ABSTRACT Certain groups of invertebrates are becoming mainstreamed in conservation activities in KwaZulu-Natal, particularly groups that have many species endemic to the province and that are confined to small distribution ranges. As a result of this there is a need to assign common (English) names where these are unavailable. A list of scientific names and standardised common names is presented for species of millipede occurring in KwaZulu-Natal.


Background
There is a lack of research into the use and misuse of psychoactive substances such as alcohol and drugs among persons with an intellectual disability, especially among the adolescents in this population. To our knowledge there are no special prevention intervention programmes for special needs school students explaning them about the dangers of using tobacco and alcohol and helping them in not starting the use of any of these products. However there is an e-learning program 'Prepared in time' which has the main goal of prevention adolescents from using tobacco and alcohol. This program was developed for 5th and 6th graders in mainstream primary schools and has so far not been used in different settings. 'Prepared in time' aims to increased the knowledge on smoking and tobacco and also tries to change attitudes, lower intention to start using and increase the self-efficacy of the students working with the programme.
Aim:
This study into substance use prevention among adolescents with an intellectual disability was twofold. First it gives an impression of the use of tobacco and alcohol amond 1st and 2nd graders in secundary special needs schools. Secondly it looks at the usefullness and the effectiveness of the e-learning program 'Prepared in time' for this population.
Methods:
A quasi-experiment was used in which 232 students filled out a baseline and follow-up questionnaire. The respondents were students of one of the five participating schools. The schools were selected to be part of either the experimental group or control group based on number of students, gender of student and number of students in 1st and 2nd grade. The students in the experimentalgroup also worked with 'Prepared in time' and filled out a process evaluation on the e-learning programme.
Results:
This study showed that a large proportion of respondents, age 11-15, initiated smoking (49%) and drinking (75%). The drinking percentage is consistent with national results however the students in this study smoke significantly more then was expected based on national studies. The students were well capable of working with the e-learning program 'Prepared in time'. They gave it a rating of 6 out of 10, finding it easy and, especially the games, fun. The e-learning programme significantly increased their knowledge on alcohol. It did however not affect their smoking or drinking behaviour or the behavioural determinants attitude, intention, subjective norm, peer pressure, social support and self-efficacy.
Conclusion:
This study has showed some first results on the smoking and drinking behaviour of adolescents with a mild and borderline intellectual disability. The participating students were well capable of working with an e-learning programme and more research should be done into this way of teaching. To get effective results from 'Prepared in time' it will need some improvements to provide in the special needs these students have, such as repetition and simple explenations. If this were to be done, 'Prepared in time' could be a good supplement to a larger scale prevention program. These results show the importance of developing a proper prevention-intervention programme for this special population


The paper examines the robustness of Interest Rate Rules, IRRs, in the context of an imperfectly credible stabilization program, closely following the format of much of the literature in open-economy models, e.g., Calvo and Vegh (1993 and 1999). A basic result is that IRRs, like Exchange Rate Based Stabilization, ERBS, programs, could give rise to macroeconomic distortion, e.g., underutilization of capacity and real exchange rate misalignment. However, while under imperfect credibility EBRS is associated with overheating and current account deficits, IRRs give rise to somewhat opposite results. Moreover, the paper shows that popular policies to counteract misalignment, like Strategic Foreign Exchange Market Intervention or Controls on International Capital Mobility may not be effective or could even become counterproductive. The bottom line is that the greater exchange rate flexibility granted by IRRs is by far not a sure shot against the macroeconomic costs infringed by imperfect credibility.


The rumen microbiome plays a vital role in ruminant nutrition and health, and its community is affected by environmental factors. However, little is known about the rumen bacterial community of ruminants living in the special ecological environment of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) of China. The objectives of this study were to investigate the rumen bacterial community of the typical plateau sheep (Tibetan sheep, TS, and Gansu alpine fine-wool sheep, GS) grazing on the QTP, using 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, and to evaluate the relationship between the rumen bacterial community and the QTP environment. A total of 116 sequences (201 clones) were examined and divided into 53 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) in the TS library and 46 OTUs in the GS library. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the sequences that belonged to the Firmicutes were the most predominant bacteria in both TS and GS libraries, representing 79.4% and 62.8% of the total clones, respectively. The remaining sequences belonged to Bacteroidetes, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, or were unclassified bacteria. Sequence analysis revealed that the TS and GS rumens harbored many novel sequences associated with uncultured bacteria that accounted for 63.6% and 46.8% of the total clones, respectively. Comparison of the composition and diversity of the TS and GS rumen bacteria revealed few overlapping known bacteria between the two breeds, and a higher diversity in TS. The rumen bacteria of the plateau sheep showed higher percentages of bacteria that belonged to Firmicutes and novel species compared with the low-elevation sheep. The unique bacterial community in the plateau sheep rumens is perhaps one of the major reasons that they can adapt to the harsh plateau environment. These results can help identify the rumen bacterial community of the ruminants in the QTP, and provide bacteria resources and basic data to improve ruminant productivity.


: Although the Levy (stable-Paretian) distribution of stock returns was first observed by Mandelbrot 35 years ago, an explanation for this phenomenon has not yet been found. Several extensive studies have recently shown that short-term rates of return on stock indices and on single stocks are distributed according to the truncated Levy distribution. An apparently unrelated but well-documented fact is that wealth is distributed according to the Pareto-law distribution at high wealth levels. In this paper we suggest that the Levy distribution of rates of return originates from the Pareto-law wealth distribution among investors. We present a model which assumes i) a Pareto distribution of wealth and ii) that the effect an investor has on the price of a stock is proportional (in a ctochastic sense) to the investor's wealth. This model generates a truncated Levy distribution of stock returns. This result is robust to many variations of the basic model. The model leads to the prediction that the parameter Al of the Levy rate of return distribution should be equal to the Pareto constant Aw of the Pareto wealth distribution. Empirical evidence from the U.S., the U.K. and France reveals a striking agreement between these a-priori unrelated parameters (U.S.: Al=1.39, Aw=1.35; U.K. Al=1.12, ax=1.06; France: al=1.82, Aw=1.83).


63 nests of 11 species of birds were examined in the mid-taiga forests of Prikamje from 1971 to 1973. 710 specimens of midges were caught within this period. 8 species of midges attacked birds. Of them the most abundant was Culicoides cubitalis Edw. (62.8%). Rather numerous were C. sajanicus Mirz. (14.9%) and C. reconditus C. et P.-C (11.9%). The other species were few in number or rare. In closed nests C. reconditus C. et P.-C. (42.1%) prevailed. One fourth of caught females were with blood (26.9%). The highest per cent of engorged females was found in C. sajanicus Mirz. (58.3%).


This paper offers a critical examination of a content–based professional EFL course, designed by Centre for Languages (CfL), BRAC University in Bangladesh with the objectives of improving students' language skills, content knowledge and professional attitude. How content-based instruction (CBI) develops students' language and cognitive learning are analyzed in Bangladesh EFL context with literature review. The outcome shows progress in students' language proficiency as well as their professional knowledge. A brief outline of the course with implementation process are also presented with the aim of focusing CBI as an effective way for creating motivated, enthusiastic and better learners.


A comparative quasi-experimental analysis was made on the impact of small-scale irrigation interventions on household food security, taking irrigation water and farm extension users and nonusers in persisting drought contexts in South West Ethiopia. A cross-sectional survey was employed to collect data from randomly selected respondents from both groups. The daily calorie intake was significantly different for the two groups and this was revealed by employing a descriptive statistic, probit model and a propensity score matching. The study concluded with the policy concern that while expanding small scale irrigation supported by productive farm extension packages improves household food security and food surplus for marketing, it also enhances: (1) inequality; (2) conflict over water triggered by the new arrangements; and (3) decline in water yield; risking sustainability of the use of the irrigation water. Such interventions thus demand environmental and land restoration measures.


We propose and analyze an optical modulator based on intersubband transitions. The absorption is modulated by modulating the carrier density in the ground state of a quantum well (QW). Electrons are injected resonantly into this subband from a QW reservoir subband through a single barrier. When the two states are tuned out of resonance, the electrons are rapidly evacuated by means of the optical field. A waveguide based on surface plasmons is assumed in order to have a high optical mode overlap. Calculations are performed for a cascaded structure with four periods, assuming InGaAs-InIAs QWs. The considered modulator structure operates at /spl lambda/=6.0 /spl mu/m and is RC limited to 27 GHz. An extinction ratio of 4 is obtained with a low applied voltage of 0.6 V. At larger applied voltages, the absorption is bistable. Absorption at shorter/longer wavelengths can be obtained by using materials with a larger/smaller conduction band offset. We also assess resonant tunneling from a 2-D electron gas reservoir into an array of quantum dots and compare it to the 2-D-2-D tunneling resonance.


Virtual reality (VR) art often deals with issues of embodied interaction vs. the fantasy of disembodiment: on the one hand, unlike traditional desktop computers, VR allows full-body interaction; on the other hand, VR allows one to experience disembodied presence in an immaterial, abstract space. Our recent research projects allowed us to reach a new extreme of such disembodied VR experiences, where participants affected their virtual surrounding using their emotional state and, to a limited extent, using their 'thoughts'. This scientific research gave rise to two science-art collaborations. In the first, a visual artist navigated in a virtual maze that he created, using only his 'thoughts'; this experience inspired a set of art shows. The second project included floating inside an immersive VR environment, where the motion was based on electrodermal activity ('sweat response'), and the content of the virtual environment was based on dreams purchased and modelled by the artist.


