Purpose of the article: In this study, we appraised the effect which book values and earnings would have on equity values of quoted corporate entities in Nigeria. In view of this, we obtained secondary data from the published reports of 105 firms selected for this study. The study period was 10 years (2005–2014).
Methodology/methods: The regression technique was employed to scrutinize the data sourced from sampled entities' annual accounts. Additionally, the Breusch-Pagan/ Cook-Weisberg Test was employed along with the VIF Test to verify whether the sourced data were normally distributed or whether there was the presence or otherwise of multicollinearity amid the explanatory (independent) variables.
Scientific aim: This study aims to empirically establish with available statistics, the extent in which variations in equity values of quoted corporate entities in Nigeria could be accounted for by changes in book values and earnings.
Findings: Results from our analysis revealed inter alia, that book value per share and earnings jointly had significant and positive effect on equity values of Nigerian quoted firms.
Conclusion: Since earnings was significant in attempting to ascertain equity values of Nigerian firms, it was thus recommend that regulatory bodies like the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria among others should develop enforceable strategies and sanctions that would discourage and eliminate all forms of earnings manipulation that may distort the information reported in the financial statements of quoted corporate entities in Nigeria.


ABSTRACT This research examines how Spanish radio stations in the United States were used to reach Latinos through non-candidate political (issue) advertising during the midterm election of 2018. Spanish-Language radio is an essential part of the weekly media diet of the Latinos in the U.S. and reaches almost all adults in this demographic. Using an unprecedented and detailed analysis of advertising records from the Federal Communication Commission (FCC)'s political file database, this study analyzes the issues employed by outside groups who were targeting a diverse, but largely underrepresented population demographic. Despite more than 160,000 total political ads representing more than $13 million in spending, the data suggests that radio, as a media platform, was under-utilized by groups targeting Latinos during the 2018 midterm elections, as less than a third of all the Spanish-Language radio stations in the U.S. carried political advertising. This study concludes that interest groups missed an opportunity to maximize political participation among Latinos through targeted appeals on topics like immigration, jobs, education, and housing. Theoretical implications for engaging Latinos in political processes are also discussed.


In this paper is considered domain of absolute convergence for row as, where entire function of exponential type, which satisfies certain conditions. It is described the greatest full multicircular domain of absolute convergence for indicated above row. It is reduced examples.


This paper describes the production methods and the prospective uses of carbon molecular sieves. The main route to these materials is replication synthesis, where a silica or aluminosilicate molecular sieve is used as template to grow the carbonaceous phase in the voids. These materials may have applications as varied as in separation, adsorption and storage of gases, as electrodes in batteries, and as catalyst supports, all of them highly dependent on the molecular sieve porosity.


In recent years, digitization of all control parts in switching power supplies including PWM generators is progressing for demands such as intelligent performances and common use of hardware, etc. Then, a problem is in the resolution of digital PWM generators for improving control performances. Since the digital PWM generator is constituted using a counter, a carrier wave turns into a stairs wave, and step amplitudes is decided with a clock cycle. When the clock cycle is fixed, the resolution becomes low as the switching frequency becomes high. Consequently, the accuracy of output voltage becomes bad. In this paper, a method for remarkably improving the resolution of the digital PWM generator using the pulse composite technique is proposed. The method is realizable by some parts and easy computation, and is applied to the digital PWM generator built-in DSP. The usefulness and practicality are verified by experiments


This thesis and project centers on a portion of the 8x10 inch negatives of the Roger Mertin Archive at George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography & Film, in Rochester, New York. Roger Mertin, a once‐prominent photographer, came of age artistically during a turning point in photographic history—he widespread "cademization"of the field. Sorely under‐researched, Mertin' work remains a critical example of an aesthetic attitude exhibited by a number of influential photographers from his generation. Since taking custody of the Archive, GEH has kept it in storage, relatively undisturbed. Throughout most of 2012, an item‐level spreadsheet was compiled and the objects were catalogued and given accession numbers. In satisfaction of the requirements for a Master' degree in Photographic Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, this thesis outlines, discusses and defends my methodology. The resulting finding aid also includes appendices thought to be useful to current and future researchers.


Cattle behavior and grazing distribution is probably related to the available food, although it could also be influenced by the canopy shade, ambient temperature and access to water. The objective of this study was to evaluate the interaction among tree cover (TC) and cattle positions (CP) when searching for food and comfort areas, under warm and hot weather, in a silvopasture system. Analyses were conducted on Pajonales farm, located in the municipality of Ambalema (lat. 4° 45' 25.9" N; 74° 52' 20.8" W) in Colombia, from December 2009 to January 2010. The farm has an average elevation of 300 masl. Mean precipitation is 1270 mm.year-1, and temperatura 28°C. The pasture used for this study had an area of approximately 54 ha, with topography from flat to gently sloping. TC was determined from digital orthophotos QuickBird using ArcGIS® 9.1. The paddock was segmented into a 0.25 ha grid cell lattice and all sapling canopies within grid cells and animal movement were mapped. Six cows (3 Brahman and 3 F1, Brahman x Holstein) equipped with GPS-collars (Garmin eTrex-Vista) configured to record and store position, were tracked during 60 days at 5‐min intervals. Average values indicate that cows, generally, traveled greater distances in warm period (7.4 km) and 6.1 km in the hot period. Cows prefer areas with low TC (˂ 20%) and intermediate TC (20-40%); these areas had more biomass of fodder dry matter. The study is an important contribution to understanding the dynamics of animals in search for food under grazing conditions.


Volunteers are an important resource at long-term care homes because they can supply services, such as engagement activities, that over-burdened care staff struggle to provide. However, volunteers without sufficient training are often challenged in responding to dementia-linked behaviors, which can lead to frustrating difficulties during interaction. Additionally, short-staffed care homes have difficulties in training and maintaining volunteers. To better support volunteers in providing engagement activities for people with dementia without a high training burden, we created VITA, a tablet-based system that supplies carefully designed profiling and guidance using our dementia-appropriate engagement activity kit. Our evaluation indicated that the instructional guide supplied by VITA significantly improves volunteers' ability to facilitate engagement activities with people with dementia, approaching the level of engagement achievable by professional therapists.


An ongoing effort to simulate plasma instability in the equatorial ionosphere leading to equatorial spread F (ESF) in the American sector is described. Ionospheric state parameters including plasma number density and vector drift velocity profiles were measured at the Jicamarca Radio Observatory in the period between 20 September and 3 October 2013. Coherent radar backscatter from plasma irregularities was recorded simultaneously, and images of the irregularities were calculated using aperture synthesis methods. Neutral winds were measured by the red line Fabry‐Perot interferometers at Jicamarca and Arequipa, Peru. A fully 3‐D numerical simulation of ionospheric irregularities, initialized and forced using parameterizations derived from measurements and empirical models, was used to reproduce the ESF activity observed. Simulations were able to recover many of the features of the irregularities, although some important anomalies can be noted. ESF events in which the first appearance of radar plumes occurred either very early or very late were not reproduced in simulation and may be indicative of nonlocal influence.


The factors that modulate the transmissibility of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSE) and the approaches for the study of their zoonotic potential are reviewed. The paper 'Evidence for zoonotic potential of ovine scrapie prions' by Cassard et al. (2014) is scientifically appraised, focussing on the experimental design, the results and the conclusions. The paper provides evidence in a laboratory experiment that some Classical scrapie isolates can propagate in humanised transgenic mice and produce prions that on second passage are similar to those causing one form of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD). It is concluded that the results from the study raise the possibility that scrapie prions have the potential to be zoonotic, but do not provide evidence that transmission can or does take place under field conditions. The conclusions of the 2011 ECDC-EFSA 'Joint Scientific Opinion on any possible epidemiological or molecular association between TSEs in animals and humans' are reviewed in the light of the new scientific evidence available since its publication. This supports and strengthens the conclusions of that opinion with regard to the potential for some animal TSE to be zoonotic, but does not provide evidence of a causal link between Classical or Atypical scrapie and human TSE. Current evidence does not establish this link, and no consistent risk factors have been identified for sCJD. The possibility of scrapie-related public health risks from the consumption of ovine products cannot be assessed. Recommendations are formulated on further studies and data that are needed to investigate the zoonotic potential of animal TSE and to estimate the amount of infectivity from TSE-infected products sourced from small ruminants and entering the food chain in the European Union. © European Food Safety Authority, 2015


Background: The article dealt with evaluating the efficacy of bilateral single shot ultrasound-guided (US guided) lumbar erector spinae plane block (ESPB) in patients scheduled for L3-L5 posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF) under general anaesthesia (GA). The primary goal of the article was to determine total morphine consumption 24 hours postoperative. Secondary goals included determining total intraoperative and postoperative opioid consumption, length of post-anaesthesia care unit (PACU) stay, and complications.
Methods: Sixty patients, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) I and II, aged 18–60 years, undergoing PLIF under GA were enrolled in this prospective, randomised, double-blinded study. Patients were randomised to 2 groups (30 patients each). Group I (control group) received GA only and group II received preoperative bilateral ESPB with 20 ml 0.25% bupivacaine. The primary outcome was postoperative morphine consumption. Secondary measurements were intraoperative fentanyl consumption, time to first analgesic request, static and dynamic visual analogue score (VAS), haemodynamic changes, PACU stay, and complications.
Results: Patients who received ESPB showed a significant decrease in intraoperative and postoperative opioid consumption, shortened PACU stay, and haemodynamic stability compared to those who received GA only. Significant increase of VAS was observed in group I compared with group II up to 8 and 12 hours postoperative (static and dynamic VAS respectively).
Conclusion: Preoperative bilateral single shot US-guided ESPB provided safe and effective postoperative analgesia for PLIF with reduced opioid consumption and short PACU stay.


