The respiratory syndrome caused by a new type of coronavirus has been emerging from China and caused more than one million death globally since December 2019. This new virus, called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) uses the same receptor called Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) to attack humans as the coronavirus that caused the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) seventeen years ago. Both viruses recognize ACE2 through the spike proteins (S-protein) on their surfaces. It was found that the S-protein from the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) bind stronger to ACE2 than SARS-CoV-2. However, function of a bio-system is often under kinetic, rather than thermodynamic, control. To address this issue, we constructed a structural model for complex formed between ACE2 and the S-protein from SARS-CoV-2, so that the rate of their association can be estimated and compared with the binding of S-protein from SARS-CoV by a multiscale simulation method. Our simulation results suggest that the association of new virus to the receptor is slower than SARS, which is consistent with the experimental data obtained very recently. We further integrated this difference of association rate between virus and receptor into a mathematical model which describes the life cycle of virus in host cells and its interplay with the innate immune system. Interestingly, we found that the slower association between virus and receptor can result in longer incubation period, while still maintaining a relatively higher level of viral concentration in human body. Our computational study therefore provides, from the molecular level, one possible explanation that this new pandemic by far spread much faster than SARS.


Class composition for secondary mathematics lessons in England is often decided by measures related to prior attainment, with students grouped with others of similar 'ability' and referred to as 'setting'. Research suggests setting does not raise overall attainment and disadvantages students placed in lower attaining sets, with those students experiencing an impoverished curriculum, such as more 'drill and practice' (Wiliam and Bartholomew, 2004). This classroom-based video study explores mathematics teachers' practice in 'typical' classrooms and changes that come about when they teach sets with different attainment profiles. The Orchestration of Mathematics Framework (OMF) was developed to interpret classroom activities; this framework integrates a range of theoretical perspectives, including variation theory (Marton and Pang, 2006) and classroom norms (Cobb et al., 2009). The application of the OMF in different settings demonstrated it facilitated cross-class comparisons, and while further research is needed, this evidenced the potential of the OMF as an analytical tool. Three teachers participated in this study; for each teacher two sets with different attainment profiles were studied. When the findings were analysed, a complex picture of teachers' practice emerged. There were differences between sets, but many facets of teachers' practice were relatively stable across classes. Some differences reflected previously reported characteristics associated with low attaining sets, such as tighter control over classroom talk (Kutnick et al., 2006), but others were absent; for example, there were no discernible shifts to 'drill and practice'. One common thread was the low frequency of attention being drawn to mathematical concepts beyond that provided by examples. One question raised is whether students in higher attaining sets are those better placed to read the implicit mathematical meanings available in the act of 'doing' tasks.


OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study was to assess the training and readiness levels of Collegiate Emergency Medical Service (EMS) providers to respond to mass casualty incidents (MCIs).

METHODS
An anonymous cross-sectional survey of Collegiate EMS providers was performed.

PARTICIPANTS
Participants were US-based EMS providers affiliated with the National Collegiate Emergency Medical Services Foundation.

OUTCOME MEASURES
The main outcome measures were levels of EMS experience and MCI training, subjective readiness levels for responding to various MCI scenarios, and analyzing the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on MCI response capabilities.

RESULTS
Respondents had a median age of 21 years (interquartile range IQR 20, 22), with 86 percent (n = 96/112) being trained to the Emergency Medical Technician-Basic level. Providers reported participating in an average of 1.6 MCI trainings over the last four years (IQR, 1.0, 2.2). Subjective MCI response readiness levels were highest with active assailant attacks followed by large event evacuations, natural disasters, hazardous material (HAZMAT) incidents, targeted automobile ramming attacks, explosions, and finally bioweapons release. Disparate to this, only 18 percent of participants reported training in the fundamentals of tactical and disaster medicine. With respect to the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on MCI readiness, 27 percent of respondents reported being less prepared, and there was a statistically significant decrease in subjective readiness to respond to HAZMAT incidents.

CONCLUSION
Given low rates of MCI training but high rates of self-assessed MCI preparedness, respondents may overestimate their readiness to adequately respond to the complexity of a real-world MCI. More objective assessment measures are needed to evaluate provider preparedness.


Background: Gastrointestinal helminthes in cattle had prejudge performance and productivity of animals. Affect beef cattle and dairy, generating huge economic losses. Commercial anthelmintics have been administered improperly, promoting the selection of resistant populations, in addition to increasing production costs and waste accumulate in animal products and the environment. It is therefore of great importance to find new alternatives as control. In this quest, was aimed with this study to evaluate the in vitro efficacy of plant aqueous extracts in the inhibition of larval development assay (ILDA) and inhibition of hatchability assay (IHA) of gastrointestinal nematodes of cattle. Materials, Methods & Results: The ILDA was performed by quantitative coproculture , with aqueous extracts of the leaves of Acrocomia aculeata, Anacardium occidentale, Caryocar brasiliense, Cymbopogon citratus, Mangifera indica var. Uba and Musa spp. cv. Prata-ana on the concentration of 100 mg/mL. In the IHA was evaluated the aqueous extracts of leaves and fruit peels of C. brasiliense, at the concentrations 15.00, 7.50, 3.75 and 1.88 mg/mL. The controls of assays were ivermectin (16 μg/mL) and levamisole phosphate solution (15 mg/ml), respectively, and water in both tests. Efficiencies were calculated and count data submitted to analysis of variance and the means were compared by Tukey test (P < 0.01). With the probit regression analysis, we determined the lethal concentration for inhibition of 50 and 90% hatchability (LC50 and LC90). Still, the levels of condensed tannins from aqueous extracts of the leaves and fruit peels of C. brasiliense were quantified. In ILDA, the extract of C. brasiliense showed efficacy of 91.29% and did not differ from ivermectin (P < 0.01). The other extracts did not obtain satisfactory efficacy and were similar to water (P < 0.01). In IHA the efficacy was over 90% for the extracts of the fruit peels and the three largest concentrations did not differ levamisole phosphate. The greater efficacy of leaf extract was 89.15%, to 15.00 mg/mL. The LC50 and LC90 were 0.37 and 1.70 mg/mL for the aqueous extract of the fruit peels, respectively, and 0.043 and 15.88 mg/mL for the aqueous extract of leaves of C. brasiliense. The levels of condensed tannins expressed as cyanidin chloride were 2.7 and 8.3 mg/g of extract for crude extract of the fruit peels and leaves of C. brasiliense, respectively. Discussion: The results shows that of the extracts evaluated only the leaves and fruit peels of C. brasiliense have great potential in the control of gastrointestinal nematodes of cattle. Many research have reported the nematicidal, larvicidal and ovicidal effects of the plants. In general, this anthelmintic activity is due to secondary compounds. Several studies have demonstrated the potential of condensed tannins, saponins, flavonoids, alkaloids, among other metabolites in controlling parasitosis in many animal species. However, the effectiveness of plant extracts can vary with the bioavailability of these metabolites in different parts of the plant, season and sampling period, beyond the specificity of the parasite, producing divergent results between the same plant species. In the case of C. brasiliense, it is believed that anthelmintic potential is consequence of association between condensed tannins and other metabolites, since the extract of the fruit peels showed better efficacy and content of condensed tannins was higher in the leaf extract.


In large academic institutions, students often feel very lost, confused, lonely, and anxious or even a fraud at being there. At Edith Cowan University in Western Australia, researchers identified a gap in provision for Nursing Students which addresses these concerns. This study used a qualitative case study utilising rich narrative and aesthetic expression to explore and describe the experiences of both student mentees and academic mentors over the trajectory of the student's Bachelor Degree programme. Findings emerging show students both want and need academic mentorship but the form upon which that takes is highly individual and changeable as the individuals professional competence and confidence increases; and as a positive and mutually accountable relationship is formed between the parties. While there is overwhelming empirical evidence to support mentorship for students in academic institutions and mentorship for newly Registered Nurses, a paucity of literature exploring academic mentorship of student nurses exists. This research aims to contribute to an emerging yet vital body of knowledge surrounding the notions of support and nurturing of health professionals of the future. A philosophical model proposed by the researchers has been identified as the foundation for this research and will also be explored within this paper.


Abstract Background: Pyoderma gangrenosum (PG) is a neutrophilic disorder which classically presents as chronic, painful ulcers on the lower extremities. There is evidence supporting a potential role for intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) as adjuvant therapy for treatment-resistant cases; however, it is unclear which patients will most benefit from this modality of treatment – an especially important consideration given the cost per infusion ($5000–$10,000). Thus, we sought to identify the clinical characteristics of patients with refractory PG lesions who demonstrated complete healing when IVIG was incorporated into the therapeutic plan. Methods: We performed a literature search of PubMed/MEDLINE and Embase using the keywords 'pyoderma gangrenosum' and 'IVIG'. We also added four institutional cases. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. Significance was set at p < .05. Results: We discovered a total of 45 cases. Twenty-three patients with treatment-resistant PG had complete healing, 22 had partial or unhealed PG ulcers. Patients with one ulcer were 4.1 (95% CI: 1.1–18.5) times more likely to achieve complete healing than patients with more than one ulcer, when IVIG was added (p = .041). Conclusion: There is increased efficacy of IVIG as a treatment for patients with a solitary treatment-resistant PG lesion compared to patients with multiple refractory lesions.