Soil map is one of the basic tools in any agricultural development planning and generating a digital one is even more effective and more productive for natural resources evaluation. Moreover, remote sensing and GIS have added to soil classification different concept and enforcement. The study aim was to produce digital soil maps for the study area following different classification systems (ST and WRB) and to define the spatial distribution and characteristics all the soil classes in the study area, which will be indispensable for future development planning. This work has been done as a part of the 29 th Course Professional Master in IAO institution, Florence, Italy. The study area was Kilte Awulaelo district in Tigray region, Ethiopia, Which is characterized by different topographies and geomorphologies with different agro ecological conditions. Eleven main soil groups and sixty soil types were identified in the study area. The main soil groups are: Leptosols, Vertisols, Fluvisols, Stagnosols, Kastanozems, Phaeozems, Calcisols, Luvisols, Arenosols, Cambisols and Regosols.  Regosols and Cambisols are the dominant soils in the study area which is characteristic soils of rainfed agriculture and land affected by erosion. Using spatial distribution map of each soil group was very helpful to connect soil characteristics with soil forming factors. Lastly, GIS and remote sensing were very effective tools in this study and gave higher value for the final study results.


Protein kinase A represses activity of the transcriptional coactivator YAP. The Hippo pathway plays an important role in limiting cell growth during development and homeostasis. Activation of the kinases MST1 and MST2 (MST1/2, homologous to invertebrate Hippo) leads to activation of the kinases LATS1 and LATS2 (LATS1/2), which phosphorylate the transcriptional coactivators YAP and TAZ to prevent their nuclear translocation and activation of growth-promoting genes. Nuclear accumulation of YAP can also be inhibited by signaling through G protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs) and by disruption of the actin cytoskeleton or loss of tension on actin stress fibers. Yu et al. and Kim et al. report that protein kinase A (PKA) mediates phosphorylation of YAP downstream of both GPCR signaling and cytoskeletal changes. Yu et al. induced cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) accumulation in cultured breast cancer cells by treating the cells with inhibitors of cAMP degradation or with epinephrine, a ligand of the β2 adrenergic receptor (a GPCR), and this increase in cAMP resulted in phosphorylation of YAP and TAZ and a decrease in the abundance of TAZ. Stimulating cAMP accumulation with forskolin also induced YAP phosphorylation in several additional cultured human and mouse cell lines. cAMP stimulates the activity of PKA, and various methods for inhibiting PKA activity resulted in the reduction or complete elimination of forskolin-induced phosphorylation of YAP in several cell types. Whereas LATS1/2 was required for YAP phosphorylation in response to forskolin treatment in HEK293A cells, MST1/2 was not required. The in vitro kinase activity of LATS1 immunoprecipitated from cells treated with forskolin was increased compared with LATS1 isolated from untreated cells. Experiments with inhibitors of the Rho small guanosine triphosphatases (GTPases) and with a constitutively active form of RhoA indicated that PKA induced phosphorylation of YAP through Rho GTPases rather than acting on LATS1/2 directly. Finally, PKA-dependent inhibition of YAP and TAZ was required for PKA-induced differentiation of mouse fibroblasts into adipocytes, and in vivo experiments in Drosophila melanogaster were consistent with PKA inhibiting the activity of the YAP homolog Yki to limit cell proliferation and promote apoptosis during development. In a related study, Kim et al. found that PKA and LATS1/2, but not MST1/2, were required for YAP phosphorylation in NIH3T3 cells in response to cell detachment, which reduces tension on actin stress fibers, or treatment with the actin-depolymerizing drug latrunculin B. In contrast to the findings of Yu et al., in vitro kinase assays and experiments in transfected cells performed by Kim et al. indicated that PKA could directly phosphorylate LATS1 and LATS2 in vitro and that neurofibromin 2 (NF2), which can act as a PKA-anchoring protein (AKAP) and had been previously implicated in Hippo signaling, was required for PKA-mediated phosphorylation of LATS1 and YAP in 293T cells. Kim et al. also demonstrated that PKA-mediated inhibition of YAP was important for promoting anoikis (cell death in response to loss of cell contacts) in NIH3T3 cells and for modulating the balance between proliferation and differentiation of neural progenitor cells in the chick embryo. Despite the conflicting results regarding whether LATS1/2 are direct targets of PKA, these studies establish the Hippo pathway as an output of PKA signaling and provide another example of an input that can influence Hippo-mediated growth control. F.-X. Yu, Y. Zhang, H. W. Park, J. L. Jewell, Q. Chen, Y. Deng, D. Pan, S. S. Taylor, Z.-C. Lai, K.-L. Guan, Protein kinase A activates the Hippo pathway to modulate cell proliferation and differentiation. Genes Dev. 27, 1223–1232 (2013). [Abstract] [Full Text] M. Kim, M. Kim, S. Lee, S. Kuninaka, H. Saya, H. Lee, S. Lee, D.-S. Lim, cAMP/PKA signalling reinforces the LATS-YAP pathway to fully suppress YAP in response to actin cytoskeletal changes. EMBO J. 32, 1543–1555 (2013). [PubMed]


The overall aim of the present study was to examine the impact of an Equine Facilitated Learning Programme on the social and emotional well-being of young people affected by educational inequality. A mixed methods design was used, with a longitudinal quantitative element employed to examine changes over time in key variables, and qualitative methods used to explore experiences of the programme. Dependent measures included the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), The Piers Harris Self Concept Scale (PH) and the Youth at Risk Programme Evaluation Tool (Yar-Pet). Participants were 88 young people (male = 62, female = 26) aged between 8 and 18 years with an average age of 13 years of age (SD = 2.20), along with their parents and teachers. Quantitative data were collected over three time points. The second time point included interviews with the young people, their parents and teachers selected from those who had participated in the quantitative data collection at time one and time two.
Retention of participants was high in the young people group (72%), but lower in the parent (54%) and teacher (59%) groups. Quantitative and qualitative data were initially analysed using One-Way and Two-Way repeated measures ANOVA and thematic analysis respectively. Patterns were then identified from both data sets to highlight evidence of convergence and divergence of findings. Significant differences from the One-Way repeated measures ANOVA were observed in several measures including the Strengths and Difficulties Parents Total Difficulties and Peer Problems; Teachers Prosocial and Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire Impact Supplement; Youth At Risk – Programme Evaluation Tool Young Persons and Teachers total score; Youth At Risk – Programme Evaluation Tool Teachers Personal and Social Objectives; and the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale Total score, Physical Appearance, Freedom from Anxiety and Popularity sub-scales. Two-Way repeated measures ANOVA for young people in the clinical and non-clinical range reported significant findings for participants who were in the clinical range, based on self- reporting (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire Total Difficulties). Overall, integration of the data suggest that positive changes in the young peoples' self-awareness and relational skills, as two of the five social and emotional competencies used as part of this study, is likely to be associated with participation in the Equine Facilitated Learning Programme. The use of multiple informants in a mixed methods approach was found to be especially insightful as it provided a deeper understanding of the benefits of the EFP beyond the objectives of the study, including the sense of calmness experience by the young people after the EFP sessions, how the EFP encouraged the young people to develop their resilience levels during sessions and suggestions about how the programme can help generalise the young peoples' learning across the family and school setting. A review of the theoretical frameworks indicate that Social Cognitive Theory combined with Biophilia Hypothesis provide an improved understanding of how EFPs may be effective in promoting social and emotional well-being. As this is one of the few studies which has used a mixed methods approach these findings hold significant potential for the future development of EFPs as alternative intervention for young people with social and emotional difficulties.


We investigate incompressible, inviscid vorticity dynamics on a rotating unit sphere using a Discrete Exterior Calculus (DEC) scheme. For a prescribed initial vorticity distribution, we vary the rate of rotation of the sphere from zero (non-rotating case, which corresponds to infinite Rossby number (Ro)) to 320 (which corresponds to Ro = $1.30 \times 10^{-3}$), and investigate the evolution with time of the vorticity field. For the non-rotating case, the vortices evolve into thin filaments due to so-called forward/direct enstrophy cascade. At late times an oscillating quadrupolar vortical field emerges as a result of the inverse energy cascade. Rotation diminishes the forward cascade of enstrophy (and hence the inverse cascade of energy) and tend to align the vortical structures in the azimuthal/zonal direction. Our investigation reveals that, for the initial vorticity field comprising of intermediate-wavenumber spherical harmonics, the zonalization of the vortical structures is not monotonic with ever decreasing Rossby numbers and the structures revert back to a non-zonal state below a certain Rossby number. On the other hand, for the initial vorticity field comprising of intermediate to large-wavenumber spherical harmonics, the zonalization is monotonic with decreasing Rossby number. Although, rotation diminishes the forward cascade of enstrophy, it does not completely cease/arrest the cascade.


The comparative analysis was implemented concerning versions of architecture of segment of unified public information system of health care within the framework of the regional program of modernization of Nizhniy Novgorod health care system. The author proposed means of increasing effectiveness of public investments on the basis of analysis of aggregate value of ownership of information system. The evaluation is given concerning running up to target program indicators and dynamics of basic indicators of informatization of institutions of oblast health care system.


Recent interest in applications of games and gaming methods has stimulated discussion of their use in engineering systems research. Simulation games or gaming simulations are interactive environments which simultaneously model a technical system through simulation and a social system with role‐play participants. Their boundary‐spanning nature aligns with challenges in engineering systems to consider both technical and social factors in design. This paper outlines a class of gaming methods for research in engineering systems. Key contributions synthesize diverse bodies of literature to classify gaming applications as generating generalizable and contextual knowledge to benefit participants and principals, identify intellectual foundations in related social sciences, and describe the dual purpose of games as a research method for analytical or design science objectives. Conclusions highlight opportunities and challenges for gaming research methods to accommodate social science research in design‐centric activities.