Background: Hypopigmented macules are seen in a variety of disorders and the diagnosis rests on clinicopathological correlation. However, some cases are difficult to classify and pose a diagnostic challenge. Aim: To describe the clinical and histopathological features of patients with hypopigmented macules and follicular spongiosis on histopathology. Materials and Methods: We undertook a retrospective analysis of clinical and histopathological findings in 12 patients who presented with clinically nondiagnostic hypopigmented macules and showed follicular spongiosis on skin biopsy, at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India between January 2015 and October 2016. The findings were compared with 12 patients with "unclassified" hypopigmented macules, who did not show follicular spongiosis on skin biopsy. Results: A total of 12 patients with hypopigmented macules showed spongiosis affecting the follicular epithelium on histopathology. There were eight men and four women, most in their second decade (mean age 19.1 ± 8.05 years), presenting with hypopigmented macules most commonly on the upper limbs, for a mean duration of 6.33 ± 5.10 months. Clinically evident lesional hair loss was seen in all patients, and follicular prominences in seven (58%) patients. Histological features suggestive of other diagnosis, namely leprosy, mycosis fungoides or sarcoidosis were not seen in any biopsy. Alcian blue stain revealed an minimal amount of mucin in one biopsy. Clinically apparent hair loss and follicular prominences were found to be statistically significantly associated with histological evidence of follicular spongiosis (P < 0.001 and 0.003, respectively). Limitations: Our study is limited by its retrospective design and small sample size. Conclusions: Patients with hypopigmented macules and follicular spongiosis on histopathology may represent a distinct clinicopathological entity that is associated with lesional hair loss and follicular prominences. It is probably a variant of an endogenous dermatitis similar to pityriasis alba.


Almost all summarisation methods and datasets focus on a single language and short summaries. We introduce a new dataset called WikinewsSum for English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, and Italian summarisation tailored for extended summaries of approx. 11 sentences. The dataset comprises 39,626 summaries which are news articles from Wikinews and their sources. We compare three multilingual transformer models on the extractive summarisation task and three training scenarios on which we fine-tune mT5 to perform abstractive summarisation. This results in strong baselines for both extractive and abstractive summarisation on WikinewsSum. We also show how the combination of an extractive model with an abstractive one can be used to create extended abstractive summaries from long input documents. Finally, our results show that fine-tuning mT5 on all the languages combined significantly improves the summarisation performance on low-resource languages.


Ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, commonly used in clandestine laboratories within the United States to synthesize methamphetamine by means of reduction, are utilized within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in synthetic oxidation with potassium permanganate to form 2-methylamino-1-phenylpropan-1-one. This ketone product of methamphetamine, termed "ephedrone" and "Jeff," is profiled with the use of spot tests, infrared spectrophotometry, mass spectrometry, gas chromatography, ultraviolet spectroscopy, and hydrogen (1H) and carbon-13 (13C) nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.


OBJECTIVES
Smokers may report more pain and may be at greater risk for psychiatric comorbidity. Smoking may be a major problem in chronic pain patients (CPPs). The goal of this study was to determine if pain and psychiatric comorbidity are associated with smoking status in CPPs.

DESIGN
As part of a return-to-work grant study CPPs who could potentially return to work identified themselves as either current smokers (N=81) or nonsmokers (N=140). These two groups were compared on a large number of demographic, function, pain, disability, behavior, and psychiatric diagnoses variables gathered at admission into the grant study. The incidence of smoking was tested with either the student's t-test or chi-square to detect differences in continuous and categorical variables, respectively. Logistic regression was utilized to determine the predictive variables for smoking status by inputting significant independent variables (P<0.01) from the prior analyses.

SETTING
Pain facility.

RESULTS
Five variables were found to explain 38.8% of the variance for smoking status. These were education; race (Caucasian); cups of coffee per day; a diagnosis of current alcohol abuse/dependence; and personality disorder.

CONCLUSIONS
Smoking status in CPPs is associated with some variables that are similar for smoking in the general and psychiatric populations (education, race, alcoholism). However, a number of variables expected to be relevant (e.g., mood disorders) were not associated with smoking status in CPPs. These results may not be generalizable to all CPPs as they are derived from CPPs who are return-to-work candidates.


ABSTRACT Drawing on fieldwork in independent Samoa, in this article, I analyze the temporal dimensions of evangelical Christian healing of metabolic disorders. I explore how those suffering with metabolic disorders draw from multiple time-based notions of healing, drawing attention to the limits of biomedicine in contrast with the effectiveness of Divine healing. By simultaneously engaging evangelical and biomedical temporalities, I argue that evangelical Christians create wellness despite sickness and, in turn, re-signify chronic suffering as a long-term process of Christian healing. Positioning biomedical temporality and evangelical temporality as parallel yet distinctive ways of practicing healing, therefore, influences health care choices.


Background: Laparoscopic surgeries are the second most common cause of postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV), which would cause unexpected delay in hospital discharge. This study intends to compare the efficacy and safety of the combination of ondansetron and dexamethasone with ondansetron alone given as prophylaxis for PONV in adults undergoing elective laparoscopic surgery. Materials and Methods: One hundred adult patients undergoing elective laparoscopic surgeries were selected and were randomly divided into 2 groups of 50 each. Group I received 4 mg of ondansetron intravenously (i.v.), whereas Group II received ondansetron 4 mg and dexamethasone 4 mg i.v. just before induction of anesthesia. Postoperatively, the patients were assessed for episodes of nausea, vomiting, and need for rescue antiemetic at intervals of 0–2, 3, 6, 12, and 24 h. Postoperative pain scores and time for the first analgesic dose were also noted. Results: Results were analyzed statistically. Complete response defined as no nausea or emesis and no need for rescue antiemetic during first 24 h, was noted in 76% of patients who received ondansetron alone, while similar response was seen in 92% of patients in combination group. Rescue antiemetic requirement was less in combination group (8%) as compared with ondansetron group. Conclusion: Combination of ondanserton and dexamethasone is more effective in preventing post operative nausea vomiting in patients undergoing laparoscopic surgery than ondansetron alone.


Education is one of the basic components of human capital. Political authorities try to increase their economic growth performances by increasing education expenditures. However, in many resource-rich countries, it is observed that the governments are not sensitive about education and that the education indicators are not very good. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between oil revenues and education by using the data of four oil exporting Gulf Cooperation Council member countries for the period between 2001 and 2017. The total number of students enrolled in postsecondary education, general programs, general and private high school education institutions were selected as the indicators of education. Since there was no cross sectional dependence, panel ARDL (PMG) and group mean DOLS tests that do not consider cross sectional dependence but consider heterogeneous cross-sections were used in this study. It was observed that there was a negative relationship between oil revenues and educational level for the relevant group of countries in the long term. According to this result, it was concluded that there was no strong awareness of the importance of education in the countries those are included in the analysis, and that the resources were not sufficiently transferred to the increase of human capital power.


Rivers represent a transition zone between terrestrial and aquatic environments, as well as a transition zone between methane rich and methane poor environments. Methane concentrations are generally higher in freshwater systems than in marine systems. The Elbe River is one of the crucial drainages into the North Sea and by this high amounts of methane are imported into the marine water column. Oxidation of methane by aerobic methanotrophic bacteria is the major biological sink.
Six cruises from November 2013 until June 2014 were conducted along the salinity gradient from Hamburg towards Helgoland. Methane oxidation rate was measured with radiotracers and the abundance of methanotrophic bacteria was assessed via real-time PCR. A newly designed primer targeting the genomic sequence encoding the α-subunit of the functional pMMO enzyme in water column organisms was amplified and tested against the conventional primer set.
At the marine stations the cell number was relatively stable with 3 x 104 cells per L, while in the Elbe cell numbers ranged between 103 – 106 cells per L. Environmental parameters (temperature, salinity, SPM) seemed to have no influence on the abundance. However the interaction between activity and abundance seemed to be more complex.


SUMMARY The ultimate goal of seismic data processing is a recovery of a model of an investigated medium. At the same time it is important to use some reference model of the media (particularly, velocity model) during processing and especially imaging procedures because only in this case one may expect to derive adequate results for further interpretation. At interpretation stage, during seismic image analysis it is possible to estimate the inconsistency of the model used and make appropriate corrections. These considerations lead to the concept of simultaneous iterative processing-interpretation of seismic data. DDR (Dynamic wave field Decomposition and velocity model Reconstruction) is the implementation of such concept for vertical seismic profiles data. DDR is an interactive tool of velocity model editing, ray tracing, wave field separation and joint imaging with the use of various wave types including multiples. The concept, general DDR processing workflow together with corresponding illustrations is presented in the paper.


Background: Fetal echocardiography is a well established sensitive tool to diagnose congenital heart disease (CHD) in utero. One of the determinants of effective utilization of fetal echocardiography is its awareness in the general population. The present hospital based study was undertaken to assess the awareness of the need for fetal echocardiography amongst Indian parents. Methods: One thousand one hundred and thirty eight consecutive parents who visited the pediatric cardiology outpatient department of a tertiary care centre over a period of two months were asked to fill up a questionnaire that included their demographic data, educational status, history of CHD in children, awareness of fetal echocardiography and source of information and timing of fetal echocardiogram if performed. The data was categorized and awareness was noted in different groups. Results: The awareness in the study population was 2.2%. Awareness was found to be similar across the study population irrespective of the demographics and high risk status of the parents. Conclusions: The awareness of fetal echocardiography, an important tool in reducing the incidence of complex CHD, thereby impacting public health, is alarmingly low in the population studied. Appropriate action to increase awareness of fetal echocardiography needs to be looked into.