BACKGROUND Publication speeds of clinically relevant veterinary journals have not been evaluated. METHODS We compared 23 prominent veterinary journals to 11 comparable medical and 4 high-impact science journals and examined select factors that might affect these speeds. Submission date, acceptance date and first online publication date were recorded for 50 sequentially identified research articles from each journal that had been published immediately prior to April 26, 2018. Intervals from submission to acceptance, acceptance to publication, and submission to publication were calculated in days for each article. Data were compared visually across all journals, and statistically by field (veterinary, medical, high-impact), by impact factor and by publisher (commercial vs society) to identify trends or differences in publication intervals. RESULTS When assessed by field, intervals from submission to acceptance (p=0.18), acceptance to publication (p=0.75) and submission to publication (p=0.13) did not differ. Individual journals varied slightly in intervals from submission to acceptance, but varied markedly in intervals from acceptance to publication. Three journals had median intervals from acceptance to publication exceeding 135 days and two exceeding 500 days. Three journals had median intervals from submission to publication exceeding 550 days. Neither impact factor nor publication model affected any intervals. Intervals from submission to acceptance and acceptance to publication were positively associated with overall interval from submission to publication (rho=0.7, P<0.0001 for both associations). CONCLUSIONS Intervals from submission to acceptance for veterinary journals are like those for medical and high-impact journals, suggesting that the review process is similar across fields. However, several veterinary journals have intervals from acceptance to publication approaching 18 months.


Although providing support in romantic relationships is important for the well-being of both partners, providing support can be effortful. People have varying implicit theories about the exertion of effort; limited willpower theorists believe that mental resources become exhausted with use, while nonlimited willpower theorists believe that exerting effort can even prepare you for future exertion. While limited willpower theorists are more likely to experience depletion and limitations themselves, they may also be more likely to perceive and empathize with the depletion and limitations of their romantic partners. We conducted a daily diary study (N = 363; 1,429 observations) to examine how willpower theories relate to participants' intentions to support their romantic partners in the evenings. We find that limited theorists report their partners as more tired (predicting more intention to support)—however, limited theorists also report more fatigue and lower mood themselves (predicting less intention to support). Overall, limited willpower beliefs were associated with less, not more, intent to support one's partner for the rest of the evening. Even if limited willpower theories improve people's abilities to perceive their partner's fatigue, at the end of the day, they may not feel they have the mental resources to support their romantic partners.


Background/Aims: Genome-wide association studies have led to the identification of several susceptibility genes for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that the associations between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in these genes and adiposity and glucose homeostasis-related phenotypes are influenced by dietary fat intake. Methods: Thirty-three SNPs in 9 T2DM genes (CDKAL1, CDKN2A/B, HHEX, HNF1B, IGF2BP2, KCNJ11, SLC30A8, TCF7L2 and WFS1) were tested in a maximum of 669 subjects from the Quebec Family Study. Subjects were measured for several adiposity indices and underwent a 75-gram oral glucose tolerance test. Total fat intake was estimated from a 3-day dietary record. Results: We observed 13 significant (p ≤ 0.01) SNP-dietary fat interactions. Among them, IGF2BP2 rs4402960, alone or in interaction with dietary fat intake, influenced abdominal total fat (ATF: SNP effect, p = 0.006, interaction effect, p = 0.009) and abdominal visceral fat (AVF: SNP effect, p = 0.007, interaction effect, p = 0.01). Similarly, TCF7L2 rs12573128 alone or in interaction with dietary fat intake, influenced insulin sensitivity (SNP effect and interaction effect, p ≤ 0.008) and glucose tolerance (SNP effect p ≤ 0.009 and interaction effect, p ≤ 0.01). Conclusion: These results suggest that gene-dietary fat interactions may influence glucose homeostasis-related phenotypes and play an important role in determining the increased risk of diabetes associated with the T2DM susceptibility genes.


Since deep learning workloads perform a large number of matrix operations on training data, GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) are efficient especially for the training phase. A cluster of computers each of which equips multiple GPUs can significantly accelerate the deep learning workloads. More specifically, a back-propagation algorithm following a gradient descent approach is used for the training. Although the gradient computation is still a major bottleneck of the training, gradient aggregation and optimization impose both communication and computation overheads, which should also be reduced for further shortening the training time. To address this issue, in this paper, multiple GPUs are interconnected with a PCI Express (PCIe) over 10Gbit Ethernet (10GbE) technology. Since these remote GPUs are interconnected with network switches, gradient aggregation and optimizers (e.g., SGD, AdaGrad, Adam, and SMORMS3) are offloaded to FPGA-based 10GbE switches between remote GPUs; thus, the gradient aggregation and parameter optimization are completed in the network. The proposed FPGA-based 10GbE switches with the four optimizers are implemented on NetFPGA-SUME board. Their resource utilizations are increased by PEs for the optimizers, and they consume up to 56% of the resources. Evaluation results using four remote GPUs connected via the proposed FPGA-based switch demonstrate that these optimizers are accelerated by up to 3.0x and 1.25x compared to CPU and GPU implementations, respectively. Also, the gradient aggregation throughput by the FPGA-based switch achieves up to 98.3% of the 10GbE line rate. key words: deep learning, FPGA switch, remote GPU


The automatic extraction of meta data from wiki articles has to be carried out when saving a new article. The meta data types to extract are known in advance, e. g. as a consequence of an automatic classification of the text. Before the automatic extraction, a training has to be performed. Therefore the system is designed as a classification system, using the possible meta data types as classes. These classes are assigned to natural language expressions which were extracted from the article text. As a test data set, we use some Wikipedia articles and their according DBpedia data, which represent sample meta data. A Named Entity Recognition is used for the retrieval of candidates. Then, semantic, syntactic and lexical features are extracted. For the classification, a decision tree learner, a k-nearest neighbour classifier and a naive bayes classifier are compared.


This paper investigates how localization knowledge of primary users impacts the sum-rate performance of a secondary system in an underlay cognitive radio setting. Two different probabilistic models for the primary users' location information are assumed, one uniform distribution and the other with Gaussian distribution. The interplay between the achievable rate of the secondary system and the primary users' location information under the AWGN and a fading channel model are presented and analyzed. Investigations are carried out for different propagation environments, localization models and primary-secondary user settings. Results show that the relationship between the secondary system sum-rate and the primary users' location information depends on the number of primary and secondary users, as well as the propagation environment. Empirical expressions for the sum-rate are proposed for different localization probability distributions.


We recently proposed the use of coefficients extracted from the 2D discrete cosine transform (DCT) of log Mel filter bank energies to improve speaker recognition over the traditional Mel frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC) with appended deltas and double deltas (MFCC/deltas). Selection of relevant coefficients was shown to be crucial, resulting in the proposal of a zig-zag parsing strategy. While 2D-DCT coefficients provided significant gains over MFCC/deltas, the parsing strategy remains sensitive to the number of filter bank outputs and the analysis window size. In this work, we analyze this sensitivity and propose two new data-driven methods of utilizing DCT coefficients for speaker recognition: rankDCT and pcaDCT. The first, rankDCT, is an automated coefficient selection strategy based on the highest average intra-frame energy rank. The alternate method, pcaDCT, avoids the need for selection and instead projects DCT coefficients to the desired dimensionality via principal component analysis (PCA). All features including MFCC/deltas are tuned on a subset of the PRISM database to subsequently highlight any parameter sensitivities of each feature. Evaluated on the recent NIST SRE'12 corpus, pcaDCT consistently outperforms both rankDCT and zzDCT features and offers an average 20% relative improvement over MFCC/deltas across conditions.


A serosurvey of Toxoplasma gondii infection in apparently healthy subjects (n=404) living in Achham (n=215) and Dang (n=189) districts in western Nepal was carried out. An interview with 249 participants, each representing a household, was also conducted. This interview pertained to their meat eating habits and the keeping of cats in their houses. Toxoplasma antibodies were detected by using the microlatex agglutination test. The overall seroprevalence was 65.3% with no significant difference in the two districts (Achham: 66.9% and Dang: 63.5%) included (p=0.546). Females and the Indo-Aryan ethnic-group showed marginally higher prevalence compared with their male (p=0.545) and Tibeto-Burman (p=0.075) counterparts. The majority of the infections was found to have occurred during childhood. The frequency of meat eating in western and eastern regions differed greatly (p=0.000) with the people in the eastern region being frequent meat eaters than those in the western region. About one-third of the subjects, all Indo-Aryans, in the western region had the raw meat eating habit but none in the eastern region. Approximately 7.0% of households in both western and eastern regions kept cats. The present findings demonstrated a typical role of meat eating habits of people in the high Toxoplasma seroprevalence in Nepal.


