocatalysts. The NCD-modified ZnFe2O4 yolk-shell photocatalysts exhibited both a wide spectral absorbance and low carrier recombination, resulting in high photocatalytic activity and degradation ability towards gaseous o-dichlorobenzene. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations further revealed that the NCDs effectively promoted charge transfer and weakened the recombination of photo-generated electron-hole pairs. Additionally, in situ Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy was performed to investigate the degradation path in the photocatalytic process, and an electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) radical trapping experiment was conducted to unveil the reactive oxygen species involved in the system. Combining the results obtained, the synergistic effect in the enhancement of photocatalysis between NCDs and yolk-shell ZnFe2O4 was schematically proposed.


Ligation of the pancreatic duct induces the development of the edematous form of acute pancreatitis (OFAP) which is characterized by sharp inhibition of the immune response to sheep erythrocytes. Contrykal injection intensifies development of the immune response in rats with OFAP and blocks the immunosuppressive activity of the serum protein high-molecular fraction. Injection of aminomethylbenzoic acid does not affect the development of the immune response in rats with OFAP and does not block the immunosuppressive activity of the high-molecular fraction of serum proteins. The difference in the immunomodulating effect of contykal and aminomethylbenzoic acid in OFAP correlates with the different effect of the agents on the activity of proteases and antiproteolytic proteins in blood serum.


Recent concerns over the environmental impact of peat harvesting have led to restrictions on the production of peat based potting substrates. Therefore the objective of our study was to evaluate the use of compost and biogas residues without and each with 20% additives (Perlite, Styromull, Hygromull, Lecaton, Peat, Cocofiber) as a substi tute for peat. Ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.), chosen as an experimental plant, was cut four times. The results reveal that compost and biogas residues are suitable potting substrates. The incorporation of additives mixed into the ba sic materials partly resulted in higher yield and nutrient uptake. However, the difference among additives was main ly insignificant. Incorporation of Hygromull, especially into biogas residues favored plant growth and increased the uptake of nutrients, which is attributed to the fact that Hygromull stores nutrients and delivers them even later in the growing season. Furthermore Hygromull reduces the salt concentration of the medium, resulting in favored plant growth of younger plants.


SiC crystal boules with different shapes were prepared using sublimation physical vapor transport technique (PVT) and then their crystal quality was systematically investigated. The temperature distribution in the growth system and the crystal shape were controlled by modification of crucible and insulation felt design, which was successfully simulated using "Virtual Reactor" for flat structure design and concave structure design. The SiC polytype proved to be the n-type 6H-SiC from the typical absorption spectrum of SiC crystal. The defect density of SiC crystal boules with concave structure was slightly lower than that of flat structure and the crystal quality of SiC crystal boules with both flat structure and concave structure was significantly improved as the SiC crystal grows during the PVT methods.


The power supply for ocean robots has always been an important issue since it has a fatal influence on the endurance of these vehicles. However, the marine renewable energy (MRE) has huge potential and can provide the possibility to solve this problem between essential endurance and finite energy in ocean robots. This paper starts with brief introduction of marine energy resource and ocean robots and presents significance of improving ocean robots' endurance, through comparison of their performance characteristics. MRE applied in ocean robots developed or under development, including energy conversion and driving principle, is reviewed, such as solar, wind, tides, waves, thermal energy, etc. Many challenges and difficulties are also discussed in energy exploitation and utilization related to ocean robots. Finally, the prospect for the future development of related technologies is proposed in this paper.


The incoming cohorts of PhD students before the pandemic revealed incremental advancement toward a more diverse profession both in the students accepted and in the allocation of funding, the strongest predictor of placement. The 2019-2020 cohort of incoming students was more gender balanced, and women were more likely to receive full funding than men. The rankings and type of institutions students attend, and their own gender, race/ ethnicity, and/ or home country correlate with variations in the levels of funding received, though students generally receive full funding and/or funding for 5+ years. In 2019-2020, incoming doctoral students from other countries were more diverse in terms of gender/ race-ethnicity than those from the United States. While more diverse students attended public institutions than private ones (as opposed to 2018-2019), URMs/ international students at private institutions were more likely to receive full funding than those at public ones.