This article considers what it is that makes meaningful engagement meaningful in the adjudication of socio-economic rights. The pursuit of socio-economic transformation relies on citizen participation, as recognised by the South African Constitution and mandated by the Constitutional Court. This article relies on Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed to substantiate an understanding of and motivation for meaningful engagement as a concept. This academic venture is premised on the notion that meaningful engagement (akin to Freire's education and liberation theories) should occur with, not for, the afflicted. The article examines what is conceptually necessary for engagement to be truly meaningful and empowering and not to entrench power dynamics. Strong emphasis is placed on the fact that the afflicted need to be involved in changing their circumstances (as they need to be involved in their liberation and education) and that the source of the problem—in this case socio-economic inequality, deprivation or violation—cannot also be the sole source of the solution. Meaningful engagement with the afflicted circumvents a perpetual entrenchment of oppression, to use Freire's own terminology. A Freirean approach to meaningful engagement could potentially result in effective socio-economic transformation and the disruption of patterns of socio-economic inequality and disempowerment. The relationship between the afflicted and those in power is questioned for its intention—an intention that is also disrupted by a Freirean approach to empowering the afflicted and recognising their agency, political capacity and human dignity.


The paper carries out a comparative analysis of the populist rhetoric and style of US populism and Venezuelan populism with the major aim to possibly identify commonalities and differences. Thus it has set the goal to outline the specific features of populism as a language and the possible theoretical and methodological framework within which it can be examined. The empirical material that has been subject to analysis comprises US President Trump's tweets on Venezuela and Venezuelan President Maduro's TV statements on the United in the period January –March 2019, at the height of Venezuela's humanitarian crisis. The findings suggest that, despite the divergence in terms of political culture and ideological assumptions, the two populist leaders show strong similarities with regard to linguistic devices and discursive strategies. They are both involved in an anti-establishment discourse, where the status quo is rendered as a crisis situation that certainly needs immediate rectification and emergency measures. Such ideas are suggested through the use of coarse language and straightforward and vulgar vocabulary. The populist leader is presumably the mouthpiece of the moral and sovereign people and reportedly tends to speak the truth, which is suggested through the recurrent use of the modal verbs and rare use of any hedging devices. Their insistence on their version of the truth is fortified by the use of highly modal verbs such as shall and will. Furthermore, neither transitivity nor nominalizations are used. Instead the two world leaders make unequivocal assumptions about one another as the root of evil in a democratic world.


In this work, the performance of single-mode optical fibers (SMFs) for ultraviolet (UV) radiation monitoring and dosimetry applications is presented. In particular, this work will focus on the Radiation-Induced Absorption (RIA) phenomena in the Near-Infrared domain (NIR). Such phenomena play a very important role in the sensing mechanism for SMF. Single mode fibers with a diameter of 50 µm were used for this purpose. These fibers were dipped into germanium (Ge) solution with different concentrations (1, 3, and 5 wt%) to produce the sensing part of the sensor. For all optical fiber sensors under investigation, the results indicated the dependence of the RIA on the applied UV radiation energy. Also, a redshift in peak wavelength was obtained. The influence of Ge concentration on sensing efficiency was studied and the best results were obtained with 3 wt% concentration as compared to 1 wt % and 5 wt % concentrations. The presented sensor shows good sensitivity to UV radiation which makes it possible to be applied in medical applications.


Although delay discounting, the attenuation of the value of future rewards, is a robust finding, the mechanism of discounting is not known. We propose a potential mechanism for delay discounting such that discounting emerges from a search process that is trying to determine what rewards will be available in the future. In this theory, the delay dependence of the discounting of future expected rewards arises from three assumptions. First, that the evaluation of outcomes involves a search process. Second, that the value is assigned to an outcome proportionally to how easy it is to find. Third, that outcomes that are less delayed are typically easier for the search process to find. By relaxing this third assumption (e.g. by assuming that episodically‐cued outcomes are easier to find), our model suggests that it is possible to dissociate discounting from delay. Our theory thereby explains the empirical result that discounting is slower to episodically‐imagined outcomes, because these outcomes are easier for the search process to find. Additionally, the theory explains why improving cognitive resources such as working memory slows discounting, by improving searches and thereby making rewards easier to find. The three assumptions outlined here are likely to be instantiated during deliberative decision‐making, but are unlikely in habitual decision‐making. We model two simple implementations of this theory and show that they unify empirical results about the role of cognitive function in delay discounting, and make new neural, behavioral, and pharmacological predictions.


Firms' Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports typically frame their strategies in terms of either community or global efforts (i.e., "strategy frame"). Further, the style used to depict CSR performance in reports often highlights either pictures or words (i.e., "presentation style"). These two prominent disclosure features of CSR reports promote a natural fit or misfit in the focus (relatively low-level or high-level focus) investors adopt when thinking about the firm and its CSR efforts. Further, these disclosure features likely have different effects on investors depending on their numeracy or, in other words, the way that they naturally process numerical information. In this study we predict and find that a fit between the strategy frame and the presentation style of a firm's CSR report causes less numerate investors to be more willing to invest than when a fit is not present. Specifically, we find that a fit leads less numerate investors to experience subjective feelings of processing fluency and, in turn, positive affect that serves as a cue that the positive CSR performance information can be relied upon, which positively influences willingness to invest. Our results have implications for both CSR reports as well as other types of firm disclosures that increasingly vary along similar disclosure characteristics. Our results also contribute to both the growing literature on presentation effects in accounting, as well as the broader business literature on CSR reporting.


It is well known that the extant corpus of Old English literature preserves only a proportion of the vocabulary that once existed. In some instances, terms for concepts that must have been familiar to the Anglo-Saxons have been lost without trace; in others, they may be reconstructed from non-literary forms of evidence such as the place-names coined by early settlers in the areas now known as England and southern Scotland. The main dictionary of place-name terminology, Smith's English Place-Name Elements of 1956, includes many entries for words which are otherwise either unattested, or attested only with other meanings. Animal names in particular constitute an area of vocabulary which is under-represented in literary sources but common in place-names, and for which toponymic evidence often proves crucial. Old English animal names unattested in the extant literature but included in English Place-Name Elements are *bagga 'badger', *bula 'bull', *ean 'lamb', *gæten 'kid', *galt 'pig, boar', *græg 'badger', *hyrse 'mare', *padde 'toad', *padduc 'frog', *pigga 'young pig', *stedda 'horse', *tacca and *tagga 'teg, young sheep', *tige 'goat', *todd 'fox' and *wiðer 'ram, wether'. Those identied more recently include *brun 'pig' and *wearg 'wolf '. As the English Place-Name Survey progresses, providing detailed coverage of the country's toponyms in a series of annual volumes inaugurated in the 1920s, further examples may be expected to come to light. The aim of this article is to offer a new addition to the corpus.


Entrepreneurship is a fundamental driver of growth, development, and job creation. While Latin America and the Caribbean has a wealth of entrepreneurs, firms in the region, compared to those in other regions, are small in size and less likely to grow or innovate. Productivity growth has remained lackluster for decades, including during the recent commodity boom. Enhancing the creation of good jobs and accelerating productivity growth in the region will require dynamic entrepreneurs. Latin American Entrepreneurs: Many Firms but Little Innovation studies the landscape of entrepreneurship in Latin America and the Caribbean. Utilizing new datasets that cover issues such as firm creation, firm dynamics, export decisions, and the behavior of multinational corporations, the book synthesizes the results of a comprehensive analysis of the status, prospects, and challenges of entrepreneurship in the region. Useful tools and information are provided to help policy makers and practitioners identify policy areas governments can explore to enhance innovation and encourage high-growth, transformational entrepreneurship.


Although much has been written about Coleridge's ideas concerning language, less has been said about the role that communication plays in his work, particularly his use of language as a medium for bridging the distance between himself and others. Coleridge felt that great poetry could successfully overcome this gap, and in his poetry there are moments when he felt that he was fully tuned-in to an intelligible universe created by an all-loving and all-communicating God. Such moments, when the "One Life" was revealed to him were based upon a theory of communication in which the universe was the medium of divine communication. More frequently, however, Coleridge was troubled by bad reception, by what he understood to be a failure of communication, times when he was denied complete participation in a fully intelligible world and when the gap separating himself from others and from nature appeared as a chasm. "Sometimes when I earnestly look at a beautiful Object or Landscape," he writes in a notebook, "it seems as if I were on the brink of a Fruition still denied--as if Vision were an appetite: even as a man would feel, who having put forth all his muscular strength in an act of prosilience, at that very moment held back -- he leaps & yet moves not from his place" (Notebooks III, no 3767). At such times, Coleridge felt "held back," wanting desperately to move forward from his sense of isolation but unable to do so. This state of tension, in the desire for complete communication in a context of communication breakdowns, characterizes Coleridge's best writing. For Coleridge, poetry was the highest form of human communication, and the task of a poet was to use language to move his readers beyond the need for words. When communication failed, he felt that he was a failed poet. This essay will examine Coleridge's commitment to the idea of perfect communication at the same time as it suggests that one aspect of Coleridge's strength as a writer lies in those moments when he grappled with the fallibility of human communication and sought to build community in a world in which our relationship to others also includes isolation, misdirection, darkness, strangeness, and ghosts.