Author(s): Kataoka, Reiko | Advisor(s): Ohala, John J.; Johnson, Keith | Abstract: In this dissertation I investigated, by using coarticulatory /u/-fronting in the alveolar context for a case study, how native speakers of American English produce coarticulatory variations and how they perceive and reproduce continuously varying speech sounds that are heard in coarticulatory and non-coarticulatory contexts. The production study addressed the question of whether in American English coarticulatory fronting of /u/ in alveolar contexts is an inevitable consequence of production constraints or if it is produced by active speaker control. The study found that: (1) the relative acoustic difference between the fronted /u/ and the non-fronted /u/ remained across an elicited range of vowel duration; and (2) the degree of acoustic variability was less for the fronted /u/ than the non-fronted /u/. These results indicate that speakers of American English have a distinct and more narrowly specified articulatory target for the fronted /u/ in the alveolar context than for the non-fronted /u/. The perception study addressed the issue of individual variation and compensation for coarticulation. The study found within-subject consistency in classification of /CVC/ stimuli both in compensatory and non-compensatory contexts. The study found no evidence for a within-subject perception-production link, but did find positive evidence for the relationship between linguistic experience and speech perception--the similarity between the distributional characteristics of the fronted and the non-fronted variants of /u/ in production data (a proxy for ambient language data) and the ranges of variation in perceptual responses toward /CVC/ stimuli in the fronting and the non-fronting contexts. Together, these results suggest that the source of individual variation in speech perception is the differences in the phonological grammar (perceptual category boundary) that guide speech perception, and that this perception grammar emerges in response to the ambient language data. Finally, the vowel repetition study examined how perceptual compensation for coarticulation and individual differences in speech perception affect vowel repetition performance. This study found that: (1) ambiguous vowels were repeated with a significantly lower F2 when the vowels were heard in the fronting context than in the non-fronting context; (2) a given stimulus was repeated by some listeners un-ambiguously as the vowel belonging to the speaker's /i/ category for all trials, yet the same stimulus was repeated by other listeners un-ambiguously as vowels belonging to that speaker's /u/ category for all trials; and (3) the perceptual category boundary was a significant predictor for the repeated vowel's F2 value. Based on these results, it was hypothesized that one source of pronunciation variation in a given community is individual variation in speech perception that contributes variable mental representations across listeners when they encounter ambiguous speech.One general pattern that was found in all experiments was vowel-specific variability: responses to /i/ were less variable than responses to /u/ in a production task, and /i/-like stimuli were repeated less variably than /u/-like stimuli in a vowel repetition task. Similarly, between /u/ in fronting and non-fronting contexts, /u/ elicited less variability in the fronting context than in the non-fronting context consistently in the production, perception, and vowel repetition tasks. More broadly, I contend that speech forms a dynamic system, characterized by mutual dependency and multiple causal loops between and among speech perception, speech production, knowledge about pronunciation norm, and ambient language data. These properties in language use govern the output of communicative interactions among members in a speech community, and one such output is member's knowledge of multiple sub-phonemic pronunciation categories that exist in any speech community. Additionally, I argue that any speech community is in a constant state of readiness to respond to an innovative pronunciation as a new community norm, because members have a variable but rich pronunciation repertoire even when there is no observable community-level sound change.


Mercaptobenzoic acid-palladium(0) complexes show high catalytic activity for S-benzylation with benzylic alcohols via the (η(3)-benzyl)palladium(II) cation in water. Notably, these palladium(0) complexes could play an important role in formation of active (η(3)-benzyl)palladium(II) cation complexes followed by S-benzylation. Hammett studies on the rate constants of S-benzylation by various substituted alcohols show good correlation between log(kX/kH) and the σ(+) value of the respective substituents. From the slope, negative ρ values are obtained, suggesting that there is a build-up of positive charge in the transition state. Water plays an important role in the catalytic system for sp(3) C-O bond activation and stabilization of the activated Pd(II) cation species. The catalytic system can be performed using only 2.5 mol% Pd2(dba)3 without the phosphine ligand or other additives.


In this paper I am going to be discussing, primarily, the representation of blindness in film but this will be the case study disability for a developing wider discussion around how disability is represented and discussed in films and other art forms. As part of this engagement I shall firstly outline some historical and mythical continuities in how disabilities, and specifically blindness, are often represented but also begin to look at these ideas within the contexts of postmodernism and the disavowal of the imperfect body how films which represent disability, ultimately, are dealing with social abjection and putting "forward the unpresentable in presentation itself" ( Lyotard, 1983).


Abstract Dipeptidyl-peptidase-4 (DPP-4) is an enzyme having various properties and physiological roles in lipid accumulation, resistance to anticancer agents, and immune stimulation. DPP-4 includes membrane-bound peptidases and is a kind of enzyme that cleaves alanine or proline-containing peptides such as incretins, chemokines, and appetite-suppressing hormones (neuropeptide) at their N-terminal dipeptides. DPP-4 plays a role in the final breakdown of peptides produced by other endo and exo-peptidases from nutritious proteins and their absorption in these tissues. DPP-4 enzyme activity has different modes of action on glucose metabolism, hunger regulation, gastrointestinal motility, immune system function, inflammation, and pain regulation. According to the literature survey, as DPP-4 levels increase in individuals with liver conditions, up-regulation of hepatic DPP-4 expression is likely to be the cause of glucose intolerance or insulin resistance. This review majorly focuses on the cleavage of alanine or proline-containing peptides such as incretins by the DPP-4 and its resulting conditions like glucose intolerance and cause of DPP-4 level elevation due to some liver conditions. Thus, we have discussed the various effects of DPP-4 on the liver diseases like hepatitis C, non-alcoholic fatty liver, hepatic regeneration and stem cell, hepatocellular carcinoma, and the impact of elevated DPP-4 levels in association with liver diseases as a cause of glucose intolerance and their treatment drug of choices. In addition, the effect of DPP-4 inhibitors on obesity and their negative aspects are also discussed in brief.


Pulmonary eosinophilic diseases are a heterogeneous group of infiltrative lung diseases characterized by abnormally increased numbers of eosinophils within the lung parenchyma and sometimes blood eosinophilia. The typical radiographic finding is a photographic negative of pulmonary edema. We report a case with an unusual chest x-ray. A 48-year-old man with a history of mild chronic asthma for 8 years presented with progressively worsening shortness of breath and dry cough. He had no significant past medical history and was a lifetime non-smoker. On initial examination, he was oriented with no cyanosis or clubbing and was not in acute distress. He was afebrile with stable vitals and a respiratory rate of 18/min. Chest auscultation was significant for diffuse bilateral wheezing. Heart sounds were audible with no murmurs or gallop. No extremity edema, skin rashes or lymphadenopathy were noted. Laboratory values revealed a white cell count of 4.4 k/cmm (4.5-10.5 k/cmm) with normal hematocrit and platelets. Abnormally elevated eosinophil count of 28% (0-8%) was noted. Rest of the lab values were normal. Chest x-ray showed a slight fullness in the left suprahilar region and left upper lobe. CT scan of the chest confirmed a 2.3 × 1.6 cm irregular soft tissue mass in the medial left upper lobe. PET scan revealed an intense uptake in the left upper lobe lung lesion. Pulmonary function test showed a mild ventilator defect. A bronchoscopy with bronchoalveolar lavage showed neutrophilia with greater than 40% eosinophils. Transbronchial biopsy as well as CT guided FNAC of the left upper lung mass showed numerous tissue eosinophils with Charcot laden crystals. Later lab test showed an elevated IgE of 2362 IU/mL (0-158 IU/mL) but precipitin antibody test and the skin test for Aspergillus was negative. The specific IgG and IgE to Aspergillus was also negative. The sputum culture was negative for fungal, mycobacterial, and bacterial cultures. Four weeks of empiric prednisone therapy were initiated as patient refused an open lung biopsy. The lung mass disappeared and symptoms improved with the treatment. ICEP is a rare disorder with nonspecific symptoms. It is important to exclude other causes of eosinophilic pneumonias. Awareness of wide spectrum of clinical manifestation and prompt treatment would cure the symptoms and avoid unnecessary invasive tests and interventions.


In this paper we study blow-up and lifespan estimate for solutions to the Cauchy problem with small data for semilinear wave equations with scattering damping and negative mass term. We show that the negative mass term will play a dominant role when the decay of its coefficients is not so fast, thus the solutions will blow up in a finite time. What is more, we establish a lifespan estimate from above which is much shorter than the usual one.


ABSTRACT A population of the invasive Prussian carp (Carassius gibelio) was examined over a three-year period in a mesotrophic reservoir to find out interannual variations of fecundity and egg size and the influence of maternal condition (total length, TL, and age class) and environmental factors (water temperature and fish density) on these variables. Prussian carp reproduction was synchronous, with only a single batch, and fecundity ranged from 1,250 to 62,400 eggs per female. Relative fecundities and egg size showed no significant between-year differences. Fecundity increased with age, whereas egg diameter remained unchanged with age and TL. Fecundity was affected positively by TL and negatively by fish density, whereas temperature had no significant effect. Egg size was not affected by fish density or temperature.


The COVID-19 pandemic forced governments around the world to make tough political decisions about the cost of saving lives and the limits of doing so. One of the striking aspects of the debates over these necessary tradeoffs is the relatively little weight individual rights seemed to have carried in these discussions. At first, this might have seen the triumph of cost-benefit analysis (CBA); and in a sense, it was. However, the pandemic has also shown the limitations of CBA, especially in the face of severe uncertainty. This essay reviews some of the sources of uncertainty in the context of the pandemic and shows how, in the face of such uncertainty, different countries fall back onto their political commitments, which include concern for individual rights. I thus argue that rather than being in competition to CBA, political considerations (including concern for individual rights) end up being incorporated into an impressionistic calculation of costs and benefits of government action. I conclude by suggesting that this is where future discussion of the theoretical foundations of CBA should focus on.


Investigations into g-tolerance of female cosmonauts during descent in space flights of varying duration are topical for the present day, as there are little data on this issue. Tolerance of +Gz-loads during descent was analyzed based on the data about 4 female cosmonauts in 5 space flights. The space flights were conventionally divided into short- (8-16 days) and long-term (169 days). In two space flights (16 and 169-d long), tubeless anti-g suit Centaur was warn during descent. In these space flights, g-tolerance of females was quite satisfactory advocating for the possibility for women to fly to space without any constraints. When the anti-g suit was not used, female physiological systems were stressed heavier than male. The spacesuit smoothed away this difference. Our results evidence a distinct positive effect of wearing the anti-g suit by female cosmonauts during descent as it reduces stress to their physiological systems.