Due to the special gating schemes of Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), LSTMs have shown greater potential to process complex sequential information than the traditional Recurrent Neural Network (RNN). The conventional LSTM, however, fails to take into consideration the impact of salient spatio-temporal dynamics present in the sequential input data. This problem was first addressed by the differential Recurrent Neural Network (dRNN), which uses a differential gating scheme known as Derivative of States (DoS). DoS uses higher orders of internal state derivatives to analyze the change in information gain caused by the salient motions between the successive frames. The weighted combination of several orders of DoS is then used to modulate the gates in dRNN. While each individual order of DoS is good at modeling a certain level of salient spatio-temporal sequences, the sum of all the orders of DoS could distort the detected motion patterns. To address this problem, we propose to control the LSTM gates via individual orders of DoS and stack multiple levels of LSTM cells in an increasing order of state derivatives. The proposed model progressively builds up the ability of the LSTM gates to detect salient dynamical patterns in deeper stacked layers modeling higher orders of DoS, and thus the proposed LSTM model is termed deep differential Recurrent Neural Network (d2RNN). The effectiveness of the proposed model is demonstrated on two publicly available human activity datasets: NUS-HGA and Violent-Flows. The proposed model outperforms both LSTM and non-LSTM based state-of-the-art algorithms.


Background: Acute and chronic shoulder symptoms can be due to calcifications but also to other lesions well detected by Ultrasound (US). Objective: The present study's objectives were to determine whether, some demographic, clinical and ultrasound features were associated with the presence or absence of calcifications in symptomatic shoulders patients. Methods: As part of this retrospective, transversal, case-control study of 490 patients, the 125 patients with calcifications were compared to 125 patients without calcification randomly extracted from the cohort. Subgroups were defined according to types and durations of symptoms. The frequency and types of associated lesions in the two groups, as well as the different US appearances of the calcifications were compared according to their different clinical presentations. Results: Calcific tendinitis was present in 26% of patients. Demographic characteristics or clinical manifestations, significantly associated with calcifications were: being a woman (p = 0.002), a shorter delay between symptoms and diagnosis (p = 0.007 and have acute symptoms. The presence of calcifications was associated with the absence of associated (42% vs. 6%, p = 0.0001) or less severe associated US lesions, particularly total rotator cuff rupture (5% vs. 18%, p = 0.001). Soft and cystic J Orthop Sports Med 2020; 2 (4): 168182 DOI: 10.26502/josm.511500032 Journal of Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine 169 calcifications without shadowing were found more frequently in patients with hyperalgesic shoulders (p = 0.005) compared to chronic shoulders. Conclusions: Only few demographic and clinical features were significantly more frequent in the presence of calcifications. US revealed fewer additional lesions when calcifications were present and, some US aspects of the calcification suggested the type of symptoms.


This volume launches the first sustained discussion of the need for a queer of color conceptual framework around Black, lesbian female identity. Specifically, this volume addresses the necessity for a more integrated framework within queer studies, in which the variables of race/ethnicity are taken into consideration. This book is unique in that it highlights a triple-jeopardy minority group that has been historically marginalized and concludes with the proposal of a much-needed framework for researchers to begin to create a baseline of knowledge/research under the umbrella of the Black Queer Identity Matrix.


Super-absorbent polymer particles (SAPs) were used as a self-curing admixture for mortars. The effect of SAPs on mechanical properties of mortars was investigated. The performance of the mortars with SAPs added by two different ways was tested, which showed that the way of adding dried was more feasible to application. The performance of mortars with different curing methods was also tested. The results showed that SAPs in the mortars played a role of reserving water and the mechanical properties of hardened mortars with SAPs were better than those had no SAPs and exposed to the air, which suggested that incorporating SAPs can be an effective self-curing method.


The Australian and Canadian Aboriginal communities are strikingly similar vis-à-vis traditional lifestyles, social structures and histories of victimization during colonization (Morrisette, McKenzie, & Morrisette, 2010). A cultural context, then, means "an emphasis on historical reconstruction based on an understanding of colonialism to alter the stereotypes and false beliefs given to Aboriginal people, and on culture and traditions as restorative to an individual's identity and self-esteem" (Morrisette et al., 2010, p. 98). At present, both communities suffer similar problems of unemployment, alcoholism, drug abuse, sex abuse, mental illness, suicide and racism. In this paper we explore the contribution of Australian Government policies to the lack of progress in Australia.


Dr Williams suggests that length of ventilation could account for the association. When duration of ventilation during the first month of life is entered in the regression, it does not account for the correlation seen. This variable was not included in the final paper because, as explained, it both may cause and be caused by CLD. Vitamin A at 800 U per day was used through the period of the study either in oral or intravenous supplements. Dr Williams is somewhat selective in his quotations from the paper of Hammerman and Aramburo, in omitting to mention that 7/20 lipid-treated infants went home on oxygen compared with 0/22 of the controls. I agree with Dr Wilson and his senior colleagues when they state that association does not necessarily imply causation, and that my cohort study can only generate a hypothesis to be tested. However, they robustly counter my proposition that the 'theoretical gains made from early lipid infusion may be outweighed by an increase in CLD' with their own small case control study showing an association between low energy intake and CLD. Surely what is sauce for the goose is good for the gander? Also the two sets of findings are not incompatible. Dr Wilson and colleagues offer me advice on the size of randomised controlled trial which they now feel should be conducted. Trial size calculations are based on prior assumptions about the size of the effect of the intervention and the incidence of the target condition in the population. Their calculations are correct for their assumptions, although they give no reason for choosing a reduction of CLD from 60% to 40% as the effect sought. The odds ratio for lipid use in the first 21 days was 8-1 in the study reported, suggesting that a considerably smaller study may be needed. I certainly support randomised trials and further studies are currently underway. While there is good reason to believe that better nutrition both before and after birth may make an important contribution to improved recovery from lung disease in the preterm infant, there is also good reason to believe that early use of lipid infusions may not be the best way of achieving this. The firmness with which this was expressed in my concluding remarks is at least partly due to editorial changes, so perhaps they should share the reputation for draconian proscription!


The Operating Room (OR) plays an important role in delivering vital medical services to patients in hospitals. Such environments contain several medical devices, equipment, and systems producing valuable information which might be combined for biomedical and surgical workflow analysis. Considering the sensibility of data from sensors in the OR, independently of processing and network loads, the middleware that provides data from these sensors have to respect applications quality of service (QoS) demands. In an OR middleware, there are two main bottlenecks that might suffer QoS problems and, consequently, impact directly in user experience: (i) simultaneous user applications connecting the middleware; and (ii) a high number of sensors generating information from the environment. Currently, many middlewares that support QoS have been proposed by many fields; however, to the best of our knowledge, there is no research on this topic or the OR environment. OR environments are characterized by being crowded by persons and equipment, some of them of specific use in such environments, as mobile x-ray machines. Therefore, this article proposes QualiCare, an adaptable middleware model to provide multi-level QoS, improve user experience, and increase hardware utilization to middlewares in OR environments. Our main contributions are a middleware model and an orchestration engine in charge of changing the middleware behavior to guarantee performance. Results demonstrate that adapting middleware parameters on demand reduces network usage and improves resource consumption maintaining data provisioning.


In this study we tested the hypothesis that C-peptide alone or in conjunction with insulin may cause a dilation of skeletal muscle arterioles. First-order arterioles (88 μm) isolated from rat cremaster muscles were pressurized (65 mmHg), equilibrated in a Krebs bicarbonate-buffered solution (pH 7.4), gassed with 10% O2 (balance 5% CO2, 85% N2), and studied in a no-flow state. C-peptide administered at concentrations of 0.3, 1, 3, 10, 100, 300, and 1,000 ng/ml evoked arteriolar dilation that was not concentration dependent. In contrast, the administration of the four lower physiological concentrations of C-peptide to arterioles exposed to a nondilating concentration of insulin evoked a significant concentration-dependent increase in arteriolar diameter from 8.6 to 42.3% above control. The arteriolar dilation to C-peptide in the presence of insulin was completely inhibited by administration of N G-nitro-l-arginine (10-4 M). Responses to ACh and adenosine were not enhanced when these drugs were administered in the presence of insulin. These results indicate that C-peptide has the capacity to evoke arteriolar dilation in skeletal muscle via a nitric oxide-mediated mechanism that appears to be enhanced by an interaction with insulin. Furthermore, the effects of insulin appear to be specific for C-peptide and are not the result of a general enhancement of endothelium-dependent or endothelium-independent dilation.


We propose an approach to build a 3D modeling environment for aiding new shape conceptualization. The proposed system consists of the following four functional components: (a) a freehand sketch Interface to allow the user to easily bring his/her rough design idea into a 2D geometric model, (b) a shape approximation module (SAM) to automatically convert the sketched 2D image into a 3D deformable model, (c) a 3D shape exploration tool to generate variety of 3D models by evolving the converted 3D model, and (d) a parametric 3D modeler to sophisticate the evolved shapes. The freehand sketch Interface employs a fuzzy Inference technique to flexibly Identify a user's handwritten image as one of seven geometric primitives commonly used in many CAD tools. After the freehand sketch Is automatically converted to a 3D model by the SAM, the model Is evolved by using a technique called Interactive Evolutionary Computation (IEC). IEC automatically generates and deforms the model according to the user's rating and allows even beginners to easily produce interesting shapes. Advanced users and experts are encouraged to use parametric modeler to finish the model with elaboration.


Abstract The author discusses important issues of the dialogical essence of thinking and internal dialogism in the moral and ethical journalism. Choosing everyone' ability of monologic revelation as the starting point of her study, the author concludes that these revelations are a kind of reconsidering historical, personal and interpersonal shifts that lead to the desire to learn the truth, to harmonize the vision and understanding of a situation with someone else's viewpoint. In search for the truth, both the publicist and the audience -together or separately - cross different levels of a dialogue as it is presented by the "communicative pyramid" as a model of dialogical communication and the formation of the personality.