Today's adolescent social problems are often the topic of conversation and at the same time become a source of concern or concern for parents, educators, and all parties who are concerned about the future fate of the younger generation. Researchers conducted observations in class VIII of SMP Negeri 1 Rambipuji showing ethics in relationships that were a little low. This study aims to determine changes in ethics and the provision of group counseling on social ethics behavior of class VIII students at Rambipuji 1 Public Middle School. The type of research used is quantitative research. The procedure used is the provision of questionnaires, questionnaires given about the ethics of association and group counseling. Giving counseling groups can change ethical behavior in student association.
Keywords : Social Ethics, Counseling Grup


Results of experimental study of the effect of initial maldistribution of structured packing irrigation on efficiency of binary mixture separation are presented in this article. The studies were carried out in the experimental distillation column with the diameter of 0.9 m using the R114 and R21 freon mixture. Experiments were performed on the structured Mellapak 350.Y packing of stainless steel 316L, containing 19 layers with the total height of 4.016 m at the ratio of mole liquid and vapor flow rates L/V = 1 and 1.7, respectively, and the pressure in the upper part of the column ptop = 3 bars. Nonuniformity at the packing inlet was generated via the blocking of some holes in the liquid distributor. Here, we present some results on efficiency of mixture separation, pressure drop on the packing, distribution of local liquid flow rate under the packing over the cross-section and on the column wall within the range of vapor loading factor (0.69 < Fv < 1.61 Pa0.5), as well as experimental data on distribution of local concentration of the low-boiling component over the cross-section and along the height of the structured packing. It is found out that significant maldistribution of mixture concentration and liquid flow rate over the cross-section slightly changes along the height in the lower part of the column at a change in the degree of packing irrigation nonuniformity at the inlet. It is shown that efficiency of mixture separation depends considerably on the value of parameter L/V, vapor flow factor Fv, and size of the zone underirrigated by liquid at the inlet. In the studied range of liquid and vapor flow rates, the relative pressure drop on the packing does not depend on the ratio of liquid and vapor flow rates L/V and degree of irrigation maldistribution. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J 60: 690–705, 2014


Objective: To investigate the sinus swelling side effect onmaxillary sinus cyst of nasalmucosa cilia.Methods: 34 cases ofmaxillary sinus cyst patients (treatment group), mean age (25.5 ± 2.2) years old; the control group was 30 healthy persons, the average age was(31.8 ± 9.1), treatment group oral sinus Xiaozhong decoction, and the control group before treatment, 30 days to observe the variation of ostiomeatal complex mucociliary group before and after treatment. The nasal mucosa of maxillary sinus mucosa around the mouth, immediately after collection in 2.5% glutaraldehyde solution, and stored in the 40! refrigerator. Then use the saccharin test measuring nasal mucociliary transport rate (Mucociliary transport rate, MTR), statistically compared with the healthy group and treatment group before and after the ostiomeatal complex mucociliary change. Results: The two groups by saccharin test measuring nasal mucociliary transport rate (Mucociliary trans-port rate,MTR) detection: healthy group 30 cases, MTR (mm/min) 8.18±2.29 before treatment,the treatment group 34 cases, MTR(mm/min) 4.06 ±1.24 (with the healthy group: P 0.05).Conclusion: Sinus swelling can improve the maxillary sinus cyst with nasal mucociliary function, reduce inflammation ofmaxillary sinus


We present timing models for 20 millisecond pulsars in the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array. The precision of the parameter measurements in these models has been improved over earlier results by using longer data sets and modelling the non-stationary noise. We describe a new noise modelling procedure and demonstrate its effectiveness using simulated data. Our methodology includes the addition of annual dispersion measure (DM) variations to the timing models of some pulsars. We present the first significant parallax measurements for PSRs J1024-0719, J1045-4509, J1600-3053, J1603-7202, and J1730-2304, as well as the first significant measurements of some post-Keplerian orbital parameters in six binary pulsars, caused by kinematic effects. Improved Shapiro delay measurements have resulted in much improved pulsar mass measurements, particularly for PSRs J0437-4715 and J1909-3744 with M-p = 1.44 +/- 0.07 and 1.47 +/- 0.03 M-circle dot, respectively. The improved orbital period-derivative measurement for PSR J0437-4715 results in a derived distance measurement at the 0.16 per cent level of precision, D = 156.79 +/- 0.25 pc, one of the most fractionally precise distance measurements of any star to date.


Author(s): Sumner, Daniel A; Hanak, Ellen; Mount, Jeffrey; Medellin-Azuara, Josue; Lund, Jay R; Howitt, Richard E; MacEwan, Duncan | Editor(s): McNamara, Julie | Abstract: 1.Putting California's Latest Drought in Context. California's latest drought has focused attention on water management practices and policies. This article describes how the system has adapted to managing water scarcity and recurring droughts. It identifies some of the early lessons learned, including promising ways to adapt to water scarcity and areas of continued vulnerability. 2. Agricultural Irrigation in This Drought: Where Is the Water and Where Is It Going? In the midst of its fourth year of drought, California now faces an estimated reduction in surface-water availability of 8.8 million acre-feet (maf) out of 29 maf in agricultural applied water statewide. However, groundwater, the buffer water supply during drought, is replacing about 6.2 maf of surface water via additional pumping. This increased groundwater pumping is in addition to the 1.5 maf of annual average groundwater overdraft in the Central Valley. The net reduction of 2.6 maf in the total supply in 2015 may result in about 564,000 acres fallowed statewide, or about 120,000 more acres than last year's fallowing estimates. 3. Economic Impact of the 2015 Drought on Farm Revenue and Employment We estimate that a net water shortage of 2.6 million-acre feet could cause 564,000 acres to be fallowed and result in a loss of $850 million in crop production value. The surface water shortage of 8.8 million acre-feet will be replaced by about 6.2 million acre-feet of increased groundwater pumping, at a cost of about $600 million. We estimate the dairy and cattle industries will lose $350 million in revenues. We estimate the direct economic cost of the 2015 drought will be $1.8 billion, with a loss of 8,550 direct farm jobs. Including spillover effects, statewide losses are close to $2.7 billion in output and 18,600 full-time and part-time jobs. 4. California's Severe Drought Has Only Marginal Impacts on Food Prices Flexibility and resourcefulness by California farmers have minimized drought-induced supply reductions for tree, vine and vegetable crops, for which California has large market shares and for which retail prices would be sensitive to California disruptions. Water is being shifted away from field crops that enter the food supply indirectly and for which California is not a dominant producer. These facts mean that even a severe drought is having only slight impacts on supplies to consumers and thus only slight impacts on consumer food prices. Of course, the longer the drought lasts, the larger the impacts.


ABSTRACT Targeted therapy of ovarian cancer: Beyond angiogenesis Ovarian cancer is still the most lethal gynecological malignancy and strategies incorporating molecular targeted therapies are urgently needed. Besides angiogenesis, homologous recombination deficiency can be present in at least 50% of high-grade serous tumors. After the demonstrated efficacy of the PARP inhibitor olaparib in prolonging PFS of patients with platinum-sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer, phase III trials are now ongoing in both first line and second line maintenance setting in patients with BRCA mutations. Recently, the combination of olaparib with cediranid (an oral tyrosine kinase inhibitor of VEGFR-1,-2,-3) has shown a promising activity in recurrent platinum sensitive ovarian cancer patients. Activation of PI3K pathway is seen in up to 30% of clear cell and endometrioid ovarian carcinoma and represents a possible target for these neoplasms. BRAF and KRAS mutations were initially reported in up to 68% of cases with low grade serous tumors. A phase II study of the MEK1/2 inhibitor selumetinib in 52 patients with recurrent low grade serous tumor indicated a response rate of 15,4% and a disease stabilization in 65% of patients. Phase II studies of other MEK inhibitors are now ongoing. High grade serous ovarian cancer are characterized by aberration in the P53 tumor suppressor gene which is a cell cycle G1 checkpoint regulator. Inhibition of Wee-1, a tyrosine kinase that regulates the G2 cell cycle checkpoint, sensitizes p53-deficient tumor to chemotherapy by reducing tumor cell capacity to repair DNA damage. A randomized phase II study is evaluating paclitaxel and carboplatin with or without the Wee-1 inhibitor MK-1775 in women with p53 mutation-positive platinum sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer. The selective inhibitor of Aurora Kinase A (a tyrosine kinase that regulates the G2 cell cycle checkpoint), MLN8237 (alisertib), is currently under evaluation in a randomized phase II in combination with paclitaxel. Finally, Nivolumab, an anti-PD-1 antibody, achieved 17% response rate and 44% disease-control rate in 20 patients with heavily pretreated platinum resistant ovarian cancer, including 2 complete remissions. These encouraging results open the way for further exploration of immunotherapy in ovarian cancer. Disclosure: N. Colombo: Astra Zeneca, advisory board.