Congenital heart defects (CHDs) are a group of structural abnormalities of the heart that have a combined incidence of approximately 1% in humans. It is estimated that 4–5% of CHDs are associated with chromosome abnormalities, 1–2% are associated with single gene syndromes, and 1–2% are due to known teratogens, with the rest presumably determined in a multifactorial fashion.1

Conotruncal heart defects (CTHD) represent 15–20% of CHDs.2 CTHDs share similar morphological architecture, with the presence of ventricular outflow tract anomalies but normal great arteries (without transposition) and include tetralogy of Fallot, pulmonary atresia with ventricular septal defect and truncus arteriosus and interrupted aortic arch.3

The most common causes of CTHDs and CHDs are 22q11.2 microdeletion, often detected in DiGeorge syndrome, velocardiofacial syndrome, and conotruncal anomaly face syndrome. Other chromosomal rearrangements are also been reported.1

Congenital disorders of glycosylation (CDGs) are a rapidly growing family of inherited disorders caused by defects in the synthesis of the glycans of glycoproteins or other glycoconjugates4 The most common, CDG-Ia, caused by phosphomannomutase (PMM) deficiency, has been reported in >1000 patients all over the world. In France, >80 families have been diagnosed in the past 10 years. This disorder is clinically heterogeneous and affects the nervous system, either alone (neurological form) or associated with involvement of many other organs, including the heart, liver, gut, and gonads (multisystemic form).5 Typical clinical features …


We investigate the topological defects in atomic spln-1 and spin-2 Bose-Einstein condensates by applying the homotopy group theory. With this rigorous approach we clarify the previously controversial identification of symmetry groups and order parameter spaces for the spin-1 case, and show that the spin-2 case provides a rare example of a physical system with non-Abelian line defects, and the possibility to have winding numbers of 1/3 and its multiples.


Galvin and Prikry defined completely Ramsey sets and showed that the class of completely Ramsey sets forms a σ-algebra containing open sets. However, they used two definitions of completely Ramsey. We show that they are not equivalent as they remarked. One of these definitions is a more uniform property than the other. We call it the uniformly completely Ramsey property. We show that some of the results of Ellentuck, Silver, Brown and Aniszczyk concerning completely Ramsey sets also hold for uniformly completely Ramsey sets. We also investigate the relationships between uniformly completely Ramsey sets, universally measurable sets, sets with the Baire property in the restricted sense and Marczewski sets.


Aim: to present implant restorative treatment and retreatment in light of patient feedback. Summary: A patient with extensive restorative treatment including implant supported fixed prosthodontics is presented as not satisfied with the definitive restorations, which were ultimately rejected and removed. Communication with patient was affected by the fact that he could not use his native language during discussion with the dentists involved in the treatment. Moreover, the majority of dentists who participated in the treatment could not use their native languages. After a number of unsuccessful provisional restorations, decision is made to start over the prosthetic design approach from wax-up stage. Lately, precedence has been given to improved esthetics and lip support, while compromising on other desirable features, such as a smooth, easy to clean emergence profile. The patient was happy with the final outcome and agreed to spend extra time with hygiene measures, while benefiting from better esthetics and lip support. Key learning points: 1. Patient expectations are paramount for treatment success and should be identified early on during evaluation phases. 2. Implant restorations are not without limitations and compromises may be necessary in order to provide an acceptable prosthesis. 3. Definitive restorations should only be fabricated and delivered after assurance that the design provided by provisionals was tried and accepted by the patient.


This paper analyzes the optimal provision of incentives in a sequential testing context. In every period the agent can acquire costly information that is relevant to the principal's decision. Neither the agent's effort nor the realizations of his signals are observable. First, we assume that the principal and the agent are symmetrically informed at the time of contracting. We construct the optimal mechanism and show that the agent is indifferent in every period between performing the test and sending an uninformative message which continues the relationship. Furthermore, in the first period the agent is indifferent between carrying out his task and sending an uninformative message which ends the relationship immediately. We then characterize the optimal mechanisms when the agent has superior information at the outset of the relationship. The principal prefers to offer different contracts if and only if the agent types are sufficiently diverse. Finally, all agent types benefit from their initial private information.


