This article considers the contributions of the CRPD to the development of social rights. More specifically, it tracks the normative content of the social rights to participate in sport, recreation and play and considers the relationship of these rights to the substantive equality vision reflected in the Convention. The article begins by charting the paradigmatic shift from a medical model of disability to a social model and ultimately to a rights-oriented understanding of disability that makes possible an equality approach to dismantling persistent disability discrimination and social marginalization, isolation, and exclusion. Next, it analyzes the conceptual framework for social rights in the CRPD and the connection between State obligations to eliminate disability discrimination and social rights' guarantees for equal participation in sport, recreation, leisure and play. It further considers the content of CRPD's Article 30(5). Finally, it explores the implications of these rights for the expressive and socializing effects of the Convention.


Having contributed to early definitions of chiefdoms, the pre-Columbian societies that developed in the Central Region of Panama during the last millennium before Spanish contact in A.D. 1515 have been considered by many specialists in cultural evolution to be archetypes of ranked societies. This investigation was designed to examine the emergence of chiefly societies and evaluate current models used for interpreting the development of social complexity in Panama. It was necessary, first, to determine when social ranking emerged and then to explore how specific sociopolitical and economic factors influenced the development and operation of pre-Columbian chiefly societies up to the time of European contact. The strategy adopted in this study focused on a regional settlement survey, documenting 1700 years of social change in a 104 km2 area of the Rio Parita Valley of central Panama.At no time during the pre-Columbian occupation in the valley did population levels come even close to carrying capacity, so demographic stress on subsistence resources, or leading to conflict, does not appear to have been an important factor in chiefly emergence. Although the presence of warfare could not be substantiated from the survey data, status rivalry and warfare is mentioned with some regularity in the ethnohistoric accounts and was most likely present during the pre-Columbian period. The location of the main chiefly center 14 km from the coast in low fertility land does not support the idea that controlling subsistence production was crucial to elite power. On the other hand, ethnohistoric accounts describe chiefly larders full of subsistence goods, suggesting that mobilizing these goods was important to the development of social ranking. By A.D. 550, the standardization of craft goods and their wide distribution throughout the Central Region implies the existence of macro-regional exchange networks. Settlement changes in the Rio Parita Valley at the same time suggest that local, regional, and macro-regional exchange was most likely involved in the emergence of chiefly societies; however, the lack of long-distance trade goods found in the Rio Parita and other valleys in the Central Region does not indicate that long-distance trading was a foundation of elite power.


Objective. —To define the incidence and clinical spectrum of group B streptococcus infection in adults. To characterize groups at increased risk for infection. Design. —Retrospective population-based surveillance of group B streptococcus infections occurring in adults. Patients were identified by review of microbiology records at all surveillance area hospital laboratories. Demographic and clinical data were abstracted from patient medical records. Setting. —Metropolitan Atlanta, Ga, 1982 through 1983. Patients. —We identified 70 adult patients with invasive group B streptococcus infections; 14 infections occurred in pregnant women and 56 in nonpregnant adults. Results. —The annual incidence of group B streptococcus infection in men and nonpregnant women was 2.4 cases per 100 000 population. Incidence increased with age and was higher in blacks than in whites. The case-fatality rate was 32%. Group B streptococcus was most often isolated from blood (71%) and soft tissue (16%). Common clinical presentations included skin and soft-tissue infection (36%), bacteremia without focus (34%), pneumonia (11%), arthritis (9%), and endocarditis (9%). Compared with the general population's risk of infection, the risk of infection in persons with diabetes mellitus was increased 10.5-fold (95% confidence interval [Cl], 7.8 to 14.4); in persons with cancer, it was increased 16.4-fold (95% CI, 11.5 to 23.3). Conclusions. —Group B streptococcus infections cause serious disease in adults as well as in neonates, providing an additional rationale for vaccine development. Determining the incidence of adult disease and groups at greatest risk will help in focusing prevention efforts. ( JAMA . 1991;266:1112-1114)


We describe a set of three fluorescent mesoionic benzo[4,5]imidazo-3-ide-[1,2-c]-2-alkyl-1,2,3-triazol-2-ium compounds obtained through a simple, concise and efficient synthetic sequence featuring a copper-catalyzed carbene–nitrene cyclization. The compounds were characterized by fluorescence spectroscopy highlighting promising photophysical properties in terms of quantum yields and Stokes shifts. Experimental properties were rationalized by a computational DFT and TD-DFT approach with excellent agreement with structural and spectroscopic data.


The hot air electrical stifling study has been conducted to evaluate the influence of electrical stifling temperature, stifling hours and duration of cocoon preservation on reeling performance and quality of muga silk . Muga cocoons are reeled on motorised muga silk reeling machine. Electrical hot air stifling has shown superior reeling performance in comparison to smoke stifled and sun dried cocoons. The study has shown that raw silk recovery from electrically hot air stifled cocoons is significantly high in comparison to flame-smoke-sun stifling with a gain of about 6.37%. Similarly there is gradual decline in raw silk recovery (RSR) percentage with increase in storage period of muga cocoon. Thus, RSR has declined by 14.32% in course of 6 months of cocoon storage. Tenacity is found higher in October crop (average 3.36 g/den), while it is average 2.83 g/den in crop of May month. Muga raw silk yarn has lost elongation with extended storage of yarn. In fresh muga raw silk yarn, elongation is found 37.55%, while in one year old stored muga raw silk yarn elongation has come down to 33.02%. Thus, the study recommends stifling muga cocoon by hot air stifling for four hours. Cocoon preservation time needs to be minimized and muga silk yarn of October (Kotia) crop with high tenacity should be used as warp yarn in weaving .