The Hauraki Gold.fields area and the distribution of the heavy metals and gold from this gold.field area are reviewed. The current environmental impact of base metal mining at the Tui Mine, Te Aroha and gold mining near Waihi, was investigated by analysis of local waters, stream sediments, and aquatic vegetation. Analysis of waters from the Tui and Tuna.kohoia Streams showed concentrations of arsenic, cadmium, lead and zmc above recommended levels for potable water in the upper parts of these waterways. Toe discharge of these streams into the Waihou River (sampled upstream from Te Aroha and downstream to past Paeroa) did not have any significant effect on heavy-metal concentrations in this river. Aquatic macrophytes sampled in the Waihou, Ohinemuri and Waitekauri Rivers had very high heavy-metal concentrations compared with the ambient water and should be considered as potentially useful for assessing the impact of low-metal fluxes into the waters. Gold was determined in sediments from the Ohinemuri and Waitekauri Rivers along with other heavy metals derived from sulphide mineralisation at Waihi and W aitekauri. Gold was detected in aquatic macrophytes from streams draining both the Martha Mine at Waihi and the Golden Cross Mine at Waitekauri and indicated the possibility of prospecting for gold by analysis of these plants. X-ray diffraction analysis of heavy metal fractions in stream sediments showed the presence of pyrite in the upper reaches of the Tuna.kohoia and Tui Streams that drain the mineralised reefs and Tui tailings dam. Relatively immobile lead (galena) was 3 retained close to the source, whereas copper and zinc minerals were more mobile and distributed further downstream from the areas of mineralisation. The relative mobilities of gold, copper, cadmium, lead and zinc from the Tui tailing dam (a serious environmental concern) were assessed by elution of these metals from columns containing 600 g of tailing, eluted with water, ammonium thiocyanate or ammonium thiosulphate. These elutions were carried out with. or with out, amendments. When eluted with water, the heavy metals showed a mobility sequence in the order copper>cadmiurn>zinc>lead>gold. After elution with 0.2% ammonium thiocyanate, there was a reduced mobility of zinc, copper and cadmium compared with the water elution and increased mobility of gold, Ammonium thiocyanate is specific in solubilising gold. Lead showed enhanced mobility, perhaps due to formation of the soluble complex ion Pb(CNS)/. Mobility for zinc was enhanced by ammonium thiosulphate. A laboratory investigation on foam flotation was undertaken on gold, zinc, copper, lead, and cadmium in waters. A range of variables involved at their separation from dilute solutions by batch foam flotation technique was studied. I have recently developed a method of adsorbing colloid flotation in order to concentrate gold from natural waters into a very small volume of foam prior to quantification by GFAAS. Adsorbing colloid flotation (ACF) is a separation technique with distinct advantages for removing trace elements from natural and industrial waters. These advantages are: rapid processing, simple design, small volume of final solution, low residual concentration, flexibility of operation, and moderate cost. In this method, the substance to be removed (e.g. metal ions) is adsorbed on colloidal particles or coprecipitated on a floe produced by the addition of a flocculating agent. A surfactant is then added to adsorb on the particle or floe thus rendering it hydrophobic. The metal-loaded particle is then removed by further adsorption at the surface of rising bubbles in a flotation system. Experiments were carried out by use of a 52 mm 4 diameter, 620 mm long glass column using a glass frit of pore size 20-40 μm for bubble generation. Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CT AB) a cationic surfactant, and thiourea (a complexing agent) were used either individually or in combination for removal of gold. The heavy metals included (Zn, Cu, Cd, and Pb) removed by dodecyl sulfate-Na salt (NaDS) and sodium oleate(NaO). The electrolyte tolerance of adsorbing colloid flotation of heavy metals ions (Pb+, and CdJ from waste water was improved significantly by use of the Fe(OH)3 and NaLS (sodium laurylsulfate) system for lead removal or Al(OH)3 and HTMABr (hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide) system for cadmium removal. Extraction of the gold into the foam layer was strongly dependent on the pH of the feed for which pH 11 was optimum. Adding 10 mg/L of thiourea to an equal volume of CT AB instead of CTAB alone, increased the extraction of gold to a dramatic degree. A distribution coefficient (:Ki) of 46,000 was achieved under optimum conditions. The percentage extraction reached >99%. The method was applied to a number of natural waters draining gold mines and the Tui base metal mine in the Hauraki Gold.fields region. Gold values reflected the presence of mineralization in the stream and river samples. It was concluded that the method may have some use in hydrogeochernical prospecting for gold. Examples are given for the laboratory separation by foam flotation techniques of gold, zinc, copper, lead, and cadmium ions from a solution . Different technological variables that affect the process were investigated, such as concentration level, pretreatment required, pH effect, etc.


Myeloid neoplasms include cancers associated with both rapid (acute myeloid leukemias) and gradual (myelodysplastic syndromes and myeloproliferative neoplasms) disease progression. Percentage of blast cells in marrow is used to separate acute (rapid) from chronic (gradual) and is the most consistently applied prognostic marker in veterinary medicine. However, since there is marked variation in tumor progression within groups, there is a need for more complex schemes to stratify animals into specific risk groups. In people with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), pretreatment karyotyping and molecular genetic analysis have greater utility as prognostic markers than morphologic and immunologic phenotypes. Karyotyping is not available as a prognostic marker for AML in dogs and cats, but progress in molecular genetics has created optimism about the eventual ability of veterinarians to discern conditions potentially responsive to medical intervention. In people with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), detailed prognostic scoring systems have been devised that use various combinations of blast cell percentage, hematocrit, platelet counts, unilineal versus multilineal cytopenias and dysplasia, karyotype, gender, age, immunophenotype, transfusion dependence, and colony-forming assays. Predictors of outcome for animals with MDS have been limited to blast cell percentage, anemia versus multilineal cytopenias, and morphologic phenotype. Prognostic markers for myeloproliferative neoplasms (eg, polycythemia vera, essential thrombocythemia) include clinical and hematological factors and in people also include cytogenetics and molecular genetics. Validation of prognostic markers for myeloid neoplasms in animals has been thwarted by the lack of a large case series that requires cooperation across institutions and veterinary specialties. Future progress requires overcoming these barriers.


D documents are an indispensable data type in many im- portant application domains such as Computer Aided De- sign, Simulation and Visualization, and Cultural Heritage, to name a few. The 3D document type can represent arbi- trarily complex information by composing geometrical, topo- logical, structural, or material properties, among others. It often is integrated with meta data and annotation by the various application systems that produce, process, or con- sume 3D documents. We argue that due to the inherent complexity of the 3D data type in conjunction with and imminent pervasive usage and explosion of available content, there is pressing need to address key problems of the 3D data type. These problems need to be tackled before the 3D data type can be fully supported by Digital Library technology in the sense of a generalized document, unlocking its full potential. If the problems are addressed appropriately, the expected benefits are manifold and may lead to radically improved production, processing, and consumption of 3D content.


Introduction Sepsis is the leading cause of direct maternal mortality, resulting in 27 deaths in the UK between 2006 and 2008:1 in 70% of these cases, CMACE identified substandard care.1 The Surviving Sepsis campaign supports early recognition and treatment of sepsis, and improved survival by implementing six evidence based management steps in non-pregnant populations.2 However, this is not widely used in obstetric care. We aimed to develop and implement a tool utilizing the physiological and biochemical parameters of pregnancy, whilst identifying the clinical features that should raise suspicion of sepsis in this vulnerable group of patients. Methods Using a trust-wide Sepsis Screening tool, we developed a maternity specific tool. We implemented this throughout our department, and refined it using Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles. Multi-professional education sessions were provided, underlining the importance of prompt management. A retrospective monitoring checklist was devised to audit compliance. Results Initiation of the bundle between November 2012 and November 2013, improved from 38.5% (5/13 patients) to 100% (13/13 patients). At the beginning of the study only 1/5 women (20%) received the complete bundle within 1 h1 hour, compared to 9/13 (69.2%) in November 2013. Conclusion The use of a maternity specific sepsis tool prompts early recognition and treatment. We believe our proforma, and ongoing monitoring tool, has raised the profile and awareness of sepsis within our department, resulting in a reduction in time for instigation of the complete bundle. This should result in a reduction in morbidity and mortality in the pregnant population. References Centre for Maternal and Child Enquiries (CMACE). Saving Mothers' Lives: reviewing maternal deaths to make motherhood safer: 2006–08. The Eighth Report on Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths in the UK. BJOG 2011;118 (Suppl. 1):1–203 Society of Critical Care Medicine. Surviving Sepsis Campaign. [Online] Available from: http://www.survivingsepsis.org/Pages/default.aspx [Accessed 10thJanuary 2014]


This present work investigate the hydrogen content in Al-12Si alloy at different holding temperatures of 993K, 1023K, and 1053K and under different ambient relative humidity 30%RH, 50%RH, 80%RH. The relationship of the hydrogen content with atmosphere relative humidity and the reaction time was investigated. A HYSCAN II analyzer was used to evaluate the hydrogen content in aluminum melts. The experimental results show that the hydrogen content increased with the holding temperature and the relative humidity. At the temperature 1053K, the hydrogen content has an inverse change. The hydrogen content is more depend on the liquid structure than physical mass transfer and chemical reaction because of the sudden change in liquid microstructure. A group of kinetic regression equations of the hydrogen absorption in Al-12Si melts was obtained.


In this article, we discuss the views of 117 special education student teachers related to their oncoming profession in the framework of ecological theory. Together, 68 students from Sweden (26 special teachers and 41 SENCo students) and 49 from Finland responded to a questionnaire. We compared the respondents' thoughts about their future work content, the focus areas of special education and inclusion. According to the expectations, the main task for these future special educators is to work with pupils and adults at school. The focus areas of their future work included co-operation and consultation, more so in Sweden. In addition, excellent interaction skills were central. The Swedish respondents supported full inclusion to a greater extent than the Finnish respondents. Finally, no critical aspects of resource allocation or conditions to ensure the child's right to adequate support within the existing school systems were emphasised by the respondents. The results and the differences among the various respondents are discussed.