Abstract. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite systems may give important contribution in terms of Digital Surface Models (DSMs) generation considering their complete independence from logistic constraints on the ground and weather conditions. In recent years, the new availability of very high resolution SAR data (up to 20 cm Ground Sample Distance) gave a new impulse to radargrammetry and allowed new applications and developments. Besides, to date, among the software aimed to radargrammetric applications only few show as free and open source. It is in this context that it has been decided to widen DATE (Digital Automatic Terrain Extractor) plug-in capabilities and additionally include the possibility to use SAR imagery for DSM stereo reconstruction (i.e. radargrammetry), besides to the optical workflow already developed. DATE is a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) developed at the Geodesy and Geomatics Division, University of Rome "La Sapienza", and conceived as an OSSIM (Open Source Software Image Map) plug-in. It has been developed starting from May 2014 in the framework of 2014 Google Summer of Code, having as early purpose a fully automatic DSMs generation from high resolution optical satellite imagery acquired by the most common sensors. Here, the results achieved through this new capability applied to two stacks (one ascending and one descending) of three TerraSAR-X images each, acquired over Trento (Northern Italy) testfield, are presented. Global accuracies achieved are around 6 metres. These first results are promising and further analysis are expected for a more complete assessment of DATE application to SAR imagery.


Wind energy is a growing industry in Canada to meet the demand for a renewable supply of energy. However, wind turbine operation represents a high mortality risk for bat populations, and regulators often require that steps are taken to mitigate this risk. The result is concern among operators about lost revenue potential. This study was, therefore, designed to estimate the theoretical financial impact of curtailing turbine operations to mitigate for bat mortality for all wind farms that were constructed and operating in Ontario, Canada, as of 1 January 2020 (n = 87 wind farms). Empirical data from the Canadian Wind Farm SCADA and meteorological systems are not publicly available; thus, we were compelled to use data from the Canadian Wind Turbine database, the Environment and Climate Change Canada Wind Atlas, and the Independent Electricity System Operator to calculate the total theoretical energy production for all wind turbines in the province using manufacturer power curves and a measure–correlate–predict linear regression method. We estimated the financial impacts for all wind farms on the assumption that operations were curtailed when the Wind Atlas modelled local wind speed was <5.5 m/s between 6 pm of one day and 6 am the following day, between 15 July and 30 September, using the lower and upper limits of power-purchase agreement rates for Ontario wind farms: 115 and 150 CAD/MWh. We used generalized linear modelling to test whether the variability in production loss was predicted based on factors related to turbine design and site wind speeds. We estimated that total annual wind energy production would be reduced from 12.09 to 12.04 TWh if all Ontario wind farms implemented operational curtailment, which is equivalent to a difference of 51.2 GWh, or 0.42%. Production loss was related to turbine cut-in speeds and average site wind speeds recorded between 15 July and 30 September. The estimated profit losses were 6.79 ± 0.9 million CAD compared to estimated earnings of 1.6 ± 0.21 billion CAD, which suggests that mitigating bat mortality may represent a small cost to the industry relative to the conservation benefits for bat populations.


This article reflects on the limits of the archives in the recovery of indigenous lives. An Australian Aboriginal activist and traveller in interwar Britain and Europe, Anthony Martin Fernando was an outspoken protestor of Aboriginal conditions while in Australia but mostly from overseas. He demonstrated outside Australia House in the 1920s, planned to approach the League of Nations, and was an advocate of a form of direct international mandate over land reserved for Aboriginal occupation in Australia. Much is still unknown about his life, but new information shows that he was also, among other things, a labourer in Trieste, Vienna, and Rome, a manservant in London, a civilian internee in Austria during the First World War, an interviewee of the Swiss progressive press in the interwar years, and a speaker at Hyde Park Corner. Information about his life story has been gained through wide-ranging archival research, and, perhaps most remarkably, recent contact with two families that employed him in England. More than a life shaped by tragedy, yet it was the tragic nature of colonisation and its genocidal effects that drove his life's work.


ABSTRACT The viscosity of heavy oils is a crucial factor in estimating oil recovery. Viscosity plays a vital character in reservoir simulations as well as in estimating the easiness of fluid flow, estimating oil recovery, and choosing a production model. The authors present a new intelligent model, a GA-LSSVM, used for predicting the viscosity of heavy oils. The experimental data employed in this work are the product of searching in many heavy oils data gathered from the literature. Development of robust predictive models to predict the viscosity of heavy oils is of immense help in many process engineering applications. The outcomes revealed that GA-LSSVM is able to capture the complicated and nonlinear relation between the input and output variables. GA-LSSVM model resulted in R2 and mean absolute error values of 0.9999 and 0.9924, respectively.


Obtaining important pages rapidly can be very useful when a crawler cannot visit the entire Webin a reasonable amount of time.Several Crawling algorithms such as Partial PageRank,Batch PageRank, OPIC, and FICA have been proposed, but they have high time complexity or low throughput. To overcome these problems, we propose a new crawling algorithm called IECA which is easy to implement with low time O(E*logV)and memory complexity O(V) -Vand Eare the number of nodes and edges in the Web graph, respectively. Unlike the mentioned algorithms, IECA traverses the Web graph only once and the importance of the Web pages is determined based on the logarithmic distance and weight of the incoming links. To evaluate IECA, we use threedifferent Web graphs such as the UK-2005, Web graph of university of California, Berkeley-2008, and Iran-2010. Experimental results show that our algorithm outperforms other crawling algorithms in discovering highly important pages.


We investigate the effect of dispersion compensation on temporal characteristics in mode-locking by nonlinear polarization rotation in an ytterbium-doped fiber (YDF) oscillator with intracavity and external grating pairs. A short fixed length YDF was spliced with a longer single-mode fiber (SMF). Using experimentally measured dispersion characteristics of the YDF, SMF and cavity optics, we control the group velocity dispersion (GVD) and spectral broadening in a cavity by changing the SMF length. As a result, the oscillator generated 29.4-fs transform-limited wing-free pulses, which are to our knowledge the shortest and cleanest pulses achieved without the use of additional optics like a prism pair for high-order dispersion compensation. The results show that a precise balance of higher order terms of the GVD and self-phase modulation is essential for shortening pulse duration.


The material grain size changes significantly during machining of hardened steels, and this must be taken into account for improved modeling of surface integrity effects resulting from machining. Grain size changes induced during orthogonal cutting of hardened AISI 52100 (62 HRC) are modeled using the Finite Element (FE) method; in particular, a user subroutine involving a hardness-based flow stress model is implemented in the FE code and empirical models are utilized for describing the phase transformation conditions to simulate formation of white and dark layers. Furthermore, a procedure utilizing the Zener-Hollomon relationship is implemented in the above-mentioned user subroutine to predict the evolution in material grain size at different cutting speeds (300, 600, 900 SFPM). All simulations were performed for dry cutting conditions using a low CBN-content insert (Kennametal KD050 grade, ANSI TNG-432 geometry). The model is validated by comparing the predicted results with experimental evidence available in the literature.


A critical analysis of approaches to find constitutive relations from the tests on uniaxial and two axial loading is presented. Then we report on the methodology of fitting parameters of constitutive relations for superplastic forming based on the results of cone cup and elongated wedge cup tests. Optimal cone and wedge angles are estimated analytically and also from the results of finite element simulations. Our methodology is based on comparison of the experimental results and the results of numerical simulations of the corresponding tests in frame of the commercial software such as ANSYS10.0 (ED). We carry out numerical simulations of the cone cup and the wedge cup tests for different sets of parameters of the chosen constitutive relation and different values of friction coefficient in order to reproduce the experimental results. The parameters corresponding to the best fit of the experimental data are then recommended for the use in computer simulations of the superplastic forming of commercial products.


User data is siloed in mobile apps today. Where one app may hold the user's flight booking, another app the user's cab reservation, with little data sharing between the two, resulting in a fragmented user experience. For instance, if a user, who has just booked a flight using one app, wishes to pre-book a cab from the airport, they would have to do so by manually re-entering the data from the flight app (e.g., location, date, time) into the cab app. To enable the user to retake control of their in-app data, the Insider platform extracts structured user data from the presentation layer of arbitrary apps, without any modifications to the app code or binary, and makes it easy for such data to be shared across apps, when the user so desires. At its core, ordinary users create and share models for the apps they care about; the app model relates the data from the presentation layer of the app to attributes in a task template, which corresponds to the specific tasks users perform in the app (e.g., booking a flight). At runtime, Insider combines the app model with the raw stream from the presentation layer to produce structured and semantically-meaningful information. Insider then publishes this information through a set of APIs, enabling creation of novel apps that could not have been built previously. For example, we prototype the automatic population of information in a cab app after a flight booking as well as three other such novel apps that rely on cross-app data sharing. Finally, we report on a detailed evaluation of running Insider on 150 apps across 11 categories. We show that we are able to successfully extract 83% of the key attributes (e.g., UI widget corresponding to source airport) from these apps. Further, we also track app version changes during a 6 month period from Sep 2014 to Mar 2015 and find that even though 40% of apps were updated, only 6% of apps required rebuilding of the app model.


The deformation depends on twinning in Mg alloy, and twins will be the dominant recrystallization nucleation site. Tension twinning proceeds much more easily than compression twinning since its volume fraction is much higher than that of compression twins, which may have a promotive effect on the recrystallization to a certain degree. Based on the previous research on the static recrystallization at compression twins, the evolution of microstructure and texture in AZ31 magnesium alloy during its static recystallization at tension twins was further investigated; and the orientational characteristics of new grains formed at tension twins in the early stage of static recrystallization were analyzed by EBSD technique. The results showed that the strong basal texture was retained and weakened with no new texture component being detected during annealing. New grains were observed to nucleate preferentially at the intersections of tension twin variants or the intersection between tension twins and compression twins. Their orientations are relatively random and are strongly scattered from those of original tension twins or compression twins. A comparison of the recrystallization at tension twins and compression twins was further made.