: It has been shown for the first time that the size of adrenocytes and of their nuclei does not change in the adrenal medulla on the state of motor excitation, and decreases at the heat stroke under conditions of acute overheating. According to Bennighoff (1950), the decrease of nuclear volume suggests the weakness of the adrenocyte secretory activity. But in reality the specific activity of adrenocytes may increase at hyperthermy, which contradicts to the hypothesis in question. Such a contradiction may be explained by the fact of adrenocyte dehydration under the influence of the external heat. It may result in a decrease in the nuclear volume irrespective of the functional state of the nuclei. The secretory activity of adrenocytes can be evaluated on the basis of the changed relation in the nuclear number of varying volume corresponding to different steps of the secretory cycle.


The dimorphic yeast Candida albicans, as a member of the fungi imperfecti, has been assumed to be in the haploid, or imperfect, state. The deoxyribonucleic acid content of this species has been measured by flow microfluorometry, a technique capable of analyzing single cells. These results were compared with flow microfluorometric deoxyribonucleic acid determinations on a series of strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae of known ploidy (haploid, diploid, triploid, and tetraploid). These ploidy levels were readily distinguished by the flow microfluorometry procedure. By this criterion, C. albicans was found to contain a diploid amount of deoxyribonucleic acid. Ultraviolet radiation survival and chemical mutagenesis experiments support the conclusion that both clinically isolated and laboratory strains of C. albicans are diploid.


Wireless virtualization is becoming a popular solution to resource sharing problems integral in providing access to future wireless networking applications by enabling access to the same physical wireless infrastructure by multiple virtual networks concurrently. This paper investigates cyber deception using game theory model for defining the deceptive interactions between a cyber attacker and the defender. We consider both the naive attacker who is not aware of the defender's strategy, and the rational (powerful) attacker who knows the defense strategy. In the Stackelberg game, the defender controls the observable configuration of the network when probed by an attacker. We show that the process for selecting an optimal defense strategy against a naive attacker is NP-hard. We also proposed an algorithm for computing optimal strategy for a naive attacker and a greedy based algorithm for selecting the optimal strategy against a powerful attacker. Results from extensive simulation runs show the scalability and effectiveness of the proposed approaches based on the run time in finding the optimum defense strategy as well as minimizing the attacker's utility are better than the approaches in state of the art literature.


Mia Spiro's "Anti-Nazi Modernism" marks a major step forward in the critical debates over the relationship between modernist art and politics. Spiro analyzes the antifascist, and particularly anti-Nazi, narrative methods used by key British and American fiction writers in the 1930s. Focusing on works by Djuna Barnes, Christopher Isherwood, and Virginia Woolf, Spiro illustrates how these writers use an "anti-Nazi aesthetic" to target and expose Nazism s murderous discourse of exclusion. The three writers challenge the illusion of harmony and unity promoted by the Nazi spectacle in parades, film, rallies, and propaganda. Spiro illustrates how their writings, seldom read in this way, resonate with the psychological and social theories of the period and warn against Nazism s suppression of individuality. Her approach also demonstrates how historical and cultural contexts complicate the works, often reinforcing the oppressive discourses they aim to attack. This book explores the textual ambivalences toward the "Others" in society most prominently the Modern Woman, the homosexual, and the Jew. By doing so, Spiro uncovers important clues to the sexual and racial politics that were widespread in Europe and the United States in the years leading up to World War II."


: Sustainable worm control strategies are based largely on ensuring that a source of worms not exposed to anthelmintics ("in refugia") remains after treatments are given, so that resistant worms do not become a dominant part of the total population. In environments with seasonally poor survival of worm larvae on pasture, this may require withholding treatments from a proportion of animals when the whole group would normally be treated. The "targeted treatment" approach involves using anthelmintics on an individual animal basis according to indications of parasitic effects, regardless of parasite burdens. For Haemonchus contortus, the FAMACHA system, based on the easily-visualised index of anaemia, has proved effective provided that labour is available for frequent inspections. For non-haematophagous nematodes, recent research indicates the potential of production parameters such as body weight change (sheep) and milk yield (dairy goats), providing that parasitic effects can be differentiated from nutritional and other factors. Continuing investigations are necessary to indicate the most appropriate indices for different situations, so that the refugia effect is maximized for the least risk of disease and production loss. Of prime importance, targeted treatment strategies must be practical to implement if they are to achieve widespread adoption.