Extracranial to intracranial internal carotid artery bypass surgery with vein is well described for a number of diverse conditions. They provide high blood flow with good initial patency. However, long term patencies for specific graft types remains unknown. This is an analysis of consecutive interposition saphenous vein bypass cases between the common carotid artery (CCA) and the intracranial internal carotid artery (ICA) where the distal anastomosis was placed end-to-end immediately proximal to the posterior communicating artery in 55 patients undergoing 57 bypass procedures (bilateral in 2 cases). Twenty-five patients underwent grafting for planned vessel obliteration where the pathology required vessel sacrifice. Twenty-eight patients had bypass grafting for stroke risk reduction in the setting of threatening stroke and 4 patients had bypass grafts for emergency revascularisation in the setting of stroke in evolution. Patients were assessed preoperatively and at follow-up with modified Rankin scores. Procedural related complications included a 7% mortality and 7% functional decline. Early graft occlusion occurred in 5% of grafts leading to death in each case. A further patient died of rupture at the distal anastomosis site. In surviving patients, patency was present in 100% at last follow-up (mean 5 years and maximum 11 years) with no patient sustaining new hemispheric ischemic events. One patient developed a delayed asymptomatic stenosis within the vein graft requiring stenting. Because of the high initial management risks this technique of common carotid to intracranial internal carotid artery saphenous vein bypass surgery should be reserved for patients at considerable risk by alternate management. However, once the acute postoperative period is past the bypass appears to be robust and capable of supplying the entire distribution of a normal internal carotid artery.


Inclusion of young children with disabilities into regular preschool classrooms is a common practice that has been implemented for several decades in industrialized nations around the world, and many developing countries including Turkey have been developing and implementing laws, regulation, and services to support inclusion and teaching in natural environments. The current definition of inclusion provided in special education laws developed in Turkey aligns with the definition of inclusion provided in the contemporary literature. However, implementation of inclusive practices in early years is still in its early stages and baby steps are taken to develop more comprehensive system of special education and inclusive practices. The purpose of this article is 4-fold: (a) to describe Turkish special education laws and regulations that support inclusive education and teaching in natural environment; (b) to summarize current inclusive practices in early childhood in Turkey; (c) to summarize and synthesize the available research on early childhood inclusion in Turkey; and (d) to discuss challenges and suggestions for future directions to enhance early childhood inclusion in Turkey.


Aging has been associated with decreased intra- and internetwork connectivity during rest and task. Recent work has shown the influential role of the salience network over the default mode network (DMN) and executive control network (ECN). This study comprehensively investigates age-related changes in intra- and internetwork connectivity and effective connectivity between the DMN, ECN, and salience network across the adult life span. Two hundred ten participants completed a working memory task, an inhibition task, and a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. Networks were extracted using independent component analysis; then, regression analyses and t-tests between three age groups, 21-40 (younger), 41-60 (middle), and 61-80 (older), were conducted. Older age was associated with decreased intranetwork connectivity. Functional network connectivity analyses revealed older age was associated with increased internetwork connectivity between the salience network and the ECNs and DMNs. In both cases, the effects were more pronounced in the tasks compared to resting state. Granger causality analyses indicated the salience network was influenced by the DMN and ECN in all age groups during both tasks, but not rest. However, middle adults showed increased influence from the salience network to the right ECN compared to younger adults during the flanker task. Taking everything into account, these findings indicate the role of the salience network changes over the life span, which may have implications for the early detection of pathophysiology in older adults.


The object of study in this study is the presentation of crime news by television toward child rights in getting health information.
Crime news is news or report about crime circumstances that is obtained from police. This kind of news today is more presented in television, moreover, there is also accompanied with reconstruction (re-invention of circumstances). Crime news is one form of information where the writer concludes from the content of Act that health information is appropriate information for students in Act of child protection and convention of child rights, that information should content education and knowledge for the children. So that those rights become ignored, whereas child rights also become the part of human rights that obligatory guarantee, protect, and fulfill.
The purposes of this study are to know whether the presentation of crime news by television is appropriate with 2002 Act of Broadcasting No. 32 or not, and to know whether the presentation of crime news by television has fulfill child rights in getting health information based on Act of Child Protection and Convention of Child Right or not.
Method of study that is used in this study is juridical normative. Data analysis by using descriptive method analytic is data that is obtained is described/explained and analyzed so that can be obtained such conclusion.
Based on the result of study can be reached the result as follow:
Information sources that is widely used by society today is television, because it has many advantages; they are easy to use, giving audio and visual all at once, easy to get and particularly presented program is variety and packed by interesting way. Huge number of societies is more choose to watch on television, all television stations compete severely in gaining market broadcasting by having its characterization in its each presentation. All television stations more present specific crime news because it can be said as interesting if it contains many things and one of them is crime, above all this kind of program is program that presented to be mainstay for all television stations, because it can give a lot of advantages. Whereas the presentation is actually inappropriate by Broadcasting Act, but crime and violation news, in fact, to be daily menu of television that its presentation is ignoring time. Whereas, public here is not only adult but also children, so that children is like sufficient to learn and to know many kinds of violation and crime, because presented information by television media more be inappropriate.
More presentation of crime news in television make child easy to watch violation or crime without any limitation. Child rights in getting information become pressed by press freedom that freely presents the crime news. Children also have rights to get information based on Act of Child Protection and Convention of Child Right, like adult, those rights should be protected, respected, and priced by family, public, government and state. But, child is small person that cannot differentiate and form information yet that they get directly from media, particularly television media because according to science of psychology that fantasy level of child is higher than her/his level of comprehension about reality life. So that the form of information that should be accepted by child also has healthy information based on intelligence level and child age based on Act of Child Protection and Convention of Child Right for developing child personalization, especially in this case, child still susceptible and still in the level to imitate


This article considers efforts to civilianize the military justice systems in Canada, the United Kingdom and other countries and how these reforms potentially impact the role of the military commander with respect to the commander's law of war obligations. One consequence of the "civilianization" of the military justice systems in Canada, the United Kingdom and elsewhere potentially impacts the commander's own personal criminal liability. The doctrine of command responsibility holds that a commander may be criminally liable for the law-of-war violations committed by the forces under his command if a commander fails to prevent, suppress, or punish law-of-war violations that he either knew about or was reckless or negligent in failing to notice, he can be punished as if he committed the underlying offenses.This doctrine is based on the commander's unique position in a military organization. The commander is the focal point of military discipline and order, and it is the commander's responsibility to maintain command and control of his subordinate forces. It is the commander who, by use of all the resources and authority available to him, ensures that his forces do not violate the laws of war. If those forces do, it is in large part attributable to the commander's failings.If, as a result of the civilianization of military justice, commanders lose a significant portion of the disciplinary authority they have traditionally held, do they no longer occupy that critical position of responsibility over the forces under their command? If they have lost that authority, to whom does the law now turn to for accountability? Does the commander, who has lost some of his authority, lose the ability to maintain discipline through the military justice system, and does he find himself in a situation where he is given responsibility to maintain discipline and control without having sufficient authority to meet that obligation? This article raises and addresses these important questions and it provides a framework for considering military justice reforms that preserve the commander's critical role in law of war compliance.


The lecture began at 4:15 p.m., Wednesday, March 28, and was given by Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University; the discussant was Rachel Kyte of the International Finance Corporation. MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS: BALANCING RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES By Joseph E. Stiglitz * THE IMPORTANCE OF CORPORATIONS AND THE PROBLEMS THEY PRESENT An increasing fraction of commerce within each country is conducted by corporations which are owned and controlled from outside its borders and which often conduct business in dozens of countries. These corporations have brought enormous benefits--indeed, many of the benefits attributed to globalization, such as the closing of the knowledge gap, the gap between developing and developed countries which is even more important than the gap in resources, is due in no small measure to multinational corporations. More important than the capital which corporations bring (1) are the transfer of technology, the training of human resources, and the access to international markets. In recent years, especially following the collapse of the initiative to create a Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) within the OECD, (2) there has been a proliferation of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and investment provisions within bilateral free trade agreements. (3,4) (Some countries (such as Indonesia) have even passed laws providing similar investment guarantees, on their own.) These agreements are purportedly designed to provide greater protection for investors, thereby encouraging cross-border investment. There is, to date, little evidence that they have done so. (5) Part of the reason is that they may in fact curtail development strategies, in ways which are adverse to growth. As the ECLAC (The UN Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean) concluded, "countries often find that they have assumed obligations which, further down the road, will place limitations on their own development program." (6) This paper is concerned with a set of more fundamental issues. Even if it could be established that BITs lead to increased investment, and even if that investment could be shown to lead to higher growth, as measured by increased GDP (gross domestic product), (7) it does not mean that societal welfare has been increased, especially once account is taken of resource depletion and environmental degradation. These agreements are designed to impose restraints on what governments can do--or at least to impose a high cost to their undertaking certain actions. Some of the activities which may be constrained may be important for promoting general societal well-being--even if profits of particular firms are affected adversely. It is this possibility which has made these agreements a subject of such concern and debate. These agreements are, of course, not all identical; what they do is itself a subject of some controversy. Like any agreement, it depends on the interpretations of particular words, and the judicial processes through which these words are given meaning are one of the sources of dissatisfaction with the agreements. Different arbitration panels have interpreted even the same words differently, creating a high level of uncertainty, both among governments and investors, about exactly what these agreements do. (8) This article is focused not on any specific agreement but on the general thrust of these agreements, which goes substantially beyond protection against expropriation. Many of the agreements--including some of their most controversial aspects--are concerned with the far broader issue of what happens when changes in regulations or other government policies adversely affect the value of a foreign-owned asset. (9) The agreements do not, of course, stop governments from changing regulations, taxes, or other government polices; but they may require that the government compensate those that are adversely affected, and in doing so, they increase the costs of governments changing regulations and or other government policies. …