Title: Market Communication in transformation Authors: Gabriella Holm and Christoffer LarssonPurpose/Aim: The purpose of this paper is to examine how market communication at PR-firms in Sweden has changed over the first decade of the 21-century. In 2007 social media expanded on the Swedish market. This had implications for the way we are looking at communication and therefore also the PR business and how they are operating. The aim with this paper is to see how social media have affected marketing communication at PR-firms.Methodology: This paper is based on case studies from Swedish PR-firms. We used five cases from 2003-2005 and five from 2010-2012. We did this to see if there had been a difference in the way PR-firms developed the case with the background that social media expanded to the broad public in 2007.Main Results: From the results we could see that PR-firms have more channels and methods to use in their marketing communication today (2012) than earlier years. Social media has had a big impact on the way we experience communication and also the way PR-firms develop their cases.Period: Fall 2012 Number of pages: 42 Course: Media and Communication studies C University: Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala University. Tutor: Anne-Marie Morhed Keywords: Market Communication, PR, Social Media, New Media, Interactivity


This paper describes some of the design experiences achieved during the design, simulation and characterization of a Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) LNA which has been designed for 24GHz and fabricated in a standard 0.180 µm technology. More specifically, some technological limitations of the CMOS process for mm-wave applications are considered, before showing the outcomes of the schematic and post-layout simulations as well as the measurements and discussing the reasons for the difference between simulations and measurements. It is shown that the simulation results can be significantly improved using Electro-Magnetic (EM) post-layout simulations. Moreover, a post-layout simulation methodology allowing a straightforward integration of the EM simulations into the workflow is proposed.


The literature on policy transfer, diffusion and convergence as well as lesson drawing is burgeoning. The common theme among studies in this field is the concern with 'knowledge about how policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in one political setting (past or present) is used in the development of policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in another political setting' (Dolowitz & Marsh, 2000: 5 my emphasis). With the specific focus on knowledge actors, this paper highlights the roles played by non-state actors who act as 'policy entrepreneurs' and interact with officials in government and international organisation in the international spread of ideas and information. Second, it suggests that transfer is a process that is often facilitated within networks. Third, incorporating concepts about social learning helps account for when transfer is effective or not. Finally, the discussion advocates a more global focus – rather than the focus on transfer within or between OECD countries – to draw greater attention to the coercive character of transfer.


With the increasing proliferation of c-commerce and e-business activities, many service providers are turning to Web caching solutions to move important content and processes closer to end users. Uncertainties in user demand and rapid market changes pose significant impediments to effective cache planning and deployment solutions, however. The authors have developed capacity provision networks to support a specific type of Web caching in the vertical segment of ISPs, NSPs, and similar entities. In this scenario, an entity can be a provider at one time and a user at another, depending on cache capacity requirements.


While often seen as an elitist practice found only in artistic and academic circles, speculative design has grown in popularity and is now practiced in more diverse contexts and with a variety of participants. In order to gain a better understanding of this ostensible 'participatory turn', this paper presents an initial exploration of participatory speculative design based on a pilot survey of recent projects. Using a sample of projects we develop an 8-step hierarchical taxonomy of participation in speculative design that moves from 'spectatorship' to 'reflection', 'inspiration', 'generative reflection', 'shared creativity', 'shared authorship', 'initiative' and, finally, 'ownership'. The taxonomy helps to raise important questions about the character and outcomes of participatory speculative design processes and the role played by designers as agents of the public imagination.