GASTROSTOMY has long been utilized as a supportive measure in the treatment of the feeble premature infant as well as the seriously ill infant. The indications for gastrostomy and the technical procedure as followed in this clinic are similar to those recommended by T. Holder and R. Gross. 1 In our clinic these are, first, the very small infant who has repeated apneic periods and who requires frequent episodes of resusicitation by bag and mask. Infants tend to have stomachs full of air with increased incidence of regurgitation and aspiration. The second is the ill infant with respiratory insufficiency who has to be artificially ventilated on the respirator. These infants have no epiglottic protection and may aspirate. The gastrostomy tube is usually placed 12 to 36 hours after the infant has been on the respirator. This makes it easier to feed the infant and also acts as an escape valve


Abstract : Low back pain remains a significant issue among helicopter aircrew. There is a considerable body of scientific literature devoted to the problem, including epidemiologic and experimental studies addressing prevalence, characteristics, primary etiology, and contributing factors. It is endemic and multinational, with a prevalence ranging from 50-92%. Archetypal pain begins with flight or within hours of flight, is mostly targeted in the low back/lumbar region and/or buttocks, is transient, and is commonly described as dull and achy. A minority develop chronic, persistent pain that is variously described with dissimilar characteristics. The pernicious effects of back pain or discomfort while piloting may affect flight performance and safety, including reduced operational effectiveness and lost duty time, occupational attrition, curtailed or cancelled missions, compromised emergency egress, and performance deficits during critical phases of flight. The majority of etiologic studies have focused on the pathophysical posture adopted by pilots for aircraft control and exposure to whole body vibration.With more evidence for the former, it remains likely that both, as well as other factors, may have a contributory and perhaps integrative or concerted role. Corrective and mitigation strategies have addressed lumbar support, seat and cockpit ergonomic redesign, and improved aircrew health. Flight surgeons should be familiar with this prevalent issue and future research must address longitudinal cohort studies with clear definitions, relevant and valid exposure data, doseresponse detail, and control for contributing factors and confounders.


Recent scholarship highlights the prevalence of vertical disintegration in high-technology industries, wherein specialized entities along a value chain transfer knowledge-intensive assets between them. Patents play a critical role in this process by lowering the cost of technology transactions between upstream and downstream parties, thus promoting vertical disintegration. This Article, however, challenges this prevailing narrative by arguing that vertical integration pervades patent-intensive fields. In biopharmaceuticals, agricultural biotechnology, information technology, and even university-industry technology transfer, firms are increasingly absorbing upstream and downstream technology providers rather than simply licensing their patents.
This Article explains this counterintuitive development by retheorizing the relationship between innovation and the firm. Synthesizing previously disconnected lines of theory, it first argues that the challenge of aggregating tacit technical knowledge — which patents do not disclose — leads high-tech companies to vertically integrate rather than simply rely on licenses to transfer technology. Relatedly, the desire to obtain not just discrete technological assets but also innovative capacity, in the form of talented engineers and scientists, also motivates vertical integration. Due to the socially embedded nature of tacit knowledge and innovative capacity, firms frequently absorb entire pre-existing organizations and grant them significant autonomy, an underappreciated phenomenon this Article describes as "semi-integration." Finally, strategic imperatives to achieve rapid scale and scope also lead firms to integrate with other entities rather than simply license their patents. The result, contrary to theory, is a resurgence of vertical integration in patent-intensive fields. The Article concludes by evaluating the costs and benefits of vertically integrated innovative industries, suggesting private and public mechanisms for improving integration and tempering its excesses.


Last years a large number of clinical reports about water intoxication with detailed description of its symptoms. Undoubtedly, water intoxication leads to remodeling of the heart. However, the features of structural and functional changes of the heart are not fully understood. Prolonged hypoosmolar overhydration causes a volume overload necessitating cardioprotectors together with a complex of measures aimed at stabilizing the water and electrolyte balance. Our research is aimed to study the characteristics of the heart restructuring, changes of its chemical composition at severe hypoosmolar overhydration and attempt to correct the identified changes with derivative meldonium. The experiment involved 36 white laboratory rats. We simulated severe overhydration during 25 days by the introduction of 10 ml distilled water three times a day and synthetic analogue of antidiuretic hormone "Minirin" (Ferring) 2 times a day at a dose 0.01 mg without cardioprotector (first experimental series) and with the parallel introduction of cardioprotector (second experimental series). To study the morphological and functional changes of the heart, we analyzed organometric, light microscopic, histomorphometric and spectrophotometric data. The investigation showed that the meldonium slows the increasing of right ventricular weight and dilatation of its cavity, reduces the effects of cardiomyocytes ischemic damage, stabilizes the ratio of myocardial structural components, minimizes changes in the heart chemical composition.


Food sovereignty is an alternative approach attempting to resolve the world's current food crisis. This approach emphasizes small-scale farmers as the main actors in a food and agricultural system. It encourages small-scale farmers to fully participate in the decision-making process of national and/or international agreements regarding food and agriculture systems in order to benefit and empower them. Food sovereignty aspires to return the food and agriculture system to a domestic level, which gives freedom to small-scale farmers to produce foods reflecting their knowledge and experience and suited to the local conditions. Agroecology is a management approach aimed at achieving a sustainable agricultural ecosystem utilizing local resources, local wisdom, and local farmers' knowledge in producing foods. Thus, agroecology minimizes production costs, increases the quality and quantity of foods, and gives smallscale farmers more benefits. According to knowledge-sharing, an educational theory for explaining farmer-to-farmer ways of learning, there are three requirements for an effective learning process: (1) a public space to share knowledge and experience; (2) provision of opportunities for every participant to share and exchange their knowledge, views, and experience; and (3) a need for farmers to enhance their competence. The agroecological approach has been practiced and disseminated within farmers' communities at the grassroots level and has shown promising results. Studies showed that by practicing agroecology farmers produced more foods and gained other benefits, suggesting that agroecology could be one answer for the food crisis. Farmers' knowledge and experience are vital to food and agriculture policymaking. Thus, by recognizing farmers' knowledge and understanding their learning processes, a fair participatory food and agricultural system can be achieved, an ideal that the food sovereignty approach strives for. In this paper, we describe the process of sharing knowledge about agroecology within a social movement organization aimed at achieving food sovereignty in Indonesia.