This paper examines work-family conflicts (WFC) and family-work conflicts (FWC) through a multi- dimensional self-report questionnaire. The purpose of this study is to determine if Hispanic and Non-Hispanic groups vary significantly in their responses to WFC. Understanding the demands and needs of the workforce in terms of ethnic groups may assist in creating a balanced workplace environment and improve organizational strategies. Data was collected with an internet-based questionnaire utilizing a convenient sampling method. Responses were evaluated according to respondent's ethnicity; more specifically a comparison was made between Hispanics and Non-Hispanics. It was hypothesized that WFC would vary significantly by ethnic groups. Using T-test, results indicate significance between


Objectives Gastric emptying testing (GET) assesses gastric motility, however is non-specific and insensitive for neuromuscular disorders. Gastric Alimetry (GA) is a new medical device combining non-invasive gastric electrophysiological mapping and validated symptom profiling. This study assessed patient-specific phenotyping using GA compared to GET. Methods Patients with chronic gastroduodenal symptoms underwent simultaneous GET and GA, comprising a 30-minute baseline, 99mTC-labelled egg meal, and 4-hour postprandial recording. Results were referenced to normative ranges. Symptoms were profiled in the validated GA App and phenotyped using rule-based criteria based on their relationships to the meal and gastric activity: i) sensorimotor; ii) continuous; and iii) other. Results 75 patients were assessed; 77% female. Motility abnormality detection rates were: GET 22.7% (14 delayed, 3 rapid); GA spectral analysis 33.3% (14 low rhythm stability / low amplitude; 5 high amplitude; 6 abnormal frequency); combined yield 42.7%. In patients with normal spectral analysis, GA symptom phenotypes included: sensorimotor 17% (where symptoms strongly paired with gastric amplitude; median r=0.61); continuous 30%; other 53%. GA phenotypes showed superior correlations with GCSI, PAGI-SYM, and anxiety scales, whereas Rome IV Criteria did not correlate with psychometric scores (p>0.05). Delayed emptying was not predictive of specific GA phenotypes. Conclusions GA improves patient phenotyping in chronic gastroduodenal disorders in the presence and absence of motility abnormalities with improved correlation with symptoms and psychometrics compared to gastric emptying status and Rome IV criteria. These findings have implications for the diagnostic profiling and personalized management of gastroduodenal disorders.


While improved management of agricultural landscapes is promoted as a promising natural climate solution, available estimates of the mitigation potential are based on coarse assessments of both agricultural extent and aboveground carbon density. Here we combine 30 meter resolution global maps of aboveground woody carbon, tree cover, and cropland extent, as well as a 1 km resolution map of global pasture land, to estimate the current and potential carbon storage of trees in nonforested portions of agricultural lands. We find that global croplands currently store 3.07 Pg of carbon (C) in aboveground woody biomass (i.e., trees) and pasture lands account for an additional 3.86 Pg C across a combined 3.76 billion ha. We then estimate the climate mitigation potential of multiple scenarios of integration and avoided loss of trees in crop and pasture lands based on region‐specific biomass distributions. We evaluate our findings in the context of nationally determined contributions and find that the majority of potential carbon storage from integration and avoided loss of trees in crop and pasture lands is in countries that do not identify agroforestry as a climate mitigation technique.


»Behinderung redimensionieren: Die Konstruktion einer sozialen Gruppe und eines politischen Felds in Europa«. Control over the production, the circulation and the use of statistical knowledge is inextricably linked to bu-reaucratic forms of domination. The historiography of the building of the mod-ern State insists on the tight relationship between the capacity to collect and utilise statistical knowledge and the consolidation of bureaucratic domination. The creation of statistical categories symbolically unifies territories, social groups and practices. Similarly, the European Union has invested heavily in harmonising statistical categories, thereby providing institutions and actors with uniform descriptive languages. However, unlike statistical constructs of the Nation States of the 18th and 19th Centuries, European statistical catego-ries are generated in a context of pre-existing statistical categories structuring public policies and social practice and institutions. The article will be empirical-ly based on the emergence of EU disability policy which managed to carve out a new arena for policy discussion and coordination form the 1990s on. Although this policy does not imply a transfer of sovereignty, the statistical unifi-cation of this social group at the European level and the structuring of interest groups and expert groups can be interpreted as an exercise of rescaling which has transformed the definition of disability as a policy problem and operated a shift in resources and legitimacies among stakeholders. Despite the successful creation of a unified statistical category, the article will look into some reasons for the limited use of disability statistics in policy making, but then show how alliances put in place by the Commission with interest groups and expert circles institutionalised a new European sector for policy discussion.


OBJECTIVE
A prediction of the number of patients with conjunctivitis plays an important role in providing adequate treatment at the hospital, but such accurate predictive model currently does not exist. The current study sought to use machine learning (ML) prediction based on past patient for conjunctivitis and several air pollutants. The optimal machine learning prediction model was selected to predict conjunctivitis-related number patients.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
The average daily air pollutants concentrations (CO, O3, NO2, SO2, PM10, PM2.5) and weather data (highest and lowest temperature) were collected. Data were randomly divided into training dataset and test dataset, and normalized mean square error (NMSE) was calculated by 10 fold cross validation, comparing between the ability of seven ML methods to predict the number of patients due to conjunctivitis (Lasso penalized linear model, Decision tree, Boosting regression, Bagging regression, Random forest, Support vector, and Neural network). According to the accuracy of impact prediction, the important air and weather factors that affect conjunctivitis were identified.

RESULTS
A total of 84,977 cases to treat conjunctivitis were obtained from the ophthalmology center of the Affiliated Hospital of Hangzhou Normal University. For all patients together, the NMSE of the different methods were as follows: Lasso penalized linear regression: 0.755, Decision tree: 0.710, Boosting regression: 0.616, Bagging regression: 0.615, Random forest: 0.392, Support vectors: 0.688, and Neural network: 0.476. Further analyses, stratified by gender and age at diagnosis, supported Random forest as being superior to others ML methods. The main factors affecting conjunctivitis were: O3, NO2, SO2 and air temperature.

CONCLUSIONS
Machine learning algorithm can predict the number of patients due to conjunctivitis, among which, the Random forest algorithm had the highest accuracy. Machine learning algorithm could provide accurate information for hospitals dealing with conjunctivitis caused by air factors.


Antibacterial resistance is a global clinical and public health problem that has emerged with alarming rapidity in recent years and undoubtedly will increase in the near future. Resistant bacteria do not respect national borders, and developments in the remote locations can have an impact throughout the world. Resistance is a problem in the community as well as in health care settings, where transmission of bacteria is greatly amplified, in both developed and developing countries. Because multiple drug resistance is a growing problem, physicians are now confronted with infections for which there is no effective therapy. The morbidity, mortality, and financial costs of such infections pose an increasing burden for health care systems worldwide, but especially in countries with limited resources. recently convened a Scientific Working Group to address the problem of drug-resistant bacterial infections. From November 29 to December 2, 1994, participants from 23 countries reviewed and discussed scientific data on the nature and costs of drug resistance; recent national and global trends; approaches to limiting the emergence and spread of resistance in community and institutional settings; and strategies to strengthen local, national, and global surveillance. Participants included representatives from clinical medicine, public health, the clinical laboratory, and the biomedical research arenas and from the pharmaceutical industry. The Working Group formulated a series of recommendations to address these issues at local, national, and international levels. The recommendations placed emphasis on enhanced surveillance of drug resistance through usage of WHONET software, increased monitoring and improved usage of antimi-crobial drugs in human, veterinary, and animal husbandry settings, improved laboratory diagnostic capacity, standardization and quality control of laboratory methodology, professional and public education , development of new drugs and assessment of alternative therapeutic modalities, assessment of vaccine development and delivery priorities related to antimicrobial resistance, better implementation of infection control measures, and evaluation of prevention strategies. The Working Group plans to release its final report in the spring.


We propose facilitating the error annotation task of translation quality assessment by introducing an annotation process which consists of two separate steps that are similar to the ones required in the European Standard for translation companies EN 15038: an error analysis for errors relating to acceptability (where the target text as a whole is taken into account, as well as the target text in context), and one for errors relating to adequacy (where source segments are compared to target segments). We present a fine-grained error taxonomy suitable for a diagnostic and comparative analysis of machine translated texts, post-edited texts and human translations. Categories missing in existing metrics have been added, such as lexical issues, coherence issues, and text type-specific issues.


Author(s): Kang Sim, Dong-Jin Eastern | Advisor(s): Gahagan, Sheila; Zuniga, Maria L | Abstract: Background: The coexistence of micronutrient deficiencies and obesity and their adverse effect on children's development is understudied.Aims: The aims of this dissertation were to: 1) describe the link between economic changes and child nutritional outcomes by linking indicators related to immediate and underlying determinants; 2) assess neurocognitive outcomes of response inhibition and accuracy to adolescents exposed to 'iron deficiency/iron deficiency anemia (ID/IDA) in infancy', 'overweight/obesity (OW/OB) in adolescence', or 'both' compared to those without these conditions; and 3) assess the adverse outcome of youth externalizing behavior problem exposed to 'ID/IDA in infancy', 'OW/OB in adolescence', or 'both' compared to those without these conditions.Methods: Study 1 focuses on the economic growth and nutrition profiles of Brazil, Chile, and Mexico from 1990 to 2010. Estimates for all indicators were retrieved and reconstructed from data sources including the Ministry of Health of each country, the Organization of Economic, and Co-operation and Development and Food Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Study 2 and 3 uses data from a longitudinal cohort study of Chilean infants who participated in a randomized controlled trial of iron to prevent iron deficiency anemia were used. The Stroop computerized task was used to assess individual's reaction times and accuracy. The Achenbach's Youth Self Report was used to assess clinically meaningful externalizing behavior problem.Results: Study 1, presents evidence indicating that economic growth affects child nutritional outcomes through several pathways. Study 2 found that the combination of poorer brain-circuit development during infancy due to ID/IDA and the inflammation of fat due to adolescent OW/OB may have additive effects on reaction times. Study 3 found that adolescents who experienced a two-hit insult of ID/IDA and OW/OB had a positive deviation from additivity (RERI=1.4; S=2.9; AP=40%) and multiplicativity (OR=1.7; 95% CI: 1.1, 2.7) on youth externalizing behavior problem.Conclusion: The dual burden of nutritional disorders among children are closely linked to their economic growth and nutritional transition. The two-hit insult concept proved useful in understanding the additive and multiplicative effects of two independent nutritional insults and warrants further application.