This report summarizes data from foodborne disease outbreaks reported to CDC from 1983 through 1987. With a few exceptions, an outbreak is defined as an incident in which two or more persons experience a similar illness and food is implicated. During this period, 2,397 outbreaks of foodborne disease were reported, representing 91,678 cases. Among outbreaks in which the etiology was determined, bacterial pathogens caused the largest number of outbreaks (66%) and cases (92%). Chemical agents caused 26% of outbreaks and 2% of cases. Parasites caused 4% of outbreaks and less than 1% of cases, and viruses caused 5% of outbreaks and 5% of cases. The discrepancies between the number of outbreaks and the number of cases attributed to each etiologic agent emphasizes the importance of evaluating both numbers before drawing conclusions. The etiologic agent was not determined in 62% of outbreaks, reflecting the need for improved investigative skills. The number of outbreaks reported by this surveillance system is only a small fraction of the true number that occur. The likelihood of an outbreak's being reported depends on many factors, such as ease of recognition and ease of laboratory confirmation. Sporadic foodborne illness is far more common and is not included in this report.


PURPOSE
This article proposes a classification protocol for reporting the outcome of implant overdentures.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Review of the literature pertaining to postinsertion prosthodontic procedures for maxillary and mandibular implant overdentures revealed a wide range in the terminology used and methods of reporting outcome, usually as a result of the use of varying designs among different implant systems. A need for comparative evaluation of the prosthodontic success of implant overdentures was identified.

RESULTS
An existing classification protocol for implant-fixed prostheses containing six objectively defined fields was modified for implant overdentures. This new protocol, which also uses the descriptive fields of success, survival, unknown, dead, and retreatment (repair or failure), provides a method whereby postinsertion prosthodontic procedures and subsequent time to retreatment can be quantified regardless of design, method of attachment, or implant system. A ratio method for identifying prosthodontic treatment cost effectiveness of implant overdentures is included.

CONCLUSION
This protocol could assist clinicians in their choices of implant overdenture therapy by providing accurate comparisons of varying implant overdenture systems and designs, and by identifying prosthodontic treatment cost effectiveness.


Ultrashort pulse generation at the short-wave infrared (SWIR) wavelength ranges from 1.6 to 2.5 μ m and together with benefits of the all-fiber design has transformed lasers into an essential tool for industrial, technological, scientific, environmental, and medical applications. With the development of pumping sources and fiber components, ultrafast SWIR fiber lasers have drawn exceptional research and industrial attention over the last decade, resulting in the achievement of comparable performance or even surpassing well-established near-IR sources. Exceptionally compact, highly stable, cost-effective, and maintenance-free ultrafast fiber lasers operating at the SWIR range are currently well on the way to be commercially employed. This invited Perspective article gives a comprehensive overview of the most significant achievements enabling ultrafast generation at SWIR, including up-to-date gain fibers and saturable absorbers, nonlinear process, and laser architectures. This article highlights the perspectives and strategies for further maturing of the field of SWIR fiber lasers and pathways for the improvement of the performance, overcoming existing bottlenecks and challenges toward reducing pulse durations, tunability of repetition rate, and power upscaling. The advancement of the ultrafast SWIR laser development is projected until the landscape of existing technologies, driven by these ultimate sources, and potential applications, emerging on the horizon.


ABSTRACT Reducing Campylobacter spp. carriage in poultry is challenging, but essential to control this major cause of human bacterial gastroenteritis worldwide. Although much is known about the mechanisms and route of Campylobacter spp. colonization in poultry, the literature is scarce on antibiotic‐free solutions to combat Campylobacter spp. colonization in poultry. In vitro and in vivo studies were conducted to investigate the role of TYPLEX® Chelate (ferric tyrosine), a novel feed additive, in inhibiting Campylobacter jejuni (C. jejuni) biofilm formation and reducing C. jejuni and Escherichia coli (E. coli) colonization in broiler chickens at market age. In an in vitro study, the inhibitory effect on C. jejuni biofilm formation using a plastic bead assay was investigated. The results demonstrated that TYPLEX® Chelate significantly reduces biofilm formation. In an in vivo study, 800 broilers (one d old) were randomly allocated to 4 dietary treatments in a randomized block design, each having 10 replicate pens with 20 birds per pen. At d 21, all birds were challenged with C. jejuni via seeded litter. At d 42, cecal samples were collected and tested for volatile fatty acid (VFA) concentrations and C. jejuni and E. coli counts. The results showed that TYPLEX® Chelate reduced the carriage of C. jejuni and E. coli in poultry by 2 and 1 log10 per gram cecal sample, respectively, and increased cecal VFA concentrations. These findings support TYPLEX® Chelate as a novel non‐antibiotic feed additive that may help produce poultry with a lower public health risk of Campylobacteriosis.