The dominant model for income taxation in the public finance literature is the classical model of skills (Mirrlees, 1971). Until recently, an influential number of works using this model seemed to support declining marginal tax rates at high income levels. In this paper we use Diamond's (1996) methodology in order to explore the critical assumptions that lead to increasing or decreasing marginal tax rates. We find that with a lognomal distribution of skills and zero income effects there is a case for increasing marginal tax rates at high income levels. By performing a Kernel estimation to Israeli data we find empirical support for the lognormal distribution of skills.


Hierarchical clustering has been shown to be valuable in many scenarios. Despite its usefulness to many situations, there is no agreed methodology on how to properly evaluate the hierarchies produced from different techniques, particularly in the case where ground-truth labels are unavailable. This motivates us to propose a framework for assessing the quality of hierarchical clustering allocations which covers the case of no ground-truth information. This measurement is useful, e.g., to assess the hierarchical structures used by online retailer websites to display their product catalogues. Our framework is one of the few attempts for the hierarchy evaluation from a decision-theoretic perspective. We model the process as a bot searching stochastically for items in the hierarchy and establish a measure representing the degree to which the hierarchy supports this search. We employ Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDP) to model the uncertainty, the decision making, and the cognitive return for searchers in such a scenario.


Small-cell lung cancer is the most aggressive lung cancer, with a dismal prognosis. The authors present a case report of a patient with limited-stage small-cell lung cancer who underwent a thoracotomy for diagnostic purposes, with the diagnosis being made after surgical excision. Combination chemotherapy remains the cornerstone of treatment for both limited and extensive disease. Radiotherapy has been established as an adjunct to chemotherapy in limited-stage disease, while in extensive-stage disease it is mostly reserved for the treatment of brain metastases. As for surgery, the potential benefits of resection are predominantly seen in patients who present with a solitary pulmonary nodule. Since small-cell lung cancer becomes highly resistant to chemotherapy, second-line chemotherapeutic schemes are used for disease progression, with topotecan being the highlighted agent. Despite the unusual therapeutic approach, where surgery was preferred over the standard diagnostic and staging procedures, the patient's more than ten years' survival makes this case presentation a very interesting one.


This study aims to develop an exhaust gas temperature increase technique of a lean burn gas engine, to improve the performance of the waste heat recovery devices that potentially can be installed in the future. This paper shows the exhaust gas temperature increase technique using an EGR device.
 In our experiments, the lean burn gas engine has the rated power output of 400 kW with spark-ignition and pre-chamber systems. The EGR device was developed and installed to the gas engine. The experimental results showed that the exhaust gas temperature was increased to +30 °C at the EGR rate of 15 % with maintained NOx emission and CA MFB 50% by decreasing the relative air/fuel ratio (Λ) and advancing the ignition timing (θig). In addition, the gross generation efficiency was slightly increased with increasing the EGR rate. This result was explained using three factors; the internal engine efficiency, the combustion efficiency, and the recirculated energy rate.


The centromere, in higher eukaryotes, is an
epigenetically specified locus that is the site kinetochore
formation on each chromosome during mitosis. The epigenetic mark
that defines a centromere as of this writing is the histone H3
variant Centromere Protein-A (CENP-A). The establishment and
maintenance of CENP-A at centromeres is absolutely critical for
proper chromosome segregation and ploidy in cells. Several key
factors have been identified as crucial machinery involved in
CENP-A deposition. Understanding how a specific subset of these
factors maintains CENP-A specifically at centromeric chromatin is
the theme of this work. The second chapter of this work
demonstrates the CENP-A chaperone HJURP is directly targeted to
centromeres by the Mis18 complex. Furthermore, binding of Mis18 by
HJURP mislocalizes the complex from centromeres giving cells
control over where CENP-A deposition occurs and how much CENP-A
gets consigned at centromeres. The third chapter characterizes a
direct interaction between Mis18 and CENP-A that has never been
characterized before. This work, though in its infancy, alludes to
an important role of Mis18 as being an integral part of the CENP-A
deposition machinery into centromeric chromatin. The fourth chapter
describes the CENP-T/W/S/X complex and its ability to form
"nucleosome-like" structures that may be involved in further
differentiating the centromeres from outside chromatin. I also go
over a potential role of HJURP in the DNA damage response which was
touched on several years ago but not fully followed up ever since
HJURPs role in CENP-A deposition has been discovered.