A study of sudden unexpected nontraumatic deaths was begun on June 1, 1964. A sample of all nontraumatic deaths in Baltimore residents between the ages of 20 and 64 from June 15, 1964, to June 14, 1965, was obtained. The deaths were then studied by reviewing all available medical information in order to determine: (1) whether the death was possibly sudden or not and (2) the accuracy of the diagnosis reported on the death certificate. The next of kin or other relative or friend of each deceased person who died suddenly was then interviewed.For comparison, information was obtained on (1) a probability sample of the Baltimore population, and (2) deaths due to arteriosclerotic heart disease (ASHD deaths) that were found to be "not-sudden."There were 1,857 deaths in the original sample, of which 589 were sudden according to the definition of sudden death. After adjustment for sampling, it was estimated that 1,178 (32%) of the total 3,648 deaths in Baltimore were sudden. Arteriosclerotic heart disease (ASHD) accounted for 58% and the cardiovascular group together for 69% of the sudden deaths.Sixty per cent of all ASHD deaths were sudden. Of the 1,030 ASHD deaths in Baltimore City between the ages of 40 and 64, 20.6% occurred outside of a hospital and 46.2% represented deaths on arrival at a hospital. Only 18.9% of all ASHD deaths occurred after the first 24 hours of hospitalization.By use of data provided in several crosssectional and prospective studies, it was estimated that 22% of new coronary events were sudden deaths and that the case-fatality rate was 31%.In approximately half of the ASHD sudden deaths the deceased had a history of heart disease prior to death and in 24% the deceased had seen a physician within the week prior to death. Unfortunately we were not able to determine the reasons for these visits.In considering the implications of these findings with regard to the prevention of ASHD deaths, it would appear that prevention of only a comparatively small percentage (8.2%) of ASHD deaths is completely dependent on primary prevention. For the remaining ASHD deaths a combination of both primary and secondary prevention may be effective. Because of the rapidity of death and the high frequency of these deaths either occurring outside of a hospital or being called deaths on arrival, hospital treatment may well have little effect on reducing the ASHD mortality, while, on the other hand, the combination of better and earlier diagnosis and intensive treatment in a hospital could conceivably re- duce the mortality.


Disentangling the numerous processes that affect patterns of genome‐wide diversity in widespread tree species has important implications for taxonomy, conservation, and forestry. Here, we investigate the population genomic structure of Asian white birch (Betula platyphylla) in China and seek to explain it in terms of hybridization, demography and adaptation. We generate whole genome sequence data from 83 individuals across the species range in China. Combining this with an existing data set for 79 European and Russian white birches, we show a clear distinction between B. pendula and B. platyphylla, which have sometimes been lumped taxonomically. Genomic diversity of B. platyphylla in north‐western China and Central Russia is affected greatly by hybridization with B. pendula. Excluding these hybridized populations, B. platyphylla in China has a linear distribution from north‐eastern to south‐western China, along the edge of the inland mountainous region. Within this distribution, three genetic clusters are found, which we model as long diverged with subsequent episodes of gene flow. Patterns of covariation between allele frequencies and environmental variables in B. platyphylla suggest the role of natural selection in the distribution of diversity at 7609 SNPs of which 3767 were significantly differentiated among the genetic clusters. The putative adaptive SNPs are distributed throughout the genome and span 1633 genic regions. Of these genic regions, 87 were previously identified as candidates for selective sweeps in Eurasian B. pendula. We use the 7609 environmentally associated SNPs to estimate the risk of nonadaptedness for each sequenced B. platyphylla individual under a scenario of future climate change, highlighting areas where populations may be under future threat from rising temperatures.


The purpose of this study was to develop a gas sensor array to estimate the manure nutrient contents. Three metal-oxide gas sensors including methane, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide were used. Forty manure samples were collected from four beef operations in Southwest North Dakota. Manure samples were sent to be analyzed for moisture content, total-nitrogen (Total-N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K) and ammonium-nitrogen (NH4-N). Regression equations were developed showing the relationships between sensor array readings and the lab results. The sensor array was able to estimate manure N, P, and K with correlation coefficients of 0.80, 0.76 and 0.70, respectively.


In most cells trans-activating NF-κB induces many inflammatory proteins as well as its own inhibitor, IκB-α, thus assuring a transient response upon stimulation. However, NF-κB-dependent inflammatory gene expression is persistent in asthmatic bronchi, even after allergen eviction. In the present report we used bronchial brushing samples (BBSs) from heaves-affected horses (a spontaneous model of asthma) to elucidate the mechanisms by which NF-κB activity is maintained in asthmatic airways. NF-κB activity was high in granulocytic and nongranulocytic BBS cells. However, NF-κB activity highly correlated to granulocyte percentage and was only abrogated after granulocytic death in cultured BBSs. Before granulocytic death, NF-κB activity was suppressed by simultaneous addition of neutralizing anti-IL-1β and anti-TNF-α Abs to the medium of cultured BBSs. Surprisingly, IκB-β, whose expression is not regulated by NF-κB, unlike IκB-α, was the most prominent NF-κB inhibitor found in BBSs. The amounts of IκB-β were low in BBSs obtained from diseased horses, but drastically increased after addition of the neutralizing anti-IL-1β and anti-TNF-α Abs. These results indicate that sustained NF-κB activation in asthmatic bronchi is driven by granulocytes and is mediated by IL-1β and TNF-α. Moreover, an imbalance between high levels of IL-1β- and TNF-α-mediated IκB-β degradation and low levels of IκB-β synthesis is likely to be the mechanism preventing NF-κB deactivation in asthmatic airways before granulocytic death.


Since ancient times, many legal constructions regarding blame or responsibility require subjects to be deemed accountable for their actions as well as for their omissions. The primary purpose of this work is to account for some legal and philosophical issues regarding the so-called negative events (i.e., events that have not occurred) through the development of two simple ideas. The first idea is to consider that, in most cases, a negative event is simply a normal positive event described negatively. The other idea is to distinguish the causal explanations of an event from the causal reports of an event. In this sense, it is shown how these two ideas not only clarify some fundamental philosophical issues, but they are also an excellent starting point for the interpretation and the application of some legal rules concerning omission.


Within the German "Research Alliance on Agroecosystems Munich" (Forschungsverbund Agrarokosysteme Munchen, FAM) optimal land use strategies are investigated since 1990 in terms of minimization of environmental impacts and maximization of profit from agricultural lands (Auerswald et al. 2000). For this purpose a conventional agricultural land use system was converted into two more sustainable forms of land use. One part of the farm was converted into an integrated land use system with reduced tillage, direct seeding methods and catch crops to minimize nutrient losses and to prevent soil erosion hazards. The other part of the farm was converted into a biological land use system with the omission of mineral fertilizers and pesticides and the enrichment of crop rotation. In order to evaluate changes in the state of the agroecosystem a goal and indicator system was elaborated which was aimed to represent important issues of sustainable agriculture. With the help of the goal and indicator system the impact of land use on issues of sustainability can be assessed. The indicators are furthermore integrated into a farm model to assess the implications of the realization of environmental issues in agriculture. For this purpose the model system MODAM (Zander & Kachele 1999) was used to compare different land use options at the farm level. The model system simulates agricultural land use, calculates the economic returns and runs farm optimizations with a linear programming tool. The integration of agro-environmental indicators in the model framework enables a multiple goal optimization and the calculation of trade-offs. For this study soil erosion was assessed with the algorithms of a site-specifically adapted version of the USLE (ABAG, Schwertmann et al. 1987). Optimization runs show, that e.g. soil conservation measures may not only improve soil conservation, but also the economic situation. A slight improvement of soil conservation results in marginal opportunity costs for the farm. With the realization of a higher level of soil protection opportunity costs rise exponentially. The calculated opportunity costs can give valuable hints on bottlenecks of the realization of sustainable agriculture and help to identify reasonable incentives for a better agriculture. Furthermore conflicts between divagating goals can be identified to find optimal pathways of a sustainable development of agriculture.


This article argues that the concept of equivalence is one of the most important methodological aspects of valid and reliable measurement in cross-national survey research. The important topic of survey measure equivalence has not been systematically in Czech social science publications to date and this article hopes to address this gap in the literature. Consequently, the two main goals of this article are (1) to acquaint the reader with techniques that are used to find questions that are interpreted in the same way across countries before data collection and (2) to describe the testing and evaluation of measurement indicators' equivalence or comparability after data collection. This study presents cognitive approaches to "good" question wording practices, best translation practices and the application of both 'emic' (culture specific) and 'etic' (culture universal) approaches to survey question design. After data collection a range of statistic techniques are usually employed ranging from basic statistics such as the mean to advanced approaches such as multi-group structural equation modelling, multilevel modelling, latent class modelling and Item Response Theory). This article describes some of these techniques in the context of measurement equivalence and its associated research literature.


Abstract Psychosocial acceleration theory suggests that pubertal maturation is accelerated in response to adversity. In addition, suboptimal caregiving accelerates development of the amygdala–medial prefrontal cortex circuit. These findings may be related. Here, we assess whether associations between family environment and measures of the amygdala–medial prefrontal cortex circuit are mediated by pubertal development in more than 2000 9- and 10-year-old children from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study (http://dx.doi.org/10.15154/1412097). Using structural equation modeling, demographic, child-reported, and parent-reported data on family dynamics were compiled into a higher level family environment latent variable. Magnetic resonance imaging preprocessing and compilations were performed by the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study's data analysis core. Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) thickness, area, white matter fractional anisotropy, amygdala volume, and cingulo-opercular network–amygdala resting-state functional connectivity were assessed. For ACC cortical thickness and ACC fractional anisotropy, significant indirect effects indicated that a stressful family environment relates to more advanced pubertal stage and more mature brain structure. For cingulo-opercular network–amygdala functional connectivity, results indicated a trend in the expected direction. For ACC area, evidence for quadratic mediation by pubertal stage was found. Sex-stratified analyses suggest stronger results for girls. Despite small effect sizes, structural measures of circuits important for emotional behavior are associated with family environment and show initial evidence of accelerated pubertal development.