Nowadays, there is an unexpected explosion in the demand for wireless network resources. This is due to the dramatic increase in the number of the emerging web-based services. For wireless computer network, limited bandwidth along with the transmission quality requirements for users, make quality of service (QoS) provisioning a very challenging problem. To overcome spectrum scarcity problem, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has already started working on the concept of spectrum sharing where unlicensed users (secondary users, SUs) can share the spectrum with licensed users (primary users, PUs), provided they respect PUs rights to use spectrum exclusively. Cognitive technology presents a revolutionary wireless communication where users can exploit the spectrum dynamically. The integration of cognitive technology capability into the conventional wireless networks is perhaps the significant promising architectural upgrade in the next generation of wireless network that helps to solve spectrum scarcity problem. In this work, we propose integrating cognitive technology with wireless mesh network to serve the maximum number of SUs by utilizing the limited bandwidth efficiently. The architecture for this network is selected first. In particular, we introduce the cluster-based architecture, signaling protocols, spectrum management scheme and detailed algorithms for the cognitive cycle. This new architecture is shown to be promising for the cognitive network. In order to manage the transmission power for the SUs in the cognitive wireless mesh network, a dynamic power management framework is developed based on machine learning to improve spectrum utilization while satisfying users requirements. Reinforcement learning (RL) is used to extract the optimal control policy that allocates spectrum and transmission powers for the SUs dynamically. RL is used to help users to adapt their resources to the changing network conditions. RL model considers the spectrum request arrival rate of the SUs, the interference constraint for the PUs, the physical properties of the channel that is selected for the SUs, PUs activities, and the QoS for SUs.
In our work, PUs trade the unused spectrum to the SUs. For this sharing paradigm, maximizing the revenue is the key objective of the PUs, while that of the SUs is to meet their requirements and obtain service from the rented spectrum. However, PUs have to maintain their QoS when trading their spectrum. These complex conflicting objectives are embedded in our machine learning model. The objective function is defined as the net revenue gained by PUs from renting some of their spectrum. We use a machine learning to help the PUs to make a decision about the optimal size and price of the offered spectrum for trading. The trading model considers the QoS for PUs and SUs, traffic load at the PUs, the changes in the network conditions, and the revenues of the PUs. Finally, we integrate all the mechanisms described above to build a new cognitive network where users can interact intelligently with network conditions.


Acute cerebral thrombosis and embolism give rise to arterial spasm, edema, and anoxia of the cerebral tissues supplied by the affected artery or arteries. Sympathetic block induced by injecting the stellate ganglion with procaine appears to relieve spasm and results in improved cerebral circulation and clinical improvement in a significant number of cases. Sympathetic block should be combined with the usual supportive measures and not infrequently with anticoagulants. Every effort should be made to institute treatment as soon as possible after the onset of symptoms.


The transcription factor Pitx3 is critical for lens formation. Deletions in the promoter of this gene cause abnormal lens development in the aphakia (ak) mouse mutant, which has only rudimentary lenses. In this study, we investigated the role of Pitx3 in lens development and differentiation. We found that reduced expression of Pitx3 leads to changes in the proliferation, differentiation and survival of lens cells. The genetic interactions between Pitx3 and Foxe3 were investigated, as these two transcription factors are expressed at the same time in lens development and their absence has similar consequences for lens development. We found no evidence that these two genes genetically interact. In general, our study shows that the abnormal phenotype of the ak lenses is not due to just one molecular pathway, rather in the absence of Pitx3 expression multiple aspects of lens development are disrupted. Developmental Dynamics 238:2193–2201, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


: Vascular obstruction as a presumed cause of erectile disability is well documented, both in the large hypogastric arteries and in the smaller internal pudendals and their branches to the penis. Diagnostic methods are currently adequate for demonstrating arterial insufficiency and, perhaps, venous insufficiency. The results of the author's nine cases are described, together with the results and description of various procedures done worldwide.