Abstract Background: 131I-metaiodobenzylguanidine (mIBG) offers an effectively targeted radionuclide therapy in pediatric patients. According to radiation protection authority in our country, the patient treated with high-dose (>1100 MBq) radioiodine is recommended to stay in the hospital. Hence, this study intends to measure the radiation exposure in nonlead-lined treatment room installing with portable lead shields located in general pediatric ward and surrounding areas. In addition, this study also aims to measure the radiation exposure to the family caregiver in pediatric patients received high dose 131I-mIBG. Methods: Environmental OSL (optically stimulated luminescence) monitoring devices (InLight®, Al2O3:C) were prepared and calibrated by Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology (TINT). Twenty-five set of OSLs were placed in and surrounded the treatment room. Dose to family caregiver was recorded by digital semiconductor dosimeter (ALOKA PDM-112) also calibrated by TINT. The measurement was carried for four pediatric patients treated with 131IMIBG (activity 3700 – 5500 MBq). Results: The ambient doses equivalent and the dose rate were analyzed, the limit of 10 and 0.5 μSv/h are accepted for radiation worker and member of the public, respectively. The dose rate around the patient bed and toilet were high as expected. Dose rates at the wall of adjacent room and corridor were slightly greater than the public limit (range 1.82 to 4.48 μSv/h). Remarkably, the dose rates at caregiver chair (outside the shielding) were exceeded the limits (30.57 ± 5.69 μSv/h). Consequently, this was correlated with high personal dose equivalent to family caregivers which listed as 175, 1632, 6760 and 7433 μSv for the patient age of 15, 5, 1 and 1 year respectively. Conclusion: These radiation monitoring data provided the important information to manage radiation protection and aware of radiation exposure when using non-lead-lined treatment room in general pediatric ward.


This study deals with the structure of the El Hongo trondhjemite, a ENE–WSW elongate pluton belonging to the Famatinian magmatic arc that developed from Late Cambrian to Silurian times in the Sierras Pampeanas (Argentina). Anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) measurements combined with structural and microstructural data permit the correlation of magmatic and magnetic fabrics within this ferromagnetic pluton. Magnetic foliations strike north–south and dip steeply west but in the marginal facies the foliation becomes parallel to the ENE–WSW pluton contacts. Magnetic lineations mostly trend north–south and plunge SE. Gravity data reveal that the pluton is in the form of a very thin horizontal sheet resting on two north–south-trending root zones detected below the central portion of the pluton. These root zones represent feeder dykes that exploited tension fractures. The emplacement of the El Hongo pluton took place during the action of a buried sinistral shear zone, parallel to the elongation of the pluton, corresponding to a transfer fault associated with the late extensional exhumation of the Famatinian domain. The emplacement of other Famatinian granites of the Sierras Pampeanas could be related to similar late shear zones.


At the moment of the onset of the pandemic there were few data about the transmission of the 2009 H1N1 virus infection from the mother to the newborn. Nevertheless neonates born to an ill mother from 2 days before through 7 days after illness onset in the mother were thought to be exposed and potentially infected. In October 2009 the Infectious Disease Group of the Italian Society of Neonatology provided a guide regarded the management of suspected or confirmed maternal infection with 2009 H1N1 influenza virus within labor and delivery, postpartum, and newborn care settings in hospitals. It was based on the available scientific information, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Italian Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Policy recommendations in order to protect the infant from exposure to respiratory secretion during or immediately after delivery. Moreover, we published 300,000 copies of a more popular pamphlet for parents. Rigorous attention to Standard Precautions and Droplet Precautions is required to reduce the opportunities for the transmission of the infection in the health-care setting.


A currency exchange system is introduced for a multi-currency electronic money trial, in which smartcardbased electronic moneys (two currencies) are circulated over the Internet. Considering the need to support our existing single currency electronic money protocol, the exchange method proposed herein offers fairness between untrusted parties based on the "optimistic approach". This paper describes the concepts and basic specifications of the currency exchange system as well as evaluation results of the trial held from October 1999 to March 2000.


As XML data becomes more and more prevalent and as larger quantities of data find their way into XML documents, the need for quality XML data organization only increase. One standard way of structuring data well is to reduce and, if possible, eliminate redundancy, while at the same time making the storage structures as compact as possible. In this paper, we present a methodology to generate XML storage structures where conforming XML documents are redundancy-free, and for most practical cases, are also fully compact. Our methodology assumes the input is a conceptual-model hypergraph. For the special case that every edge in the hypergraph is binary, we present a simple algorithm, guaranteed to always generate redundancy-free storage structures. We show, however, that generating a minimum number of redundancy-free storage structures is NP-hard. We therefore provide heuristics to guide the process and observe that these heuristics result in satisfactory solutions, which are often optimal. We then present a general algorithm for n-ary edges and show that it generates redundancy-free storage structures. The general algorithm must overcome several problems that do not arise in the special case


Provisions for animal rights have been included in the national constitutions of Switzerland (1992, 2000) and Germany (2002). Protective constitutional inclusion is a major social movement success, and in view of the other movements also seeking increased political visibility and responsiveness, it is worth asking how and why nonhuman animals were allowed into this realm of political importance. This research seeks to explain how animal activists achieved this significant goal in two industrialized democracies. Using an approach drawn from the mainstream canon on social movements, this comparative study attempts to show how cultural factors, institutional selectivity, and the influence of spontaneous events, along with the tactic of "frame-bridging," determined the success of both movements.