Purpose: Telomerase is considered a molecular marker for malignancy. The aim of this study was to determine telomerase activity (TA) as a prognostic factor at diagnosis and as a marker for minimal residual disease during therapy and follow-up in nonmetastatic Ewing family of tumors (EFT). Patients and Methods: Primary tumor specimens and 97 peripheral blood (PBL) samples from 31 EFT patients were analyzed for TA by the Telomeric Repeat Amplification Protocol (TRAP assay). The telomerase catalytic subunit (human telomerase reverse transcriptase [hTERT]) gene expression was evaluated by quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and telomere length was determined by Southern blotting. The presence of the EFT chimeric transcripts was analyzed by RT-PCR. Correlations with progression-free survival were evaluated. Results: At diagnosis, TA in primary tumors did not correlate with outcome. During therapy and follow-up, highly significant correlation was observed between high TA in PBL samples and adverse prognosis (P < .0001). None of the patients harboring low TA progressed, with a long follow-up (median, 60 months) and a progression-free survival (PFS) of 100%. In nine patients, high TA actually could predict relapse, long before overt clinical relapse. The group of patients with high TA and positive RT-PCR had the most adverse outcome; PFS of 20% (P .0025). TA was found to be a better prognostic factor than RT-PCR and histopathologic response at surgery. Conclusion: The results suggest that TA is a significant prognostic variable, superior to the established clinical prognostic parameters during therapy and tumor surveillance. It could be used in combination with RT-PCR for a new risk classification. J Clin Oncol 21:3836-3843. © 2003 by American Society of Clinical Oncology.


The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector is one of the two multi-purpose experiments operating at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Many aspects of its broad physics program depend on the ability to trigger, reconstruct and identify events with electrons and photons in the final state. The full process of electron and photon reconstruction in CMS is presented in this contribution. Reconstruction algorithms, starting from tracker hits and energy deposits in the electromagnetic calorimeter, are described. Current identification algorithms are compared with the previous ones, focusing on the improvements achieved in obtaining the ultimate precision in Run II energy measurements. Particular attention is given to the evolution of detector conditions and identification criteria towards the different years of data-taking. The contribution covers extensively the results from 2016 and 2017 dataset of LHC, with quick highlights from the ongoing 2018 data-taking.


Mast cell sarcoma is an extremely rare mast cell proliferative disorder characterised by localised tumour, destructive growth and poor prognosis. Here we describe a case of mast cell sarcoma arising in the small intestine. To the best of our knowledge, so far only four cases have been reported in literature, presenting in the larynx, ascending colon, cerebrum and tibia.1–5

An elderly man presented with a 1.5-month history of abdominal pain. On examination, there was no lymphadenopathy or hepatosplenomegaly. Peripheral blood counts were normal except for mild anaemia. Serum lactate dehydrogenase was normal. CT abdomen showed a circumferential thickening of the wall of the ileum, with dilatation of bowel loops and a few enlarged mesenteric lymph nodes.

The patient underwent ileal resection and anastomosis. Gross examination revealed a segment of the small intestine measuring 15 cm in length, 4 and 8 cm in circumference at either resection margin. The external surface showed a constriction about 3 cm in length. The lumen showed an annular constrictive …


Presented during Session 15: Data Quality and Accountability, moderated by Linda Pierce, at the 9th International Conference on Managing Pavement Assets (ICMPA9) in Alexandria, VA.


This paper proposes a hybrid approach for the design of adaptive fuzzy controllers (FCs) in which two learning algorithms with different characteristics are merged together to obtain an improved method. The approach combines a genetic algorithm (GA), devised to optimize all the configuration parameters of the FC, including the number of membership functions and rules, and a Lyapunov-based adaptation law performing a local tuning of the output singletons of the controller, and guaranteeing the stability of each new controller investigated by the GA. The effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed using both numerical simulations on a known case study and experiments on a nonlinear hardware benchmark


ABSTRACT Saintilan, N.; Rogers, K.; Toms C. Stein, E.D., and Jacobs, D.K., 2016. Intermittent Estuaries: linking Hydro-geomorphic Context to Climate Change Resilience In: Vila-Concejo, A.; Bruce, E.; Kennedy, D.M., and McCarroll, R.J. (eds.), Proceedings of the 14th International Coastal Symposium (Sydney, Australia). Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue, No. 75, pp. 133–137. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Intermittent estuaries are temporarily open to exchange with the open ocean, and the influence of their entrance opening regime on hydrological and ecological function has received considerable attention. Here we consider the influence of tectonic, climatic and geomorphic controls on the distribution of estuarine habitats by contrasting two settings: the south coasts of New South Wales, Australia, and California USA. The combination of tectonic uplift and semi-arid, variable hydrology in southern California provides a stronger sediment yield to estuaries than in the tectonically stable temperate setting of southern Australia. This reflects in a greater proportional area of intertidal vegetation and a higher elevation capital than encountered in SE Australia. The implications for estuary management in the context of sea-level rise and urbanization are discussed.


The 5T4 oncofoetal antigen is a 72 kDa glycoprotein defined by a monoclonal antibody raised against human placental trophoblast and is expressed in many different carcinomas but detected only at low levels in some normal epithelia. Immunohistochemical analysis of the patterns of expression in colorectal carcinomas has indicated a significant association between the presence of the antigen in tumour cells and metastatic spread. A cDNA encoding the 5T4 molecules has been isolated and the extracellular portion contains several leucine-rich repeats which have been implicated in cellular interactions. To study the cell biological role of 5T4 molecules, murine L cells (A9 derivative) were stably transfected with 5T4 cDNA under the control of the CMV immediate-early promoter. The 5T4-expressing cells exhibited a more spindle-shaped morphology compared to the vector alone transfected cells. Confocal immunofluorescence microscopy revealed a 'polkadot' pattern of 5T4 antigen expression, heterogeneous in intensity between cells, but distributed over the entire cell surface. Transmission and scanning electron microscopy showed that the 5T4 antigen is concentrated at microvillus projections of the plasma membrane both in the transfected A9 cells and in various carcinoma cell lines. Such projections express an array of surface molecules which function in cell adhesion and motility. This association of 5T4 antigen with microvillus projections was also observed in various carcinoma cell lines. 5T4 expression in A9 cells was also associated with an altered pattern of cell division, decreased cell-substratum adhesion and increased cellular motility. These results support the hypothesis that 5T4 molecules may have a direct function in trophoblast and tumour cell invasion processes.


Bimodality is observed in empirical distributions of variables related to materials (glass resistance), to companies (productivity) and to natural phenomena (geyser eruptions). Modeling bimodality is usually done by means of mixtures of statistical distributions. Mixtures represent a suitable model when two or more distinct groups with specific distributions are considered as a single set. Conversely, when original groups composing the mixture are not recognizable, or when the observed phenomena is structurally bimodal, it is worth using an alternative approach to obtain a bimodal distribution fitting the data. Our proposal exploits the change of variable theorem which requires: 1) the choice of a generating density function representing the main features of the phenomena under analysis; 2) the choice of a transforming function that describes the observed departure from the expected behavior. Such procedure has been frequently used since '50s only for normalizing unimodal phenomena. The novelty of this work consists in putting particular attention to the choice of the transformation in two different cases: when bimodality arises from a slight departure from unimodality and when it is a proper structural feature of the variable under study. As an example we use the R geyser dataset.


In Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc., the Supreme Court held that because the FDA imposes device-specific requirements on the most sophisticated medical devices, tort claims that would impose different or additional requirements on such devices are preempted. The Court created an exception to this preemption rule for claims that parallel federal requirements. However, it failed to define precisely what constitutes a parallel claim. Lower courts have split on whether claims based on violations of non–device specific, industry-wide federal regulations survive preemption. Several courts, including the Eighth Circuit, and at least one scholarly article, have concluded such claims are expressly and/or impliedly preempted. However, the Fifth and Seventh Circuits, and a handful of district courts, have taken a more liberal approach, holding that these claims should survive preemption. This Note explores the split and argues that the liberal approach is preferable for doctrinal and publicpolicy reasons.


Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) is considered a superfood due to its nutritional qualities and potential health benefits. In this work, the nutritional and nutraceutical properties were compared for white Ecuador quinoa seeds (WEQ) and red Ecuador quinoa seeds (REQ) with respect to the white Mexican quinoa seeds (WMxQ). Quinoa seeds from Peru have been introduced and adapted to the geographic and climatic conditions by the State of Morelos, Mexico, improved by mass selection in field to obtain plants with desirable phenotypic characteristics. The nutritional properties of seeds were evaluated through a proximate analysis, mineral content, amino acids profile, and fatty acid profile of quinoa oil. The nutraceutical properties were determined quantifying total phenols, total betalains and antioxidant capacity. The results evidenced that WEQ seeds had the highest protein content (16.59 g 100 g-1 dw). The P, Ca, and Mg contents were high in WMxQ (424.6, 60.3, and 152.3 mg 100 g-1 in dw respectively). Arginine, glutamic acid, and alanine were the most abundant amino acids in the three cultivars. In all quinoas, unsaturated fatty acids were most predominant (73.6% to 78.0%). The Mexican quinoa seeds showed the highest total phenolic content (2.9 mg gallic acid equivalent g-1 in fw). The concentration of betalains in the REQ was 83.3 mg 100 g-1 fw. The results demonstrate that nutritional and phenolic contents varies according to the color seeds and region. Quinoa of Mexico is high in phenolic compounds and may be used as a source of natural antioxidants.


Abstract The current research paper addresses the hypothesis that management system (grazing vs. stabling) and/or stage of lactation (early- to late-lactation) can influence the lactation performance and milk fatty acid (MFA) profile in dromedary camels. The results obtained revealed that milk and protein yields of stabled camels were higher, while milk fat content was lower compared to grazing camels. In addition, stabled camels produced milk richer in short- and medium-chains fatty acids but lower in long-chain fatty acids and fatty acids linked with possible health benefits such as oleic acid, vaccenic acid (VA) and rumenic acid (RA), when compared to grazing camels. Moreover, atherogenicity index was higher, while overall Δ9-desaturase and health-promoting indices were lower in stabled camels. In a similar way, results demonstrated an increase in milk fat and protein contents as lactation advanced. In fact, camels at mid-lactation produced milk richer in short- and medium-chain fatty acids as well as total saturated fatty acids but poorer in oleic acid, VA, RA, long-chain fatty acids and total unsaturated fatty acids, when compared to milk samples collected at early stage of lactation. Moreover, compared to early- and late-lactations, atherogenicity index was higher while overall-Δ9-desaturase and health promoting indexes were lower at mid-lactation. In conclusion, the intensive stabling system and mid-lactation stage can alter lactation performance and MFA profile in dairy dromedary camels.