This paper examines how and why learner resistance (to the teacher's goals and expectations) occurred in a metacognition-training (MT) project, which aimed to enhance reflection and autonomy in EFL learning. MT was integrated into a regular EFL reading course for second-year BA TEFL undergraduates at a Chinese university. Learner resistance in the MT project was manifested partly through mismatches between the goals and expectations on the part of the teacher and the students. After suggesting initial reasons for learner resistance, the paper explores more complex explanations. That is, at a more macro level, institutional pressures and societal expectations arising from an influential national test (TEM-4) gave rise to an examination culture; at a more micro level, these controlling pressures and expectations were realized by the pragmatic product-oriented approach in the EFL classroom and by students' positioning as examination learners. These might help explain why learner resistance occurred in the MT project. The paper notes in the end that learner resistance is also a matter of tensions and conflicts in learner and teacher agendas, and in learners' short-term and long-term priorities in learning. Based on this, implications for EFL teaching and learning are explored.


Wireless multi-hop ad hoc and sensor networks provide a promising solution to ensure ubiquitous connectivity for the Future Internet. Good network connectivity requires designing a reliable Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol, which is a challenging task in the ad hoc and sensor environments. The broadcast and shared nature of the wireless channel renders the bandwidth resources limited and expose the transmissions to relatively high collisions and loss rates. The necessity to provide guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS) to the upper layers triggered the design of conflict-free MAC protocols. The TDMA synchronization constraint is basically behind the rush of MAC protocol design based on a fixed frame size. This design shows inflexibility towards network variations and creates a network dimensioning issue that leads to a famine risk in case the network is under-dimensioned, and to a waste of resources, otherwise. Moreover, the alternative dynamic protocols provide more adaptive solutions to network topology variations at the expense of a fair access to the channel. Alongside with the efficient channel usage and the fair medium access, reducing the energy consumption represents another challenge for ad hoc and sensor networks. Solutions like node activity scheduling tend to increase the network lifetime while fulfilling the application requirements in terms of throughput and delay, for instance. Our contributions, named OSTR and S-OSTR, address the shortcomings of the medium access control protocol design in the challenging environment of wireless multi-hop ad hoc and sensor networks, respectively. For OSTR the idea consists in adopting a dynamic TDMA frame size that increases slot-by-slot according to the nodes arrival/departure to/from the network, and aiming to achieve a minimum frame size. For this end, OSTR couples three major attributes: (1) performing slot-by-slot frame size increase, (2) providing a spatial reuse scheme that favors the reuse of the same slot if possible, (3) and ensuring an on-demand frame size increase only according to the node requirements in terms of throughput. To tackle different frame sizes co-existence in the network, OSTR brings a cooperative solution that consists in fixing an appointment, a date when the frame size in the network is increased. Concerning S-OSTR, it is an amendment of OSTR for wireless sensor networks. It brings the idea of a dynamic active period, since it deploys a dynamic frame size that is built slot-by-slot according to nodes arrival to the network. S-OSTR enforces the slot-by-slot frame size increase by a node activity scheduling to prolong the inactivity period in the network, and hence prolong the overall network lifetime for wireless sensor networks. Our contributions are both based on the new dynamic TDMA frame size increase that consists in increasing the frame size slot-by-slot aiming to achieve a shorter frame size, and hence improve the channel utilization, and reduce the energy consumption. The performance analysis of OSTR and S-OSTR shows that they present good potentials to support QoS requirements, to provide energy-efficiency, to ensure fair medium access, to accommodate network topology changes and finally, to enhance robustness against scalability. The impact of this new TDMA frame size increase technique on the medium access control protocol performance is highlighted through multiple simulations of OSTR and S-OSTR. Multiple comparative studies are also handled to point out the effectiveness of this new technique and the soundness of our contributions


The vast majority of patients with angina due to underlying coronary artery disease can have their symptoms adequately controlled by anti-anginal drugs, percutaneous coronary intervention or coronary artery bypass surgery. There is, however, a cohort of patients with extensive coronary artery disease whose angina persists despite medical treatment and who are not suitable for conventional revascularisation procedures. A variety of treatments have been used in this patient group, including cognitive behavioural therapy, precordial transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, spinal cord stimulator implantation, intermittent local anaesthetic, sympathectomy, opioids, external enhanced counter pulsation, percutaneous myocardial laser revascularisation (PMR) and transmyocardial laser revascularisation (TMR). The last two treatments have recently been evaluated by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).

TMR is a surgical procedure carried out under general anaesthesia and was first described in 1983. High-energy lasers are used to create channels within the wall of the left ventricular myocardium. The original theory was that these channels carried blood from the ventricular cavity into the myocardium, thereby relieving the symptoms of myocardial ischaemia. This was based on the model of the reptilian heart, in which the left ventricle is directly perfused from endothelium-lined channels which radiate out from the cavity of the left ventricle. This mechanism of action is unlikely, since the channels have been shown to occlude in the weeks following surgery. Other theories on the mechanism of action include the development of new blood vessels (angiogenesis) and also damage to the nerve supply of the heart (denervation). It is possible that there may be a placebo effect which contributes to the improvement in patient's symptoms.

The area to be treated …


BACKGROUND
There has been disagreement over the significance of bacteriuria in nursing home residents.

METHODS
During an 18-month period, the risks and consequences of bacteriuria (BU) in 195 residents of a skilled nursing facility without indwelling catheters were examined. Clinical and epidemiologic data and urine for culture were collected every 2 weeks to identify risk factors, symptoms, and occurrences of BU. A mean of 23 cultures per resident was collected.

RESULTS
Forty-three percent of the study population (35% of men; 47% of women) had "persistent BU" defined as > 10(5) cfu/ml of urine on > 25% of an individual's collected cultures. Women with persistent BU more frequently were incontinent of bowel and bladder (OR 5.3, 6.3, respectively), more likely to be functionally disabled (OR 3.2), to carry a diagnosis of dementia (OR 2.4), and less likely to have suffered a stroke (OR 0.40). Cancer (OR 6.5) was the only risk factor for persistent BU in men. The number of antibiotic courses prescribed, frequency of hospitalizations, and mortality rates were not significantly different between the two BU groups in either men or women.

CONCLUSIONS
Persistent BU is common in nursing home residents. The association of bowel and bladder incontinence and functional disability with persistent bacteriuria suggests that treatment or prevention of these risk factors may prevent or decrease the incidence of bacteriuria. There was no evidence of significant adverse outcomes resulting directly from the bacteriuric state. Higher mortality in the bacteriuric group was the result of underlying functional debility and severity of illness rather than the presence or persistence of BU.


The purpose of this study is to separate hydrophobic and hydrophilic OPPs using micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) with on-column UV detection and the challenge of decreasing the detection limit was met by online preconcentration methods. Successful separation of hydrophobic OPPs (methidathion, diazinon, quinalphos, chlorpyrifos and profenofos) was achieved by NM-MEKCSDS that comprised a separation buffer of 10 mM phosphate-borate (pH 9.3), 10 mM SDS and 10 % v/v 1:1 mixture of methanol-acetonitrile, where sample was prepared in similar buffer matrix and was injected by electrokinetic mode. Using online sample pre-concentration technique called sweeping (sweeping-NM-MEKC-SDS), sensitivity enhancement factors either in terms of peak areas (SEFarea) or in terms of peak heights (SEFheight) were found to be more than 10 for each pesticide. In reverse migration MEKC (RM-MEKC-SDS) with highly acidic separation buffer, only three OPPs viz. methidathion, quinalphos and either diazinon, profenofos or chlorpyrifos were resolved, as possible optimization scheme were unable to resolve the co-elution of diazinon, profenofos and chlorpyrifos. LODs in sub-ppm ranges were found attainable in sweeping-NM-MEKC-SDS. Hydrophilic OPPs (phosphamidon, dicrotophos and monocrotophos) were successfully separated in both basic and acidic phosphate buffer. A 100-fold improvement in detector response was achieved by stacking in reverse migrating micelles (SRMM) that corroborated the LODs in subppm level.


The Market Research Society (MRS) is the professional industry body for those producing and using techniques for market, social and economic research. Over the last forty years the UK market research industry has gone from strength to strength and the MRS has grown alongside it. In 1946, the inaugural year for the MRS, there were 23 members. Today the Society has over 6,500 members, making it the largest market research organisation in the world. In 1988 the 350 market research companies who employ the majority of these individuals had a turnover in excess of £300 million. Thirty‐two of the largest companies who form the Association of Market Survey Organisations (AMSO), representing 80% of the industry's turnover, had a growth in combined turnover of 15% in 1988 and their overseas subsidiaries accounted for a turn‐over of £100 million. The Association of British Market Research Companies (ABMRC) representing many of the other research companies also reports a substantial growth in turnover. Evidently market research in the UK is in a very healthy state, but who buys it, and what is its future?


This paper presents a novel feature extraction method, local orientation gradient XoR patterns (LOGXoRP) for image indexing and retrieval. The LOGXoRP encodes the exclusive OR (XoR) operation between the center pixel and its surrounding neighbors of quantized orientation and gradient values. Whereas local binary patterns (LBP) and local gradient patterns (LGP) encode the relationship between the gray values of center pixel and its neighbors. We show that the LOGXoRP can extract effective texture (edge) features as compared to LBP and LGP. The performance of the proposed method is tested by conducting two experiments on Corel-5K and Corel-10K databases. The results after being investigated the proposed method shows a significant improvement in terms of their evaluation measures as compared to LBP, LGP and other existing state-of-art techniques on respective databases.