This thesis provides two general equilibrium models to analyse the macroeconomic effect of risk on wealth-enhancing investment decisions.In chapter 1, we present an overlapping generations model in which aspirational agents face uncertainty about the returns to human capital. Investment in human capital requires external funding, implying a probability of bankruptcy that is greater the lower the human capital endowment of an agent. We show that agents with sufficiently low human capital endowments may experience such a strong influence of loss aversion that they abstain from human capital investment. We further show how this behaviour may be transmitted through successive generations to cause initial inequalities to persist. These results do not rely on any credit market imperfections.In chapter 2 we note that most working-age Americans obtain health insurance coverage through the workplace. U.S. law requires employers that offer health plans to use a price common to all in the group. However, the value of health insurance to risk-averse agents varies with their idiosyncratic health risk. Hence, linking employment and health insurance creates a wedge between the marginal cost and benefit of insurance. Since health risk can be sizable and health insurance is part of total employee compensation, the wedge can affect firm and employee decisions. We study the impact of this wedge on occupational choice, productivity and welfare in a general equilibrium model with agents who are endowed with idiosyncratic health risk and heterogeneous managerial ability. Agents choose whether to be a worker or an entrepreneur. We find that the wedge distorts occupational choice by causing two types of misallocations. Some highly skilled individuals with adverse health shocks leave entrepreneurship while individuals with intermediate skills but favourable health shocks opt to manage firms. Four policies are analysed: expansion of employer-based health insurance; private insurance; health insurance exchanges; and universal health coverage. Factor prices are determined endogenously and programs are financed by lump sum taxes. We assess the quantitative effects of the policies on firm size, productivity, GDP, and earnings. Welfare effects may be positive or negative, vary significantly with an individual's position in the asset and ability distributions, and are sensitive to changes in risk aversion.


ABSTRACT Fish larvae have the ability to change their vertical position in the water column and thusly cannot be treated as passive particles in coupled biological-physical individualbased models (IBMs). The vertical variability of light, turbulence, temperature, prey, predators, and horizontal currents in the ocean affects the survival of larval fish through effects on feeding, growth, advection, and predation mortality. A dynamic model of the vertical position of larval fish in response to individual state and environmental conditions is needed for use in three-dimensional IBMs. A 1-dimensional model was constructed of an idealized water column representative of spring conditions on the southern flank of Georges Bank. The water column was used to test six behavioral rules of individuals parameterized as larval haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus) under different conditions of prey and turbulence stratification. Our objectives were to determine how behaviors based on different state and environmental variables affect depth distribution and mortality, and which behaviors produce a vertical distribution most similar to observations. Individuals applying behaviors associated with feeding had distributions comparable to observations and the highest survival. The use of behaviors derived from a trade-off between gut fullness and visual predation led to distributions unlike observations and high starvation mortality of the largest larval size class. Results suggest that larvae should make their vertical behavior decisions based on the risk of starvation rather than predation. A realistic model of larval haddock vertical position could be developed using only behaviors related to its prey distribution and foraging success.


Abstract Cast aluminium alloys are commonly used in the automotive industry for casting applications. There are both primary and secondary/recycled aluminium alloys in the market, which differ in price and quality. In this study, the effect of alloy quality on solidification, microstructure and mechanical properties was investigated. The comparison of properties was carried out in the as-cast condition and in the heat-treated condition. The influence of alloy quality on solidification was analysed by simple thermal analysis and differential scanning calorimetry, and thermodynamic simulations. The basic mechanical properties analysed were tensile strength, yield strength, elongation, and hardness. The microstructural differences were analysed using a light microscope. The Mn:Fe ratio, which is strongly influenced by the alloy quality, was found to have a pronounced effect on the mechanical properties, while magnesium together with silicon hardens the aluminium matrix during heat treatment, which significantly increases the mechanical properties. This research proved that thermal analysis methods can give us a necessary and important indication of the quality of the alloys used.


This letter aims at complementing previous empirical work regarding a certain beamforming technique for blind speech extraction that uses a local quadratic approximation of a Kurtosis expression. It is shown here that the proposed method possesses a fixed-point property which means that it remains at an optimal solution once this solution has been reached. The proposed method's fixed-point property is valid for a range of source signals including Gaussian sources. This is an improvement over the FastICA method which diverges at the optimal points that correspond to a Gaussian source. In a real application, it cannot be assured that non-Gaussian mixtures are constantly observed; hence, the proposed method is a viable alternative in that case. The fixed-point property further implies that the approximative Kurtosis expression is identical to the true Kurtosis value at an optimal point which, in turn, means that the approximation error is zero. In addition, the convergence towards an optimal solution is always in the direction of a local minimum point even though the optimal solution that correspond to a super-Gaussian source is always a maximum solution which harmonizes with the concept of Kurtosis maximization.


Objective The purpose of the study is to compare the differences in metabolic cardiovascular risk factors among postmenopausal Chinese women with or without abdominal obesity. Design The study is a cross-sectional, population-based, comparative cohort study. Each participant received anthropometric measurements and a 75-g oral glucose tolerance test after an overnight fast. The homeostasis model assessment for insulin resistance and the insulin sensitivity index, ISI, were used as measures of insulin resistance. A "metabolic cardiovascular risk score" was calculated from fasting insulin, glucose, lipids, and blood pressure. General linear models (GLM) were fit to examine the relation of waist circumference (WC) to insulin resistance and metabolic risk scores.(0,120). Results According to the International Obesity Task Force obesity criteria for Asians, 57 women had abdominal obesity (WC >/= 80 cm), and 58 had WCs less than 80 cm. The two groups were comparable in demographic variables and body mass index (BMI). The women with larger WCs were more insulin-resistant than their counterparts. The metabolic risk scores were significantly higher in women with abdominal obesity than in those without it. The results from the GLM showed that WC was an independent predictor of insulin resistance and metabolic risk scores after controlling for demographic variables (0.06- and 0.29-unit increases in homeostasis model assessment for insulin resistance and metabolic risk scores per 1 cm change in WC). Moreover, BMI neither correlated with metabolic risk scores nor affected the WC effects on insulin resistance and metabolic risk scores in the GLM. Conclusions Postmenopausal Chinese women with abdominal obesity may carry higher metabolic cardiovascular risk than those without it. It is WC, not BMI, that predicts metabolic cardiovascular risk factors in these women.


Background and aims Ethanol has been elaborated to have a beneficial effect on destructive arthritis. Nevertheless, the effect of ethanol on the development of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) remains controversial. This study was performed to determine the potential role of moderate ethanol consumption in SLE pathological progression and clarify its functional mechanism. Methods We used MRL/lpr mice to assess whether ethanol drinking has any impact on the development of SLE and investigated whether ethanol regulates pathologic progression of SLE through inhibiting lipid rafts. Results We found that 10% ethanol in vivo delayed disease progression and organ damage and prolonged survival. In vitro ethanol treatment not only inhibited the aggregation, proliferation, adhesion molecule expression and IFN-γ secretion of T cells, but also decreased lipid raft clustering on T cells. In addition, ethanol inhibited SLE serum-induced skin inflammation and monocyte differentiation into dendritic cells (DCs). Furthermore, ethanol treatment of monocytes that were in the process of differentiating into DCs decreased lipid raft clustering. Conclusions These data strongly support the viewpoint that ethanol delays the disease progression of SLE by inhibiting lipid raft clustering and suggest that moderate drinking of ethanol may have a protective value for patients with SLE.


Yarn quality is an essential concept, usually defined by the customers which demands simultaneous achievement of several requirements concerning the yarns characteristics. For the cotton type yarns, the tensile properties represent the most important parameters for assessment of yarn quality, because these features are key factors regarding the yarns behaviour in post-spinning operations (warping, weaving and knitting) and have a determinant contribution to the properties of final textile product. Hence, an accurate prediction of these characteristics is very important, from both technological and economic points of view. Providing the conditions for obtaining yarns with specified characteristics requires suitable selection of fibres used in blends, correct setting of the structure parameters of yarns and the processing conditions of the fibrous material, in close correlation with the yarn's end-use requirements, the manufacturing technology and the technical level of equipment. Finding an optimal variant of fibre blend involves considerable amounts of work, time and money. Therefore, the use of dedicated software for designing fibre blends may contribute to reduce these drawbacks and allows obtaining optimal blend recipes faster and more effective. The paper presents a software application developed primarily as a tool for teaching students the principles of rational design of fibre blends intended for cotton yarns with specified characteristics, but it can be also used by the spinning companies. The PFirB software is part of a package developed to support the teaching activities with the students from the Faculty of Textile-Leather and Industrial Management in Iasi, was created with Microsoft Visual Basic and Visual C++ and runs in a Windows environment.