Azimuthally asymmetric dust distributions observed with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in transition disks have been interpreted as dust traps. We present Very Large Array Ka band (34 GHz or 0.9 cm) and ALMA Cycle 2 Band 9 (680 GHz or 0.45 mm) observations at a 0.″2 resolution of the Oph IRS 48 disk, which suggest that larger particles could be more azimuthally concentrated than smaller dust grains, assuming an axisymmetric temperature field or optically thin 680 GHz emission. Fitting an intensity model to both data demonstrates that the azimuthal extent of the millimeter emission is 2.3 ± 0.9 times as wide as the centimeter emission, marginally consistent with the particle trapping mechanism under the above assumptions. The 34 GHz continuum image also reveals evidence for ionized gas emission from the star. Both the morphology and the spectral index variations are consistent with an increase of large particles in the center of the trap, but uncertainties remain due to the continuum optical depth at 680 GHz. Particle trapping has been proposed in planet formation models to allow dust particles to grow beyond millimeter sizes in the outer regions of protoplanetary disks. The new observations in the Oph IRS 48 disk provide support for the dust trapping mechanism for centimeter-sized grains, although additional data are required for definitive confirmation.


The small pyrite-barite deposits at Aasen are situated in a 7-km-long mineralized zone near the top of ca. 1.8-b.y.-old acid volcanics in the Skellefte field in northeastern Sweden. Compared to other deposits in this province, Aasen is exceptional in its barite content, its relatively low-grade deformation, and the extreme stratiform and stratabound nature of the mineralization. In all other aspects, it is indistinguishable from the numerous other volcanogenic pyritic ores in the province.The pyrite-sulfur is isotopically very variable along the mineralized zone (--14.8 to +8.4ppm delta 34 S), but it is systematically lighter than coexisting barite-sulfur (delta = 11.7 to 17.1ppm). This contrasts with the pyrite-sulfur from other Skellefte field deposits which is remarkably homogeneous (+3 to --3ppm delta 34 S) with a strong modal value of +1 per mil delta 34 S.The pyrite-barite sulfur isotope relationship at Aasen is consistent with a Rayleigh distillation equation for sulfate reduction in a closed system, with a fractionation factor of 1.014 and an initial sulfate with +1 per mil delta 34 S. The data imply that low temperature, biologic sulfate reduction occurred ca. 1.8 b.y. ago. The coincidence between the isotopic composition of the initial Aasen sulfate and the bulk of the volcanic sulfide in the Skellefte province suggests that the sulfate was derived through oxidation of volcanic sulfur. Subsequent reaction of these partially reduced sulfate solutions with subsurface metalliferous brines in sea-floor depressions produced the Aasen ore concentrations.


In this paper, we study the relationship between the Laffer curve and the green paradox in the context of a Ramsey model with endogenous labor supply in which pollution increases consumer demand (through a compensation effect). We find that—in the long run—the conditions under which a Laffer curve and a green paradox emerge are mutually exclusive. Indeed, the Laffer curve exists under a weak compensation effect, while the green paradox requires a strong effect. Also, we find that, in the short run, limit cycles may arise in the presence of a Laffer curve, while they never occur under a green paradox.


Terellia yukseli n. sp. was collected in Turkey from Centaurea urvillei DC. and is described, illustrated, and placed in the subgenus Cerajocera. Type locality is Nigde Sazlica, and specimens were collected from Centaurea urvillei DC. This species is most similar to T. setifera Hendel and T. clarissima Korneyev in having entirely hyaline wing. It can be distinguished from other species of Terellia by the lack of wing spot pattern, the presence of a spinose antennal horn, and characteristic glans and aculeus. Photographs of the specimens and detailed illustrations of the genitalia structures are provided.


During the past two decades, there was an exponential increase of research for molecularly imprinted materials. It started from ions to small molecules over peptides and finally reached macromolecules and proteins, viruses, DNA and cells. The field of protein imprinting and recognition is just about to be further investigated and developed.
This work describes the challenging task of the development of tailor-made molecularly non-imprinted (NIP) and imprinted (MIP) polymers in two versions: hydrogels and nanoparticles. In contrast to literature, within this thesis, specially designed and synthesized monomers are used to create a specific polymer for a certain target. With the help of the amino acid complementary monomers, this work enables a design of highly specific and selective polymers which can, e. g., block protein or enzymatic functions, hinder protein-protein interactions or act like synthetic antibodies. The high affinity of the bisphosphonate-monomer could already be demonstrated by the work of Erturk, Akhoundian, Lueg-Althoff et al. in imprinted biosensors for trypsin with a detection limit below picomolar (pM) concentrations.

Monomers and (non-)imprinted polymers:
In this thesis two approaches are presented. On the one hand, an optimization of a key functional monomer is described as well as new monomers are added to the library of functional monomers. On the other hand, new polymer material in the form of functionalized hydrogels are created by an innovative water-based synthesis. The usage of new and tailor-made functional monomers delivers slightly crosslinked polymers with special binding-sites. Moreover, it was possible to incorporate amino acid complementary monomers into polymer nanoparticles from the Shea approach.

Characterization and analytics:
Within the scope of this thesis, the polymeric materials are thoroughly characterized and analyzed by physicochemical examinations and other analytics. The development of a new assay for the determination of binding is the main challenge and task to overcome. Rebinding studies via fluorescent titrations offer a new way of analyzing these special protein-imprinted hydrogelic polymers.


Context. The total gas mass is one of the most fundamental properties of disks around young stars, because it controls their evolution and their potential to form planets. To measure disk gas masses, CO has long been thought to be the best tracer as it is readily detected at (sub)mm wavelengths in many disks. However, inferred gas masses from CO in recent ALMA observations of large samples of disks in the 1–5 Myr age range seem inconsistent with their inferred dust masses. The derived gas-to-dust mass ratios from CO are between one and two orders of magnitude lower than the ISM value of ~100 even if photodissociation and freeze-out are included. In contrast, Herschel measurements of hydrogen deuteride line emission of a few disks imply gas masses in line with gas-to-dust mass ratios of 100. This suggests that at least one additional mechanism is removing CO from the gas phase.
Aims. Here we test the suggestion that the bulk of the CO is chemically processed and that the carbon is sequestered into less volatile species such as CO2, CH3OH, and CH4 in the dense, shielded midplane regions of the disk. This study therefore also addresses the carbon reservoir of the material which ultimately becomes incorporated into planetesimals.
Methods. Using our gas-grain chemical code, we performed a parameter exploration and follow the CO abundance evolution over a range of conditions representative of shielded disk midplanes.
Results. Consistent with previous studies, we find that no chemical processing of CO takes place on 1–3 Myr timescales for low cosmic-ray ionisation rates, <5 × 10−18 s−1. Assuming an ionisation rate of 10−17 s−1, more than 90% of the CO is converted into other species, but only in the cold parts of the disk below 30 K. This order of magnitude destruction of CO is robust against the choice of grain-surface reaction rate parameters, such as the tunnelling efficiency and diffusion barrier height, for temperatures between 20 and 30 K. Below 20 K there is a strong dependence on the assumed efficiency of H tunnelling.
Conclusions. The low temperatures needed for CO chemical processing indicate that the exact disk temperature structure is important, with warm disks around luminous Herbig stars expected to have little to no CO conversion. In contrast, for cold disks around sun-like T Tauri stars, a large fraction of the emitting CO layer is affected unless the disks are young (<1 Myr). This can lead to inferred gas masses that are up to two orders of magnitude lower. Moreover, unless CO is locked up early in large grains, the volatile carbon composition of the icy pebbles and planetesimals forming in the midplane and drifting to the inner disk will be dominated by CH3OH, CO2 and/or hydrocarbons.


BACKGROUND
Studies have consistently reported high rates of suicidal ideation (SI) among individuals with disordered gambling. None have explored gambling-related familicidal-suicidal ideation (FSI).

AIMS
This study examined the (1) prevalence of SI and FSI among treatment-seeking gamblers in Hong Kong, (2) characteristic profile of factors associated with SI and FSI, and (3) factors that predict SI and FSI.

METHOD
This is a retrospective analysis of data collected at initial clinical assessments from a specialized gambling counseling centre in Hong Kong. Participants were gamblers (N = 3,686) who sought treatment at the centre between 2003 and 2012. Information about socio-gambling demographics, physical and mental health status, current presenting problems, self-rated South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS, Chinese version), and occurrence of SI or FSI were examined. Descriptive analysis and ordinal regression analysis were used to investigate the characteristics of the gamblers and the association of variables.

RESULTS
In our sample, 720 (20.0%) individuals reported SI, and 22 (0.6%) individuals reported FSI at the initial assessment. Individuals with SI and FSI differed from the nonsuicidal individuals in terms of their demographics, gambling experiences and severity, mental and physical wellbeing, and types of gambling-related problems. The adjusted ordinal regression model shows that participating in table games in casinos and having familial and financial problems seem to enhance the likelihood of having SI and FSI.

CONCLUSION
While mental health issues are significantly related to SI and FSI among gambling treatment seekers, the impacts of physical, family, and financial strains should not be underestimated.