The interaction between predators and their prey is a key factor driving population dynamics and shaping wildlife communities. Most predators will scavenge in addition to killing their own prey, which alters predation effects and implies that one cannot treat these as independent processes. However, the relative importance of predation vs. scavenging and the mechanisms driving variation of such are relatively unstudied in ecological research on predator-prey relationships. Foraging decisions in facultative predators are likely to respond to environmental conditions (e.g., seasonality) and inter- or intraspecific interactions (e.g., prey availability, presence of top predators, scavenging competition). Using data on 41 GPS-collared wolverines (Gulo gulo) during 2401 monitoring days, in four study sites in Scandinavia, we studied variation in diet and feeding strategies (predation vs. scavenging), along a gradient of environmental productivity, seasonality, density, and body mass of their main prey, semidomestic reindeer (Rangifer tarandus). The most important factor affecting the relative extent of predation and scavenging was mean prey body mass. Predation was more pronounced in summer, when vulnerable reindeer calves are abundant, and individual kill rates were negatively related to local reindeer body mass. This relationship was absent in winter. The probability of scavenging was higher in winter and increased with decreasing local reindeer body mass, likely as a response to increased carrion supply. Wolverine feeding strategy was further influenced by predictable anthropogenic food resources (e.g., slaughter remains from hunted ungulates) and the presence of a top predator, Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), which provided a continuous carrion supply promoting scavenging. Our results suggest that wolverine feeding strategies are flexible and strongly influenced by seasonally dependent responses to prey body condition in combination with carrion supply. This study demonstrates that large-scale environmental variation can result in contrasting predator feeding strategies, strongly affecting trophic interactions and potentially shaping the dynamics of ecological communities.


This study examines the impact of target deposit, unethical practices and employees' dissatisfaction in Nigerian banking sector. The study revealed that there is no significance difference in the opinion expressed by both male and female employees on the unethical issues they are exposed to in order to achieve their target deposit mobilization. The study also shows that employees are dissatisfied with the challenges they went through ranging from bribery to win accounts, indecent dressing by female employees' to seduce rich men, sexual harassment, blackmail and eventually suffering from hypertension for inability to meet the set target deposit mobilization. It shows that employees' were exposed to so many challenges to retain their jobs with their respective banks which have serious consequences on their personal lives as well as their careers in the banking profession. The study recommends that the Central Bank of Nigeria should ban this practice in the banking sector.


Area development in the Netherlands is experiencing serious difficulties as a result of the financial crisis. Before the crisis, municipality, developer and investor had a positive return on investment. Currently, new developments hardly even get started. Urban development is stagnating. The traditional revenue model, existing of the subsequent activities of land development, real estate development and real estate operation, does not function any more. Municipalities in the Netherlands therefore loose an important instrument in influencing the spatial quality and adequate housing.
Pension funds are also hit by the crisis. They try to meet their coverage ratios while using rigorous measures. To make sufficient earnings on their investments, they seek for investment opportunities that fit their desired risk/return profile. During the crisis, pension funds get a lot of political attention and it is often stated that Dutch pension funds should invest their capital inside the Netherlands. Through this the Dutch economy will be stimulated. It is not stated though, how this should be done.
Therefore, this research aims to make recommendations to municipalities about how pension funds can be involved in area development in order to break the stagnation.
Problem statement
How can pension funds get involved as investors in area development to develop a new revenue model for area development?
Theory
This research focuses on the initiation phase of cooperation between municipality and pension fund, resulting in a joint letter of intent. In this letter of intent the most important starting points for cooperation are captured. When pension funds invest in area development, an important part of the content of this letter of intent is their conditions for a potential investment. These conditions are subjects of research. Also the success factors that influence the process of cooperation in the initiation phase are researched.
Conditions for investing
Pension funds have the task to provide their clients with a sufficient pension. To do this, pension funds make the total deposit of their clients grow. They do this by investing the total capital. Because of their liabilities pension funds are directed at return on their investment in the long run and with a low risk profile.
The basic principle of investment theory (modern portfolio theory) is 'synergy through diversification'. In short, this means that there is reduction of risk when total capital is invested in various asset classes; an example of this is real estate. To determine the required return on investment, the risk of an investment is compared to the average market risk (by using the capital asset pricing model).
Real estate is one of the most important disciplines that add value in area development. Therefore, the factors that determine the risk of a real estate asset are formulated using literature. These factors are important for selecting a property investment and they serve as the base for the conditions for investing in area development.
Success factors for cooperation in the initiation phase
Van Bortel et al. (2007) state that because of its complexity, area development can only take place when various actors take joint action. Accordingly, this research describes the practice of area development as a network: "a number of actors with different goals and interests and different resources, who depend on each other for the realization of their goals" (De Bruijn & Ten Heuvelhof, 2008).
The revenue model of area development describes the financial course of area development. Through cooperation, actors attempt to create and claim value in this model. This is described using negotiation theory (Yousefi et al., 2007).
Using network theory, negotiation theory and area development literature (that applies these theories), success factors for the initiation phase of cooperation are formulated. These are also operationalized to be used in practice.
Research Method
This research is carried out at AT Osborne, a management- and consultancy agency in Baarn that solves spatial problems. The reason for choosing this agency, while conducting this research, is because it frequently advices various municipalities. This research was designed using the Business Problem Solving method of Van Aken (2007). Data collection was achieved through interviews with pension funds and developers, expert meetings with consultants of municipalities and through a case study.
Conclusions
Problems in area development
The financial crisis catalyzes change in the practice of area development, summarized by Van Delden (2011) in the following (and confirmed by the interviews).
- Drop in demand in the housing construction through strongly increased uncertainties for buyers;
- Restrained attitude of financers, demanded presale percentages rise;
- Appreciation of ground and property declines, book values are higher than market value;
- Increasing financial and liquidity problems at, for example, municipalities and developers because of a decline in value of acquired lands, among other things.
All this leads to a decline in the production of real estate, real estate investments and employment. Subsequently, housing construction and area development stagnate and movement in the housing market stops. Boudewijn and Franzen state that cooperation and thinking in terms of the whole value chain is crucial to break this stagnation (Bijsterveld et al, 2011). Through this, it is plausible to argue for the involvement of investors (and more specific: pension funds) early in the process.


Preface Introduction Organising Committee Scientific and Technical Committee Collaborating Institutions Sponsoring Organisations With Exhibition Exhibiting Organisations Supporting Institutions Opening Paper Sustainable Concrete Structures - A Win-Win Situation for Industry and Society THEME 1 EFFICIENT USE OF ENERGY AND RAW MATERIALS Keynote paper Sustainable Development in Construction - Theory, Feasibility and Practice Using Raw Materials and Energy Properties of Fly Ash from Real-Scale Co-Combustion Experiments Waste Generation Issues in Petroleum Producing Communities in Nigeria Study of Early Hydration of Cement Pastes Containing Alternative Calcium Sulfate Bearing Materials Peculiarities of Synthesizing Artificial Zeolites on a Fly Ash Basis and their Usage for Modification of Specially Destined Concrete Performance of Concrete with Mining Sand as an Alternative Non-Conventional Material Influence of Modifying Admixtures on Properties of Foam Glass Obtained by Using Ashes Resulting from Incineration of Household Waste. Innovative Materials for Concrete - An Overview Construction Materials Management Adopting GIS Technology The Significance of Embedded Energy for Building in a Tropical Country Design and Evaluation of Sustainable Concrete Production Green Buildings and Flyash Concrete - The Commerce City, Colorado Project Concrete Mixes for Desert Environments Contribution of Mixed Cements in Production of More Durable and Sustainable Concrete Concrete Mixing & Curing: The Influence of Waste Water on the Characteristic Strength of Concrete THEME 2 POLLUTION, WASTE AND RECYCLING Keynote Paper Sustainability of the Cement and Concrete Industries Development of Self Compacting Concrete for Prefabricated Street Furniture Drying Shrinkage and Modulus of Elasticity of Sand and Total Lightweight Concretes Construction Potential of a Mining By-Product Refractory Properties of Insulating Materials from Secondary Cementitious Materials (SCMs) Maximum Dosage of Glass Cullet as Fine Aggregate in Mortar Durability Performance of Recycled Aggregate Concrete Performance of Concrete Containing Fly Ash at Early Ages Use of Recycling Tyre Rubber as Aggregates in Silica Fume Concrete Engineering and Durability properties of Concrete Containing Waste Glass Potential for Recycling Demolished Concrete and Building Rubble in Kuwait The Manufacture of Precast Building Blocks Utilising Recycled Construction and Demolition Waste Best Practicable Environmental Options (BPEOs) for Recycling Demolition Waste Cost Effective and Good Performance Concrete for Sustainable Construction Through Recycling Room Temperature Granulated Fly Ash on a Fixed Bed As Sorbent for Organic Contaminants from Wastewater Admixtures Effect on Mechanical Strength of a Concrete Made of Recycled Aggregate THEME 3 MINIMISING ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT Keynote Paper Environmental Assessment of Cement Based Products: Life Cycle Assessment and the Eco-Concrete Software Tool Freeze-Thaw Resistance of Porous Concrete Mixed with Crushed Roofing Tile Durability of Reinforced Concrete Applying some Expert Systems from the World Wide Web (WWW) Accelerated Carbonation of Portland Cement Mortars Partially Substituted with a Spent Fluid Catalytic Cracking Catalyst (FCC) Fly Ash Blended Cement: An Effective Materials for Addressing Durability Related Issues The Use of Coal Combustion Bottom Ash in Lightweight Masonry Units Does Recycling Fit with Sustainable Use? Development of Technology for Processing Open-Hearth Slag for Composite Construction Materials Industrial Waste Utilisation in Building Elements Stainless Steel in Concrete for Efficiency and Durability Construction Waste Management: Using the 7Rs Golden Rule for Industrial Ecology THEME 4 ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING WITH CEMENT AND CINCRETE Keynote Paper Improvement of Concrete Mix Design for Hazardous Material Storage