Parsimony analyses have been shown to be effective for estimating the branching sequences of evolution. Because pedigree estimation is equivalent to phylogeny estimation, our objective was to examine the usefulness of maximum parsimony in estimating relationships based on restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP). Eighteen sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] lines, with known relationships were used in this study. Sorghum DNA was cut with various restriction enzymes and hybridized with 76 maize RFLP probes. The RFLP data were scored with a binary and multi-state coding system. In the binary coding system, each polymorphic band was a separate character. In the multi-state coding system, each probe-enzyme combination was a separate character. Binary characters were analyzed with Wagner, unrooted Dollo, and threshold (T = 2, = 3, = 4) methods and multi-state characters were treated as unordered. Wagner, unrooted Dollo, and threshold (T = 4) parsimony of binary characters correctly reconstructed known relationships. The Wagner and threshold (T = 4) models gave the highest degree of resolution. Parsimony analyses are effective tools for estimating plant breeding pedigrees and provide breeders with new tools for the analysis of germplasm variation, investigations of line origin, and determination of relationships in complex phylogenies or pedigrees.


BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Pharmacological treatments are unavailable to patients with cocaine use disorders. Efforts to develop pharmacotherapies have led to the study of cannabidiol, a constituent of the C. sativa plant. However, the specific effects and mechanisms of action of cannabidiol in a rodent model of extinction-based abstinence and drug seeking relapse remain unclear. EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH: In this study, cannabidiol was provided during extinction training to male CD-1 mice trained to self-administer cocaine. We evaluated the reinstatement of cocaine seeking induced by cues, stress, and drug priming. To ascertain the participation of CB1 receptors in these behavioural changes, we administered the neutral CB1 antagonist AM4113 before each reinstatement session. KEY RESULTS The results document that cannabidiol did not modulate extinction learning. After cannabidiol treatment, increased levels of CB1 receptor protein were found in the prelimbic and orbitofrontal parts of the prefrontal cortex, as well as in the ventral striatum; an effect paralleled by a reduction of ∆FosB accumulation and increased GluR2 AMPA receptor subunits. Furthermore, cue-induced reinstatement of cocaine seeking was prevented in cannabidiol-treated mice. Unexpectedly, cannabidiol facilitated stress-induced reinstatement of cocaine-maintained responding. Cocaine-primed reinstatement remained unaltered by cannabidiol. Both, the blockade of cue-induced reinstatement and the facilitation of stress-induced reinstatement were abolished by AM4113 in cannabidiol-treated mice. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS: Our results reveal a series of complex CB1-related changes induced by cannabidiol with opposite implications for the reinstatement of cocaine seeking behaviour that may limit therapeutic opportunities.


The purpose of this paper is to describe some results of the LELIE project, that are a contribution of Artificial Intelligence to a special domain: the analysis of the risks due to poorly written technical documents. This is a multidisciplinary contribution since it combines natural language processing with logical satisfiability checking. This paper explains how satisfiability checking can be used for detecting inconsistencies, redundancy and incompleteness in procedural texts and describes the part of the implemented tool that produces the logical translation of technical texts and realizes the checkings.


Breast cancer is the first most common cancer among women. Its increasingly threatening trends force to search for ways to accelerate the introduction of current technologies for the early diagnosis and prevention of breast malignancies. The paper gives data on the quantity and distribution of diagnostic and minimally invasive mammography equipment by the regions of the Russian Federation, which may lead to the conclusion about the regions' needs for equipment, trends, and possible prospects in the development of digital radiology in mammology.


ARTICLE HISTORY Received 16 November 2017 Accepted 9 February 2018 ABSTRACT The challenge to understanding the fluid mechanics of fish swimming is knowing exactly what the water is doing where the fish swims. Recent field and laboratory observations in box culvert barrel showed that fish tend to swim preferentially close to the channel sidewalls, in regions of slow velocity and often high turbulence intensity. An analogy with human swimming is developed herein. Fish minimise their energy expenditure by swimming in inter-connected low-velocity zones (LVZs) and minimising acceleration-deceleration amplitudes. In a box culvert barrel, the mechanical energy expenditure is drastically reduced in sidewall and corner flow regions, characterised by low velocities and secondary current motion. These regions were "sweet spots" used by small bodied fish to minimise their rate of work. Both bed and sidewall roughness must be scaled to the fish dimensions. More generally, the methodology brings rigorous scientific insights into why certain culvert designs, possibly equipped with baffles and apertures, are more efficient in promoting fish passage. One may foresee an evolution of the scientific approach towards using advanced physics-based theory supported by high-quality data sets. The results also raise questions on limitations of current fish swim tunnel tests, and matching swimming performance data to hydrodynamic measurements.


The authors report the formation of β-Ga2O3/GaN heterostructure and the fabrication of a β-Ga2O3/GaN bilayer photodetector (PD). It was found that we could control the depletion depth of the device and thus switch the operation mode between solar-blind and visible-blind by simply changing the applied bias. It was also found that we could achieve a deep-ultraviolet (UV) to near-UV contrast ratio of 200 when the device was biased at -1 V. Furthermore, it was found that near-UV to visible contrast ratio of the fabricated β-Ga2O3/GaN PD was 260 when biased at -10 V.