In Bahamonde et al (2019 arXiv:1907.10858 [gr-qc]), a spherically symmetric black hole (BH) was derived from the quadratic form of f(T). Here we derive the associated energy, invariants of curvature, and torsion of this BH and demonstrate that the higher-order contribution of torsion renders the singularity weaker compared with the Schwarzschild BH of general relativity (GR). Moreover, we calculate the thermodynamic quantities and reveal the effect of the higher-order contribution on these quantities. Therefore, we derive a new spherically symmetric BH from the cubic form of f(T)=T+ϵ12αT2+13βT3 , where ϵ ≪ 1, α, and β are constants. The new BH is characterized by the two constants α and β in addition to ϵ. At ϵ = 0 we return to GR. We study the physics of these new BH solutions via the same procedure that was applied for the quadratic BH. Moreover, we demonstrate that the contribution of the higher-order torsion, 12αT2+13βT3 , may afford an interesting physics.


Some of the most persuasive recent readings of Goblin Market have been those which renew that critical tradition in which this poem--in which Christina Rossetti's work as a whole--is to be understood ultimately in religious terms. Such readings have often incorporated insights from critics who have focused on gender or on sexuality; but, at their strongest, they have been sure enough of their ground to know where they are irreconcilable with readings which have a primarily secular focus. It seems that there does come a point at which not every explanation of what happens in Goblin Market can be defensible. (1) This essay subscribes to the position that readings of Rossetti's work must make sure of their religious ground; yet it does so while maintaining that this religious ground is itself much less sure than is generally supposed. To maintain this is, of course, to risk overstatement--for the criticism which insists on the centrality of religious ideas to Rossetti's work does not form a monolithic corpus. Nevertheless, much of it shares a disinclination to consider the possibility that these religious ideas could themselves be conflicting. It is as if a consistent theological system is tacitly posited and then invoked in order to produce the effect of consistency in Rossetti's work. The contention of this essay is that this could not be more mistaken: that Rossetti's writing repeatedly pivots upon contradiction and obscurity, and that its intellectual rigor is nowhere more evident than in this determination to probe the uncertainties of Christian theology. This is a large contention, one which will not be substantiated in a single essay. But a start may be made by inviting a rereading of Rossetti's most read poem--for is not Goblin Market itself, to go no further, structured upon theological contradiction? I It's worth telling the story once more. A young woman called Laura gets fruit from goblin men, eats it, and longs to eat more of it, but will never find the goblin men again. That's the problem with goblin fruit: those who have tasted it want what they will never get, and dwindle and die dreaming of melons. Yet that's not the only thing goblin fruit does. Laura's sister Lizzie goes to get more of it for her, but the goblin men want Lizzie to eat the fruit too and they try to force it into her mouth. Lizzie resists, and runs home dripping with juice and pulp; then Laura kisses her, and in kissing her tastes the juices once more. The fruits which once had poisoned Laura now cure her. So Laura survives to become a storyteller, telling children the tale of how she had tasted the poisonous fruit and of how her sister had won for her "the fiery antidote"--which was more of that fruit. It was the antidote to itself. What she does not tell the children is why goblin fruit once had the power to poison her and then had the power to restore her. Not only does she not explain this, but there is no suggestion that she ought to explain it. It is as if Laura and these unquestioning children can only know what the fruit did on two occasions, and know that they ought to be thankful that Lizzie got Laura more of the poison that cures. When we read Goblin Market (written 1859, published 1862) we will surely be more demanding than the children: we will want an explanation of the double power of the fruit. We know that the fairy-tale mode of the poem can contain the perfectly inexplicable plot detail; and yet, whatever Rossetti's reported denials of a deep purpose to this poem, our wider reading of her work may lead us to expect that this detail is doing more than tell us that there are things in Fairyland that would be inconceivable in nineteenth-century England. It is therefore important to know that the consumption of substances which could become either poisons or cures was by no means inconceivable in nineteenth-century England; important, too, to know that Christina Rossetti herself consumed such substances--was, indeed, dependent upon them. …