With the aid of theoretical calculations, a series of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) were designed and prepared for the recognition of dicyandiamide (DCD) via precipitation polymerization using acetonitrile as the solvent at 333 K. On the basis of the long-range correction method of M062X/6-31G(d,p), we simulated the bonding sites, bonding situations, binding energies, imprinted molar ratios, and the mechanisms of interaction between DCD and the functional monomers. Among acrylamide (AM), N,N'-methylenebisacrylamide (MBA), itaconic acid (IA), and methacrylic acid (MAA), MAA was confirmed as the best functional monomer, because the strongest interaction (the maximum number of hydrogen bonds and the lowest binding energy) occurs between DCD and MAA, when the optimal molar ratios for DCD to the functional monomers were used, respectively. Additionally, pentaerythritol triacrylate (PETA) was confirmed to be the best cross-linker among divinylbenzene (DVB), ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA), trimethylolpropane trimethylacrylate (TRIM), and PETA. This is due to the facts that the weakest interaction (the highest binding energy) occurs between PETA and DCD, and the strongest interaction (the lowest binding energy) occurs between PETA and MAA. Depending on the results of theoretical calculations, a series of MIPs were prepared. Among them, the ones prepared using DCD, MAA, and PETA as the template, the functional monomer, and the cross-linker, respectively, exhibited the highest adsorption capacity for DCD. The apparent maximum absorption quantity of DCD on the MIP was 17.45 mg/g.


AbstractParkinson disease (PD) is a progressive, disabling, neurodegenerative disorder characterized by both motor and nonmotor symptoms. Monoamine oxidase B inhibitors, dopamine agonists, N-methyl-D-aspartate antagonists and levodopa (LD), with its various formulations and administration modes, mainly improve the motor symptoms in PD, which are thought to be related to decreased dopamine levels in the brain. Of these therapeutic drug options, LD represents the most effective and best tolerated compound when it is administered several times a day. Pharmacokinetic trials of oral LD/dopa decarboxylase inhibitor (DDCI) formulations with and without the catechol-O-methyltransferase inhibitor, entacapone, showed that repeated administration with entacapone causes an increase in both the maximum concentration (Cmax) and time to Cmax (Tmax) of LD. In addition, gastrointestinal motility may also impact plasma LD behavior. These peripheral components of LD metabolism contribute to the onset of motor complications, which are predominantly associated with LD/DDCI owing to its short plasma half-life. The increase in Tmax is related to a slower increase in plasma LD concentrations after repeated LD/DDCI intake, which may also increase the risk of wearing off. An elevation in Cmax after reiterated LD intake increases the risk of peak-dose dyskinesia. Therefore, it may be useful to start with higher doses of LD formulations in the morning and then to titrate with different LD doses during the day according to the individual patient's motor behavior, which is particularly characterized by the onset of motor complications, such as off periods and dyskinesia, in more advanced stages of PD.


A new solution for reforming U.S. domestic intelligence Domestic intelligence in the United States today is undermanned, uncoordinated, technologically challenged, and dominated by an agencythe FBIthat is structurally unsuited to play the central role in national security intelligence. Despite its importance to national security, it is the weakest link in the U.S. intelligence system. In Remaking Domestic Intelligence, Richard A. Posner reveals all the dangerous weaknesses undermining our domestic intelligence in the United States and offers a new solution: a domestic intelligence agency modeled on the concept and basic design of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. He details why the FBI, because its primary activity is law enforcement, is not the solution to the problem of domestic intelligence and how a new agency, lodged in the Department of Homeland Security, would have no authority to engage in law enforcement and thus avoid the deep tension between criminal investigation and national security intelligence that plagues the FBI. He also shows how a new U.S. domestic intelligence agency might offer additional advantages over our current structure even in terms of civil liberties. Richard A. Posner is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School.


The presented investigations covered environmental degradation of polymer materials (thermoplastic starch, modified cellulose and two types of starch-cellulose composites) in The Baltic Sea at Nordic Wharf of Gdynia harbor. Degradation process was also tested in laboratory conditions in sea water with sodium azide (NaN 3 , eliminating the microorganisms activity) added. These tests let evaluate the part of chemical hydrolysis in the process of degradation in natural sea environment. During samples' incubation (from 14 to 336 days) the following characteristic parameters of sea water were inspected: temperature, pH, oxygen content, chlorides' content and salinity (Table 1). The progress of environmental degradation of polymeric materials has been evaluated on the basis of weight loss (Fig. 5-7), changes of the surface (Fig. 1-4) as well as changes of the structure of the material, observed microscopically (Fig. 8-10). It was found that in the natural environment of sea water the enzymatic hydrolysis of the tested materials occurred, what was demonstrated by clear erosion of the surface and weight loss. The samples of modified cellulose were more susceptible to attacks of microorganisms living in sea water than the samples of thermoplastic starch. In case of composites more distinct weight changes were observed for material A (film form) than for B one (sheet form) because of large surface development at phase boundary. Their degradation in sea water is of enzymatic character and first the amorphous phase is degraded then the crystalline one.


An overview of voice parameters such as fundamental frequency, intensity, spectral characteristics, and formants is given, and ways to measure such parameters are demonstrated. Furthermore, an attempt is made to link voice parameters theoretically to emotions and psychopathology. The relevance of voice parameters is demonstrated by reporting results of studies on vocal indicators of different emotions, on differences between depressives and schizophrenics, as well as on voice changes during the course of psychotherapy. The importance of voice characteristics as a diagnostic tool is discussed within the framework of a general model of person perception, the Brunswikean lens model.


A single crystalline molybdenum antimony oxide (Sb2MoO6) sheet/reduced graphene oxide (RGO) composite is reported for the first time, for use as an anode for a sodium ion battery with excellent cyclability and rate performance. The addition of graphene oxides in the hydrothermal synthesis can not only induce the tabular growth of Sb2MoO6 single crystals but also serves as a conductive network in the electrochemical reactions. The Sb2MoO6/RGO composite exhibits a capacity of 430 mA h g−1 at 0.05 A g−1 and maintains 270 mA h g−1 at a high current density of 4 A g−1. A capacity retention of 93.2% can be acquired after 220 cycles at 0.2 A g−1. In situ X-ray diffraction, ex situ transmission electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy reveal a conversion reaction in the initial cycle of the Sb2MoO6/RGO composite. Thus, the reversible capacity is mainly imparted by the alloying/dealloying reactions of the antimony element, while amorphous molybdenum oxide (MoOx) and sodium oxide (Na2O) composites serve as the buffer matrix.


As is well known a strong interaction exists between Geometry & Art since the antiquity. This interaction has been revitalized by the developments of new artistic sensibilities in XX Century up to the turn of the third Millennium. Starting from the revolutions of Impressionism, Cubism and Futurism we discuss the role that Mathematics, Science and Technology had in inspiring some artistic movements: more specifically Geometric Abstractism, Constructivism, Kinetic Art and Optical Art. Particular attention will be given to the work of Vasily Kandinskii, Max Bill, Alexander Calder and Milan Dobes; we shall shortly mention also the role that Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and Gestalttherie have played in early XX Century in forming these new sensibilities on perceiving and representing "reality". In this way we shall emphasize that to understand most of the new forms of Art developed in the past Century one needs to understand (or at least grasp) their mathematical and technological roots. 1 Art & Geometry: a Long-Lasting Interaction


Three molecular imprinting strategies, each based upon a series of ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) cross-linked co-polymers, have been used to produce materials selective for the commonly used analgesic and antipyretic agent paracetamol (p-acetaminophen or 4-acetamidophenol) (1). The polymers were synthesised using either a semi-covalent imprinting strategy based upon 4-acetamidophenyl-(4-vinylphenyl) carbonate (4) or a non-covalent strategy based on methacrylic acid (MAA) as the functional monomer, or by employing a combination of these strategies. Radioligand binding studies demonstrated low template affinity in polymers offering only a single electrostatic interaction point for recognition via the phenolic residue in the template, whereas binding was substantially increased upon the introduction of a second binding mode, namely interaction at the acetamide moiety. HPLC analyses revealed no imprinting effect in the purely semi-covalent system, and only a minor effect in the purely non-covalent systems. However, a pronounced imprinting effect was demonstrated for polymers prepared by a combination of semi-covalent and non-covalent imprinting. This study illustrates a limitation of both the non-covalent and the semi-covalent strategies when it comes to achieving imprinted selectivity for small and poorly functionalised templates such as paracetamol. Parallels with conclusions from studies with antibodies are discussed.


This paper presents work in progress on the modelling of emergence in an intelligent music composition/performance system. A model is described which seeks to encourage such emergence by facilitating interaction between musician and system. A complex adaptive systems population of musical behaviours inhabits a landscape which in turn is shaped by a process of description and redescription of the events which constitute its environment. It is suggested that the mutually evolving space thus generated might be considered a useful model of the emotional engagement between musician or listener and an external musical "object".