ABSTRACT A major concern of immunocompromised patients, in particular those with AIDS, is susceptibility to infection caused by opportunistic pathogens such as Pneumocystis jirovecii, which is a leading cause of pneumonia in immunocompromised patients. We report the first kinetic and structural data for 2,4-diamino-6-[(2′,5′-dichloro anilino)methyl]pyrido[2,3-d]pyrimidine (OAAG324), a potent inhibitor of dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) from P. jirovecii (pjDHFR), and also for trimethoprim (TMP) and methotrexate (MTX) with pjDHFR, Pneumocystis carinii DHFR (pcDHFR), and human DHFR (hDHFR). OAAG324 shows a 9.0-fold selectivity for pjDHFR (Ki, 2.7 nM) compared to its selectivity for hDHFR (Ki, 24.4 nM), whereas there is only a 2.3-fold selectivity for pcDHFR (Ki, 6.3 nM). In order to understand the determinants of inhibitory potency, active-site mutations of pj-, pc-, and hDHFR were explored to make these enzymes more like each other. The most unexpected observations were that the variant pcDHFR forms with K37Q and K37Q/F69N mutations, which made the enzyme more like the human form, also made these enzymes more sensitive to the inhibitory activity of OAAG324, with Ki values of 0.26 and 0.71 nM, respectively. A similar gain in sensitivity was also observed for the hDHFR N64F variant, which showed a lower Ki value (0.58 nM) than native hDHFR, pcDHFR, or pjDHFR. Structural data are reported for complexes of OAAG324 with hDHFR and its Q35K and Q35S/N64F variants and for the complex of the K37S/F69N variant of pcDHFR with TMP. These results provide useful insight into the role of these residues in the optimization of highly selective inhibitors of DHFR against the opportunistic pathogen P. jirovecii.


Renowned industrial expert Geoffrey Owen analyses the complex reasons behind the delayed modernisation of British industry. In 1945, following the economic hardship of the war years, British industry looked forward with confidence to re-establishing links with its traditional trading partners in the Empire, and in the years of reconstruction which followed enjoyed unprecendented growth and prosperity. But the emergence of an economically vigorous and fiercely competitive Europe forced Britain to come to terms with some fundamental industrial weaknesses and to question where her economic destiny lay as the 'miracle economies' of France and Germany began to overtake her own. Through case studies of key industries from textiles to pharmaceuticals, steel to electronics, Owen offers a vivid account of Britain's industrial progress, and argues that since the late 1970s British industry has undergone a painful but necessary transformation which has rapidly modernised the UK economy. At the start of a new millennium, as Britain once again debates its relationship with an ever more unified Europe, Geoffrey Owen provides a timely appraisal of the often troubled path that Britain has taken from Empire to Europe.


Designed for Motive power technician diploma & Automotive service technician co-op apprenticeship..and/or a general interest in auto repair and maintenance.


In this work we present a theoretical model that explains the current and voltage oscillations at the Si electrode in HF media. A simulation computer program based on this model is implemented and results are shown. Oscillations of the current and (for the first time) the voltage obtained numerically fit perfectly with experiments. The model allows to obtain more information about the system in the form of maps (accompanied by histograms) of e.g.: oxide thickness distribution, SiO2/HF and Si/SiO2 interfaces morphology, or local voltage losses. Other characteristics of the oxide like capacitance or roughness can also be obtained.


Small reservoirs play an important role in mining, industries, and agriculture, but storage levels or stage changes are very dynamic. Accurate and up-to-date maps of surface water storage and distribution are invaluable for informing decisions relating to water security, flood monitoring, and water resources management. Satellite remote sensing is an effective way of monitoring the dynamics of surface waterbodies over large areas. The European Space Agency (ESA) has recently launched constellations of Sentinel-1 (S1) and Sentinel-2 (S2) satellites carrying C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and a multispectral imaging radiometer, respectively. The constellations improve global coverage of remotely sensed imagery and enable the development of near real-time operational products. This unprecedented data availability leads to an urgent need for the application of fully automatic, feasible, and accurate retrieval methods for mapping and monitoring waterbodies. The mapping of waterbodies can take advantage of the synthesis of SAR and multispectral remote sensing data in order to increase classification accuracy. This study compares automatic thresholding to machine learning, when applied to delineate waterbodies with diverse spectral and spatial characteristics. Automatic thresholding was applied to near-concurrent normalized difference water index (NDWI) (generated from S2 optical imagery) and VH backscatter features (generated from S1 SAR data). Machine learning was applied to a comprehensive set of features derived from S1 and S2 data. During our field surveys, we observed that the waterbodies visited had different sizes and varying levels of turbidity, sedimentation, and eutrophication. Five machine learning algorithms (MLAs), namely decision tree (DT), k-nearest neighbour (k-NN), random forest (RF), and two implementations of the support vector machine (SVM) were considered. Several experiments were carried out to better understand the complexities involved in mapping spectrally and spatially complex waterbodies. It was found that the combination of multispectral indices with SAR data is highly beneficial for classifying complex waterbodies and that the proposed thresholding approach classified waterbodies with an overall classification accuracy of 89.3%. However, the varying concentrations of suspended sediments (turbidity), dissolved particles, and aquatic plants negatively affected the classification accuracies of the proposed method, whereas the MLAs (SVM in particular) were less sensitive to such variations. The main disadvantage of using MLAs for operational waterbody mapping is the requirement for suitable training samples, representing both water and non-water land covers. The dynamic nature of reservoirs (many reservoirs are depleted at least once a year) makes the re-use of training data unfeasible. The study found that aggregating (combining) the thresholding results of two SAR and multispectral features, namely the S1 VH polarisation and the S2 NDWI, respectively, provided better overall accuracies than when thresholding was applied to any of the individual features considered. The accuracies of this dual thresholding technique were comparable to those of machine learning and may thus offer a viable solution for automatic mapping of waterbodies.