Prohormone or proprotein convertases (PC2) are members of the subtilisin family of serine proteases. They are involved in the activation of precursor molecules by endoproteolytic cleavage at basic amino acid residues within the general motif (K/R)-(X)n- (K/R)2, where n is 0, 2, 4 or 6 and X is usually not Cys. Among the members of this prohormone convertase family, Neuroendocrine Convertase-2 (NEC-2) is regarded as one of the important proteins involved in the maturation of many precursor proteins. Being widely distributed in the neuroendocrine cells, these proteins play a vital role in causing malignant gliomas. They can serve as important drug targets in the treatment of cancers. In the present study, a 3D model of NEC-2 was generated using homology modeling. The model was optimized by a brief energy minimization in CHARMM and dynamics simulation of 250ps in MOE. The validation results of PROCHECK and Profile 3D show that the stereochemical quality of the model is good. The Calpha backbone of the template and the target (NEC-2) when superimposed showed RMSD of 0.39A. The model showed Asp51, His92 and Ser268 in the active site as seen in most of the PC2 members. The NEC-2 structure differs from that of furin at the catalytic pocket region with relevance to the amino acid composition which can be exploited for the design of specific inhibitors towards NEC-2.


Extremely warm, localized heat waves appear to be increasing globally. Since the European summer heat wave of 2003 was preceded by unusual soil moisture conditions, the present study addressed whether anomalies in soil moisture and temperature are correlated temporally and/or spatially in the Northern Hemisphere (NH), and how they may be physically related. Through the exploration of this question, three specific questions were investigated, (1) which years between 1979 and 2012 exhibited spring/summer soil moisture and temperature anomalies exceeding pre-defined thresholds compared to standardized data, (2) whether there are discernible trends in positive and negative soil moisture/temperature anomalies over time and (3) whether areas with anomalous temperatures also experienced soil moisture anomalies. We found that, in a number of regions in the NH, negative soil moisture anomalies in the spring, indicating very dry soil, were significantly correlated with summers with extreme temperatures. A better understanding of the underlying mechanisms causing heat waves, and how they vary over time, offers insight into relationships between atmospheric variability and surface processes.


Discovering patterns from big data attracts a lot of attention due to its importance in discovering accurate patterns and features that are used in predictions of decision making. The challenges in big data analytics are the high dimensionality and complexity in data representation. Granular computing and feature selection are among the challenge to deal with big data analytics that is used for Decision making. We will discuss these challenges in this talk and provide new projection on ensemble learning for health care risk prediction. In decision making most approaches are taking into account objective criteria, however the subjective correlation among different ensembles provided as preference utility is necessary to be presented to provide confidence preference additive among it reducing ambiguity and produce better utility preferences measurement for good quality predictions. Most models in Decision support systems are assuming criteria as independent. Different type of data (time series, linguistic values, interval data, etc.) imposes some difficulties to data analytics due to preprocessing and normalization processes which are expensive and difficult when data sets are raw and imbalanced. We will highlight these issues though project applied to health-care for elderly, by merging heterogeneous metrics for providing health care predictions for elderly at home. We have utilized ensemble learning as multi-classification techniques on multi-data streams that collected from multi-sensing devices. Subjectivity (i.e., service personalization) would be examined based on correlations between different contextual structures that are reflecting the framework of personal context, for example in nearest neighbor based correlation analysis fashion. Some of the attributes incompleteness also may lead to affect the approximation accuracy. Attributes with preference-ordered domain relations properties become one aspect in ordering properties in rough approximations. We outline issues on Virtual Doctor Systems, and highlights its innovation in interactions with elderly patients, also discuss these challenges in granular computing and decision support systems research domains. In this talk I will present the current state of art and focus it on health care risk analysis with examples from our experiments.