The aim of the paper is to present the food security situation in selected highly developed countries and to identify consumption disparities between them and developing countries. The research is based on the data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat), the United Nations Statistics Division, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Food Programme (WFP) and selected measures used by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) for the construction of the Global Food Security Index. It has been showed that to the greatest extent the problem of maintaining food security occur in developing countries which are characterised by low per capita income, while in developed countries the scale of hunger is marginal and it afflicts less than 1% of the population. On a regional scale the daily dietary energy supply is greater than the minimum dietary energy requirement in all regions of the world, but the extent to which the dietary needs are satisfied increases along with the increase in national income. In order to reduce the problem of hunger it is necessary to solve the problem of asymmetrical distribution of global income, e.g. by taking actions to accelerate the economic growth in less developed regions and increase the purchasing power of the population.


This study tests the hypothesis that the role identity of street-level bureaucrats is related to variation in their discretionary decisions in relation to the behavior of citizen-clients. The study draws on crosssectional survey data on 465 officers from prisons in Denmark. Results from the study show a negative correlation between prison officers role identity as formalistic (state-agent) and the likelihood of differentiating in response to citizen-clients' behavior. Correspondingly, the results shows a positive relationship between informal rule identification (citizen-agent) and differential responses against citizen-client behavior. The findings indicate a causal relationship between street-level bureaucrats' role identity and their discretionary decisions.


To test age-related differences in split and problem-difficulty effects, adults between the ages of 20 and 80 years (N = 138) performed a simple and a complex inequality verification task (e.g., 6 + 3 < 11, 271 + 182 < 458; true or false?). Split effects in verification tasks (i.e., better performance for large-split than for small-split problems) reflect strategy selection between nonexhaustive verification (e.g., evaluation of plausibility; estimation) and exhaustive verification (e.g., retrieval; calculation). Problem-difficulty effects (i.e., better performance for easy than hard problems) reflect calculation processing. Results showed decreased split effects across age groups, particularly in the complex task. Moreover, problem-difficulty effects did not vary across age groups. Age-related changes were mostly mediated by age-related declines in processing speed.


This article explores the composition and geographies of individual wealth holding in England and Wales in the late nineteenth century. It draws on various forms of death duty records to determine the individual ownership of wealth including both personal property and real estate. By combining information on these different kinds of property, it is possible to explore how different strata of wealth holders accumulated specific forms of wealth at the time of their death. The article then examines how the composition of that wealth varied according to the wealth holder's location in the urban hierarchy and distance from London. It points out important geographical differences in both the scale and nature of wealth holding and raises questions about the implications of these findings.


Wind power is an intermittent energy source that behaves quite differently from conventional energy sources. The reliability impact of this highly variable energy source is an important aspect that needs to be assessed as wind power penetration becomes increasingly significant. Generation adequacy assessment including wind energy conversion systems (WECS) at multiple locations is described in this paper. Effective load-carrying capabilities (ELCC) obtained using the loss of load expectation (LOLE) and the loss of load frequency (LOLF) for a power system containing WECS are illustrated and compared. The results show that ELCC obtained using the LOLF and obtained using the LOLE for WECS can be considerably different, while they are similar for a conventional generating unit. The impact on the system reliability indices of wind speed correlation between two wind farms is also examined. The studies show that the degree of wind speed correlation between two wind farms has a considerable impact on the resulting reliability indices. The sequential Monte Carlo simulation approach is used as this methodology can facilitate a time series modeling of wind speeds, and also provides accurate frequency and duration assessments. An autoregressive moving average time series model is used in this study to simulate hourly wind speeds


Neural architecture search (NAS) attracts much research attention because of its ability to identify better architectures than handcrafted ones. Recently, differentiable search methods become the state-of-the-arts on NAS, which can obtain high-performance architectures in several days. However, they still suffer from huge computation costs and inferior performance due to the construction of the supernet. In this paper, we propose an efficient NAS method based on proximal iterations (denoted as NASP). Different from previous works, NASP reformulates the search process as an optimization problem with a discrete constraint on architectures and a regularizer on model complexity. As the new objective is hard to solve, we further propose an efficient algorithm inspired by proximal iterations for optimization. In this way, NASP is not only much faster than existing differentiable search methods, but also can find better architectures and balance the model complexity. Finally, extensive experiments on various tasks demonstrate that NASP can obtain high-performance architectures with more than 10 times speedup over the state-of-the-arts.


This study is about public policy-making for people with dyslexia in Iceland. Pupils with dyslexia are as a group the biggest group inside the educational system dealing with learning difficulties at school. In order to make sense of the current situation in this policy sector, the paper traces the processes by which policies for pupils with dyslexia at primary and secondary school levels in Iceland are made in the period 1990-2007. It identifies similarities and differences in the policy-making processes and compares the results with similarities and differences characterising the policy-making processes involved in merging the hospitals in Reykjavik in the 1990s. The aim is to bring out a better understanding about how public policies come about in general, but more specifically to bring new perspectives into the policy debate, in the hope it may encourage a new way of thinking about the ways policies for people with dyslexia are designed. The paper concludes that similar to the hospital reforms at the end of 1990s, the observed policy outcomes of educational policies for pupils with dyslexia in Iceland are a result of processes characterised by policy drift rather than stated public policy reforms. As a consequence, the growing fragmentation of the policy sector following the decentralisation in the 1990s, lack of coherent and cohesive community of professional expertise, and marketization of specialised services for pupils with dyslexia impede the formation of collective understanding inside the sector and the building up of a critical mass of experience and expertise in order to advance the scientific research and development necessary to effectively develop and design evidence-based policy responses to pupils with learning difficulties caused by dyslexia.


This book deals with the evangelical roots of the proslavery argument. In the colonial and antebellum South, black and white evangelicals frequently prayed, sang, and worshipped together. Even though white evangelicals claimed spiritual fellowship with those of African descent, they nonetheless emerged as the most effective defenders of race-based slavery. As Charles Irons persuasively argues, white evangelicals' ideas about slavery grew directly out of their interactions with black evangelicals. Set in Virginia, the largest slaveholding state and the hearth of the southern evangelical movement, this book draws from church records, denominational newspapers, slave narratives, and private letters and diaries to illuminate the dynamic relationship between whites and blacks within the evangelical fold. Irons reveals that when whites theorized about their moral responsibilities toward slaves, they thought first of their relationships with bondmen in their own churches. Thus, African American evangelicals inadvertently shaped the nature of the proslavery argument. When they chose which churches to join, exercised the procedures set up for church discipline, rejected colonization, or built quasi-independent congregations, for example, black churchgoers spurred their white coreligionists to further develop the religious defense of slavery.


Aim: To report the prevalence, risk factors and associated population attributable risk percentage (PAR) for refractive errors in the South Indian adult population. Methods: A population-based cross-sectional epidemiologic study was conducted in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. A multistage cluster, systematic, stratifi ed random sampling method was used to obtain participants (n = 10293) for this study. Results: The age-gender-area-adjusted prevalence rates in those (cid:2) 40 years of age were determined for myopia (spherical equivalent [SE] (cid:3) − 0.5 D) 34.6% (95% confi dence interval [CI]: 33.1–36.1), high-myopia (SE (cid:3) − 5.0 D) 4.5% (95% CI: 3.8–5.2), hyperopia (SE (cid:4) + 0.5 D) 18.4% (95% CI: 17.1–19.7), astigmatism (cylinder (cid:3) − 0.5 D) 37.6% (95% CI: 36–39.2), and anisometropia (SE difference between right and left eyes (cid:4) 0.5 D) 13.0% (95% CI: 11.9–14.1). The prevalence of myopia, astigmatism, high-myopia, and anisometropia signifi cantly increased with increasing age (all p (cid:3) 0.0001). There was no gender difference in prevalence rates in any type of refractive error, though women had a signifi cantly higher rate of hyperopia than men (p (cid:3) 0.0001). Hyperopia was signifi cantly higher among those with a higher educational level (odds ratio [OR] 2.49; 95% CI: 1.51–3.95) and signifi cantly higher among the hypertensive group (OR 1.24; 95% CI: 1.03–1.49). The severity of lens nuclear opacity was positively associated with myopia and negatively associated with hyperopia. Conclusions: The prevalence of myopia in this adult Indian population is much higher than in similarly aged white populations. These results confi rm the previously reported association between myopia, hyperopia, and nuclear opacity.


An intelligent building is required to provide safety to its occupants against any possible threat that may affect the indoor air quality, such as accidental or malicious airborne contaminant release in the building interior. In this work, we design a distributed methodology for detecting and isolating multiple contaminant events in a large-scale building. Specifically, we consider the building as a collection of interconnected subsystems and we design a contaminant event monitoring agent for each subsystem. Each monitoring agent aims to detect the contamination of the underlying subsystem and isolate the zone where the contaminant source is located, while it is allowed to exchange information with its neighboring agents. The decision logic implemented in the contaminant event monitoring agent is based on the generation of observer-based residuals and adaptive thresholds. We demonstrate our proposed formulation using a 14-zone building case study.