Background: Thymic epithelial tumors (TET's), including thymomas (5 histological subtypes) and thymic carcinomas, are rare tumors with an estimated incidence of 0.15 per 100,000 person-years in the United States. While their etiologies remain largely unknown, some are associated with uniquely high rates of paraneoplastic syndromes and an elevated risk of secondary malignancies. And, though thymomas were once thought to be benign tumors, it is now well-documented that all TET's can metastasize. The gold-standard in TET staging, the Masaoka-Koga system, defines metastatic disease as Stage IV, further specifying pleural/pericardial metastases as Stage IVa and lymphogenous/hematogenous metastases as IVb. Unfortunately, little is known about patient prognosis as it relates to metastasis location. Here, we assemble and analyze one of the largest single-institution databases of TET patients in the world and seek to examine trends in metastases and their correlation with patient prognosis.
Methods: Files of 1023 TET patients seen at Indiana University Hospital were accessed via Cerner, after which a standardized information list including demographics, diagnostics, tumor histology, treatments used, disease course, and patient outcome at last follow-up was extracted and input into a RedCap database.
Results: Stage IV disease cases were filtered, yielding a total of 428 patients. Of these patients, 122 (29%) had carcinoma, making carcinoma the single largest histology represented in Stage IV. Locations of metastases also varied, with 284 patients (66%) having pleural metastases, 171 (40%) having lung, 71 (17%) liver, 58 (14%) bone, 56 (13%) pericardium, 37 (9%) neck lymph nodes, 12 (3%) brain, and 5 (1%) kidney. Moreover, 98 (23%) patients presented in stage IVb without any pleural/pericardial metastases. At last follow-up, 10% (19) of Stage IVa patients had no recurrence compared to only 3% (7) of IVb patients.
Potential Impact: These data altogether suggest that disease spread outside the thorax occurs much more commonly than previously reported, and that rates of metastasis vary with tumor histology. Future analysis will elucidate the exact differences in the patterns of spread among histological types, how these patterns correlate with prognosis, and the implications of this on screening and treatment options.


Former studies have pointed out that usually mental health is not so good in musicians. To promote their mental health, cognitive strategies (e.g., an optimistic view) might be played an important role. The purpose of this study was to investigate the states of mental health and the cognitive tendencies for music major college students. Subjects were 186 music major college students (MS group), and 139 college students (CS group) who majored the other studies (e.g., economics, etc.) (mean age; 20.6 ± 2.6 years). Center for epidemic studies depression scale (CES-D; Shima et al., 1985) and Optimism and Pessimism Scale (Toyama, 2013) were measured by questionnaire method. Independent t-tests showed that in the MS group, the mean of CES-D scores was significantly higher and the mean of optimism scores was significantly lower than those of the CS group. Multiple-?regression analysis indicated that the pessimism scores were positively associated with the CES-D scores in both two groups. These results suggested that music major college students experienced more stressful events than the other college students. Therefore, an optimistic view might be needed for them.


Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between subjective well-being, functional independence and lower- limb performance (muscle strength, gait velocity and balance) among elderly people undergoing outpatient follow-up, stratified by sex and age groups. Methods: We evaluated 125 elderly people, aged 60 years and over, who received care at a geriatric outpatient clinic. The instruments used were: 1) Functional Independence Measure (FIM) to evaluate functional dependence; 2) Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB) to measure physical performance; and 3) Subjective Well-Being (SWB) with questions about health and satisfaction with life. Results: A convenience sample was used, with predominance of females (who had greater functional impairment). The Spearman correlation coefficients for subjective well-being and the performance tests varied from -0.16 to 0.31 for men and -0.09 to 0.29 for women, therefore there were no differences between the sexes. However, the older participants had a higher level of satisfaction than the younger participants. Perceived health was also more satisfactory among the older participants, however comparative perceived health was better among the elderly participants with moderate to good physical performance. Conclusion: The results suggest that older individuals have greater satisfaction with life and better perceived health. Moreover, good physical performance was an important variable for better perceived health when compared to other people.


Dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase catalyzes, in the rate-limiting step of the pyrimidine degradation pathway, the NADPH-dependent reduction of uracil and thymine to dihydrouracil and dihydrothymine, respectively. The porcine enzyme is a homodimeric iron-sulfur flavoprotein (2 x 111 kDa). C671, the residue postulated to be in the uracil binding site and to act as the catalytically essential acidic residue of the enzyme oxidative half-reaction, was replaced by an alanyl residue. The mutant enzyme was overproduced in Escherichia coli DH5alpha cells, purified to homogeneity, and characterized in comparison with the wild-type species. An extinction coefficient of 74 mM-1 cm-1 was determined at 450 nm for the wild-type and mutant enzymes. Chemical analyses of the flavin, iron, and acid-labile sulfur content of the enzyme subunits revealed similar stoichiometries for wild-type and C671A dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenases. One FAD and one FMN per enzyme subunit were found. Approximately 16 iron atoms and 16 acid-labile sulfur atoms were found per wild-type and mutant enzyme subunit. The C671A dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase mutant exhibited approximately 1% of the activity of the wild-type enzyme, thus preventing its steady-state kinetic analysis. Therefore, the ability of the C671A mutant and, for comparison, of the wild-type enzyme species to interact with reaction substrates, products, or their analogues were studied by absorption spectroscopy. Both enzyme forms did not react with sulfite. The wild-type and mutant enzymes were very similar to each other with respect to the spectral changes induced by binding of the reaction product NADP+ or of its nonreducible analogue 3-aminopyridine dinucleotide phosphate. Uracil also induced qualitatively and quantitatively similar absorbance changes in the visible region of the absorbance spectrum of the two enzyme forms. However, the calculated Kd of the enzyme-uracil complex was significantly higher for the C671A mutant (9.1 +/- 0.7 microM) than for the wild-type dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (0.7 +/- 0.09 microM). In line with these observations, the two enzyme forms behaved in a similar way when titrated anaerobically with a NADPH solution. Addition of an up to 10-fold excess of NADPH to both dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase forms led to absorbance changes consistent with reduction of approximately 0.5 flavin per subunit, with no indication of reduction of the enzyme iron-sulfur clusters. Absorbance changes consistent with reduction of both enzyme flavins were obtained by removing NADP+ with a NADPH-regenerating system. On the contrary, the two enzyme species differed significantly with respect to their reactivity with dihydrouracil. Addition of dihydrouracil to the wild-type enzyme species, under anaerobic conditions, led to absorbance changes that could be interpreted to result from both partial flavin reduction and the formation of a complex between the enzyme and (dihydro)uracil. In contrast, only spectral changes consistent with formation of a complex between the oxidized enzyme and dihydrouracil were observed when a C671A mutant enzyme solution was titrated with this compound. Furthermore, enzyme-monitored turnover experiments were carried out anaerobically in the presence of a limiting amount of NADPH and excess uracil with the two enzyme forms in a stopped-flow apparatus. These experiments directly demonstrated that the substitution of an alanyl residue for C671 in dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase specifically prevents enzyme-catalyzed reduction of uracil. Finally, sequence analysis of dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase revealed that it exhibits a modular structure; the N-terminal region, similar to the beta subunit of bacterial glutamate synthases, is proposed to be responsible for NADPH binding and oxidation with reduction of the FAD cofactor of dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase. The central region, similar to the FMN subunit of dihydroorotate dehydrogenases, is likely to harbor the site o


Previous works on asymmetric information in asset markets tend to focus on the potential gains in the asset market itself. We focus on the market for information and conduct an experimental study to explore, in a game of finite but uncertain duration, whether reputation can be an effective constraint on deliberate misinformation. At the beginning of each period, an uninformed potential asset buyer can purchase information, at a fixed price and from a fully-informed source, about the value of the asset in that period. The informational insiders cannot purchase the asset and are given short-term incentives to provide false information when the asset value is low. Our model predicts that, in accordance with the Folk Theorem, Pareto-superior outcomes featuring truthful revelation should be sustainable. However, this depends critically on beliefs about rationality and behavior. We find that, overall, sellers are truthful 89% of the time. More significantly, the observed frequency of truthfulness is 81% when the asset value is low. Our result is consistent with both mixed-strategy and trigger strategy interpretations and provides evidence that most subjects correctly anticipate rational behavior. We discuss applications to financial markets, media regulation, and the stability of cartels.


OBJECTIVE Women exhibit exaggerated renal hemodynamic responses to hyperglycemia, which may promote kidney disease progression. Our aim was to determine if increased nitric oxide generation by l-arginine infusion would reverse this deleterious response to clamped hyperglycemia in women with type 1 diabetes mellitus. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Renal function, blood pressure, and plasma cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) were measured in 20 men and 15 women with type 1 diabetes mellitus during clamped euglycemia and clamped hyperglycemia. Renal function, blood pressure, and plasma cGMP responses to graded infusions of intravenous l-arginine and NG-monomethyl-l-arginine (l-NMMA) were measured during clamped hyperglycemia. RESULTS Subjects were young, normotensive, normoalbuminuric men and women who adhered to a high-sodium, moderate-protein diet. Plasma cGMP levels during euglycemia were generally lower in men compared with women, and systolic blood pressure (SBP) was higher in men. In response to hyperglycemia, cGMP levels did not change in men but did decline in women (Δ−1.10 ± 0.20 vs. Δ+0.05 ± 0.20 pmol/L, between-group effect of hyperglycemia on cGMP; P = 0.012). Hyperglycemia also was associated with an increase in SBP, glomerular filtration rate (GFR) (124 ± 6 to 143 ± 7 mL/min/1.73 m2; P = 0.003) and filtration fraction (FF) in women, but these parameters did not change in men. In response to l-arginine during hyperglycemia, the increase in cGMP was exaggerated in women versus men and GFR and FF decreased in women only, back toward baseline values observed during clamped euglycemia. l-NMMA infusion did not exaggerate changes in hemodynamic function in response to hyperglycemia. CONCLUSIONS  l-Arginine reversed the renal hemodynamic effects of hyperglycemia in women, suggesting that nitric oxide is an important regulator of sex-dependent vascular responses to hyperglycemia in humans.