To support pipeline integrity initiatives, Spectra Energy (Spectra) undertook to verify the pipeline coating condition on certain pipeline assets by performing DCVG or ACVG surveys on Class 2 and Class 3 locations and in HCA's. The process undertaken was to consider the alignment of coating anomaly indications with ILI anomaly indications and to compare the results of direct examinations to anomaly indications. The alignment and comparison of the data is based upon the analysis of DCVG, ACVG, CIS and ILI data. The results of the direct examinations at the sites in the affected segments were reviewed to evaluate the condition of the pipelines as it relates to specific severity of the identified coating anomalies.This paper will discuss the results and findings of those studies.© 2012 ASME


Twelve patients with trigeminal neuralgia were treated with a daily dose of 2 mg Melitracen and 40 mg Flupenthixol. The majority of patients derived benefit from it. The former drug is a bipolar thymoeleptic and the latter a neuroleptic. There was no adverse side effects. The regime of treatment is recommended in cases that do not respond to conventional treatment.


Malicious domains are one of the major resources required for adversaries to run attacks over the Internet. Due to the important role of the Domain Name System (DNS), extensive research has been conducted to identify malicious domains based on their unique behavior reflected in different phases of the life cycle of DNS queries and responses. Existing approaches differ significantly in terms of intuitions, data analysis methods as well as evaluation methodologies. This warrants a thorough systematization of the approaches and a careful review of the advantages and limitations of every group. In this paper, we perform such an analysis. In order to achieve this goal, we present the necessary background knowledge on DNS and malicious activities leveraging DNS. We describe a general framework of malicious domain detection techniques using DNS data. Applying this framework, we categorize existing approaches using several orthogonal viewpoints, namely (1) sources of DNS data and their enrichment, (2) data analysis methods, and (3) evaluation strategies and metrics. In each aspect, we discuss the important challenges that the research community should address in order to fully realize the power of DNS data analysis to fight against attacks leveraging malicious domains.


Pyrus pyraster is the prevailing native pear species in central Europe. The range of this forest tree species is comparatively large within the temperate zone. In most regions wild pear is very rare and considered to be seriously endangered. Thus, conservation of P. pyraster as part of the natural biodiversity is essential. The species may serve as a genetic resource in breeding programs, e.g., use of resistances existing in a wild species. A precondition for suitable conservation and breeding strategies is the identification of pure wild pears. Introgression from cultivated pears, supposed to be one major threat to the native gene pool, needs to be investigated. In total, 636 genotypes of P. pyraster and P. × communis were analysed. The 316 trees initially selected as P. pyraster originated from Germany (242) and Luxembourg (74). Pear trees growing in Germany belonged to populations in the states Rhineland-Palatinate (101), Saxony-Anhalt (120) and Saxony (21). A total of 320 cultivars, separated into old (238) and modern (82) categories, were provided by collections in Germany and Oregon/USA (NCGR, Corvallis). Accessions have been typed for eight polymorphic isozyme loci. A model-based Bayesian clustering approach was applied to all multilocus genotype data. Wild and cultivated pear trees made up two different gene pools but could not be distinguished very clearly by nuclear markers. However, modern cultivars appeared to be distinct from all other subgroups. The discrimination between 'wild' and 'cultivated' was less obvious than in European apples. The genetic result might be expected when following the evolutionary hypothesis that P. pyraster is one primary progenitor of European cultivars. Morphologically wild pears from natural sites and old cultivars looked quite different. The extent of hybridization between the two major gene pools investigated is hard to assess.


The Cinnamon Ibon inhabits the canopy of cloud-forest of Mindanao Island in the Philippines, and has until now been classified as an aberrant member of the Zosteropidae (white-eyes). We assessed the systematic position of this enigmatic species using DNA sequence data (two mitochondrial markers, two nuclear introns and two nuclear exons) and broad taxon sampling. The species was robustly placed among the granivorous passeroid clades, as a basal branch in the family of true sparrows, Passeridae. Morphological data lend further support, as the Cinnamon Ibon shows similar specialization of the skull as other granivorous passeroids. The species' restricted distribution in the montane cloud-forest of the island of Mindanao, which is of oceanic origin, is difficult to explain without assuming an over-water dispersal event.