SIR,-There is good reason to believe that the risk involved in setting fractures or removing upaque foreign bodies under the fluorescent screen is not generally appreciated, and as the practice appears to be on the increase the Council of the Faculty of Radiologists desires to draw attention to this risk. That the risk is a real one is shown by reports of cases of x-ray dermatitis of the hands and faces of surgeons in the E.M.S. in this country. There is also a report from Leddy and Rigos from the Mayo Clinic (Amer. J. Roentgen., Mav. 1941, p. 696). They record fifty-five cases of x-ray and radium dermatitis in doctors in the period 1919-34 and eighty from 1934-9. Of the latter group only five were radiologists and the remainder physicians and surgeons. Of these eighty cases fifteen were the result of x-ray therapy and the balance occupational-that is, resultirig from diagnostic procedures or handling radium. Fortysix cases (only three being radiologists) were directly due to manipulations under the screen-either setting of fractures or removal of foreign bodies. In thirty cases the injuries to the hands have gone the length of ulceration, twenty-one of the ulcers being malignant. As no screen apparatus in use at present, not even the recent model using indirect vision, can protect the hands against the rays if the fractured limb is being manipulated or the foreign body being removed while the current is on, these two procedures should be actively discouraged. In both, the operator's hands are inevitably exposed to the direct beam of the rays. The Council of the Faculty is of opinion that these methods should be used only in very exceptionally difficult cases, and that, when used, the manipulation and viewing with the current on should alternate so that the hands are never in the direct beam. The Council also recommends that a radiologist well versed in the factors involved should be in attendance when -these methods are used. Further safeguards are the use of an adequate filter, small milliamperage, and low kilovoltage-for example, 2 mA at 55 kV peak. Experiments show that the output is very greatly reduced if these factors are adopted.-I am, etc.,


Light field microscopy provides an efficient means to collect 3D images in a single acquisition, as its plenoptic detection captures an extended image volume in one snapshot. The ability of light field microscopy to simultaneously capture image data from a volume of interest, such as a functioning brain or a beating heart, is compromised by inadequate contrast and effective resolution, due, in large part, to light scattering by the tissue. Surprisingly, a major contribution to the image degradation is the signal scattered into the volume of interest by the typical wide-field illumination that excites the sample region outside the volume of interest. Here, we minimize this degradation by employing selective volume illumination, using a modified light sheet approach to illuminate preferentially the volume of interest. This minimizes the unavoidable background generated when extraneous regions of the sample are illuminated, dramatically enhancing the contrast and effective resolution of the captured and reconstructed images. Light Field Selective Volume Illumination Microscopy (LF-SVIM, SVIM for short) dramatically improves the performance of light field microscopy, and offers an unprecedented combination of synchronous z-depth coverage, lateral and axial resolution, and imaging speed.


Journalism's "social contract" refers to journalism's role in democracy, primarily its obligations to inform the public and scrutinize government. The notion of a contract, however, entails the exchange of rights and obligations for mutual benefit. In this exchange, journalism enjoys the rights to free expression and publication, and it is obliged to cover the world fairly and accurately, providing citizens with the information they need to perform their roles as citizens. The notion of a social contract of the press is primarily rooted in liberal philosophy, though there is also a moral side to the contract that can be traced to republican theories of democracy. The question of reciprocity is central to the research on journalism's social contract, primarily on the relationship between journalists and audiences, an area of research that is gaining traction as networked public spheres grow in importance as new venues of audience participation. Although the notion of a social contract is most visible in discussions of journalism ethics and professional practice, democratic media models also assume that journalism's social contract constitutes an important conduit of democratic processes. As such, journalism's social contract largely describes normative dimensions of journalism's role in society, primarily embedded in notions related to the quality of information and an informed citizenry.


OBJECTIVE To describe diabetes prevalence in New York City by race/ethnicity and nativity. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Data were from the New York City 2002–2008 Community Health Surveys. Respondents were categorized on the basis of self-reported race/ethnicity and birth country: foreign-born South Asian (Indian subcontinent), foreign-born other Asian, U.S.-born non-Hispanic black, U.S.-born non-Hispanic white, and U.S.-born Hispanic. Diabetes status was defined by self-reported provider diagnosis. Multivariable models examined diabetes prevalence by race/ethnicity and birth country. RESULTS Prevalence among foreign-born South Asians was nearly twice that of foreign-born other Asians (13.6 vs. 7.4%, P = 0.001). In multivariable analyses, normal-BMI foreign-born South Asians had nearly five times the diabetes prevalence of comparable U.S.-born non-Hispanic whites (14.1 vs. 2.9%, P < 0.001) and 2.5 times higher prevalence than foreign-born other Asians (P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS Evaluating Asians as one group masks the higher diabetes burden among South Asians. Researchers and clinicians should be aware of differences in this population.


One of the intuitions underlying many graph-based methods for clustering and semi-supervised learning, is that class or cluster boundaries pass through areas of low probability density. In this paper we provide some formal analysis of that notion for a probability distribution. We introduce a notion of weighted boundary volume, which measures the length of the class/cluster boundary weighted by the density of the underlying probability distribution. We show that sizes of the cuts of certain commonly used data adjacency graphs converge to this continuous weighted volume of the boundary.


This article reports findings from a study of the perceptions of parents about the experience of long bus rides on their children. Twenty-six parents, whose homes were located on the longest bus route in a rural Midwestern school district, provided interviews regarding the experiences of a total of 37 students. In the analysis of the interview data, three themes emerged: (1) atmosphere on the bus, (2) length of the bus ride, and (3) safety. Notably parents expressed concerns about the fact that long bus rides exposed their young children to the unsuitable language and behavior of older students


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ABSTRACT Background Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a language-prominent dementia that fundamentally impacts the lives of not only the person with the diagnosis, but also their family members. While assuming a caregiving role, care partners are vulnerable to negative health and psychosocial consequences of their own. Support groups are one way to meet the needs of care partners, providing opportunities for individuals with common experiences to socialize, obtain knowledge about disorders, and learn coping strategies. Given that PPA is rare and that in-person support groups are sparse in the United States, there is a need for alternative meeting modalities, to overcome the limitations imposed by relative scarcity of potential participants, lack of appropriately-trained clinical professionals, and the logistical demands faced by overburdened care providers. Telehealth-based support groups provide care partners with opportunities to connect virtually with other care partners; however, research regarding their feasibility and benefit is limited. Aims This pilot study investigated whether a telehealth-based support group for care partners of persons with PPA is feasible and yields benefits in psychosocial functioning. Methods & Procedures Ten care partners of persons with PPA (7 females; 3 males) participated in a group intervention comprising psychoeducation about relevant topics, followed by group discussion. Meetings were held twice monthly for four months via teleconference. All participants completed pre- and post-intervention measures to examine support group satisfaction as well as psychosocial functioning, including quality of life, coping, mood, and caregiving perception. Outcomes & Results Consistent group member participation across study phases supports the feasibility of this intervention model. Quantitative results from paired-samples permutation tests indicate no significant changes from pre- to post-intervention on psychometrically-validated psychosocial measures. Qualitatively, results from an in-house Likert-type survey indicate positive outcomes in quality of life, social support, caregiving skills, and psychoeducation. Relatedly, post-intervention themes derived from a thematic analysis of written survey responses included: Enhancing knowledge about PPA, feeling connected and mutually supported, and desire for more time together. Conclusions Consistent with existing literature evaluating virtually-delivered care partner support groups in dementia and other acquired medical conditions, findings from this study support the feasibility and benefit of telehealth-based support groups for care partners of persons with PPA.


ABSTRACT NKT cells are a heterogeneous population characterized by the ability to rapidly produce cytokines, such as interleukin 2 (IL-2), IL-4, and gamma interferon (IFN-γ) in response to infections by viruses, bacteria, and parasites. The bacterial superantigen staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) interacts with T cells bearing the Vβ3, -7, or -8 T-cell receptors, inducing their expansion and cytokine secretion, leading to death in some cases due to cytokine poisoning. The majority of NKT cells bear the Vβ7 or -8 T-cell receptor, suggesting that they may play a role in regulating this response. Using mice lacking NKT cells (CD1d−/− and Jα18−/− mice), we set out to identify the role of these cells in T-cell expansion, cytokine secretion, and toxicity induced by exposure to SEB. We find that Vβ8+ CD4+ T-cell populations similarly expand in wild-type (WT) and NKT cell-null mice and that NKT cells did not regulate the secretion of IL-2. By contrast, these cells positively regulated the secretion of IL-4 and IFN-γ production and negatively regulated the secretion of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α). However, this negative regulation of TNF-α secretion by NKT cells provides only a minor protective effect on SEB-mediated shock in WT mice compared to mice lacking NKT cells. These data suggest that NKT cells may regulate the nature of the cytokine response to exposure to the superantigen SEB and may act as regulatory T cells during exposure to this superantigen.


The present study aimed at presenting the instructional material developed in the Brazilian Portuguese context to apply the Voice Profile Analysis Scheme-VPAS (PB-VPAS) for the perceptual evaluation of voice quality and at reporting preliminary data analyzed from a group of six judges who attended a workshop on VPAS. The adaptation of the VPAS into Brazilian Portuguese was accomplished and the corpus to be used in the training of judges was built up. Furthermore, the voice quality database necessary for the application of the protocol was recorded, evaluated by two expertise subjects and integrated into the instructive material of the PB-VPAS. Preliminary data from six judges (linguists and speech therapists) who attended a PB-VPAS workshop using the material described (in 2 stages: before and after a 20-hour workshop on VPAS) are presented. The relevance of the application of PB-VPAS to the analysis of voice disorders and expressiveness uses of voice quality is pointed out.


We propose a novel approach for designing kernels for support vector machines (SVMs) when the class label is linked to the observation through a latent state and the likelihood function of the observation given the state (the sensing model) is available. We show that the Bayes-optimum decision boundary is a hyperplane under a mapping defined by the likelihood function. Combining this with the maximum margin principle yields kernels for SVMs that leverage knowledge of the sensing model in an optimal way. We derive the optimum kernel for the bag-of-words (BoWs) sensing model and demonstrate its superior performance over other kernels in document and image classification tasks. These results indicate that such optimum sensing-aware kernel SVMs can match the performance of rather sophisticated state-of-the-art approaches.