Corporations' involvement in activities that are socially responsible, with respect for workers' rights and ethically principled, brings tangible benefits to the enterprise. These CSR benefits include an increase in stakeholders' assessment of the corporation with a boost in perceived trustworthiness. Companies, however, may treat sustainability reports as a tool to legitimize their actions. This particularly concerns companies from controversial industries. In order to achieve the desired results from CSR activities, companies disclose only selected information to customers, employees and/or owners. We used t-test to verify the hypothesis that companies remove and add the same number of CSR measures in subsequent reports and that corporations from controversial industries change disclosed information to higher extent than companies from other industries. We stated, that companies replace one measure with the new one to keep the impression of the same level of disclosure and to maintain or increase the level of legitimacy. Research of 116 CSR reports from 8 Post-Communist European Countries for two consecutive reporting periods showed that companies change the number and type of disclosed measures and they don't explain reasons of the changes made in the reports, which may indicate a desire to green the organization by presenting only positive information. However, this hypothesis did not confirm that there is a significant difference in changes of CSR measures revealed between companies from controversial and non-controversial industries. The paper fills a research gap in the research on the reliability of CSR disclosure. It concentrates on the motives and the range of measures unveiled in the sustainability reports to legitimize a company's activity. Keywords: measures, corporate social responsibility, Global Reporting Initiative, stakeholders, controversial industriesDOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.29.3.18946


Deformation mechanisms of electroplated Cu thin films on TaN/SiO 2 /Si were investigated by performing isothermal annealing above 200 °C. Stress relaxation behavior during isothermal annealing was analyzed by curve fitting using exponential decay equations. During heating, fast relaxation and subsequent slow relaxation processes were observed. In contrast, during cooling, only slow relaxation process was observed. Among possible mechanisms for stress relaxation, diffusion creep was found to be the most plausible mechanism based on the obtained values of the activation energy. It was suggested that the slow relaxation process observed both in the heating and in the cooling processes was attributed to a grain-boundary diffusion creep. On the other hand, the fast relaxation process observed during heating was attributed to a surface-diffusion controlled mechanism. The surface diffusion mechanism was considered to be characteristic to Cu thin films that did not form stable surface oxide.


&NA; Bleeding associated with angiodysplasia is a common, often intractable complication in patients with von Willebrand disease (VWD). von Willebrand factor (VWF), the protein deficient or defective in VWD, is a negative regulator of angiogenesis, which may explain the pathologic blood vessel growth in VWD. This study explores the normal range of angiogenesis in blood outgrowth endothelial cells (BOECs) derived from healthy donors and compares this to angiogenesis in BOECs from VWD patients of all types and subtypes. BOECs were assessed for VWF and angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2) gene expression, secretion, and storage. To explore angiogenic potential, we characterized cellular proliferation, matrix protein adhesion, migration, and tubule formation. We found great angiogenic variability in VWD BOECs with respect to each of the angiogenesis parameters. However, type 1 and 3 VWD BOECs had higher Ang-2 secretion associated with impaired endothelial cell migration velocity and enhanced directionality. Type 2A and 2B BOECs were the most proliferative and multiple VWD BOECs had impaired tubule formation in Matrigel. This study highlights the angiogenic variability in BOECs derived from VWD patients. Abnormal cell proliferation, migration, and increased Ang-2 secretion are common features of VWD BOECs. Despite the many abnormalities of VWD BOECs, significant heterogeneity among individual VWD phenotypes precludes a simple description of relationship between VWD type and in vitro surrogates for angiodysplasia.


We consider the problem of clustering grouped data with possibly non-exchangeable groups whose dependencies can be characterized by a directed acyclic graph. To allow the sharing of clusters among the non-exchangeable groups, we propose a Bayesian nonparametric approach, termed graphical Dirichlet process, that jointly models the dependent group-specific random measures by assuming each random measure to be distributed as a Dirichlet process whose concentration parameter and based probability measure depend on those of its parent groups. The resulting joint stochastic process respects the Markov property of the directed acyclic graph that links the groups. We characterize the graphical Dirichlet process using a novel hypergraph representation as well as the stick-breaking representation, the restaurant-type representation, and the representation as a limit of a finite mixture model. We develop an efficient posterior inference algorithm and illustrate our model with simulations and a real grouped single-cell data.


Designing, validating and deploying learning analytics tools for instructors or students is a challenge that requires techniques and methods from different disciplines, such as software engineering, human-computer interaction, computer graphics, educational design and psychology. Whilst each of these disciplines has established its own design methodologies, there is a need for methodological frameworks that meet the specific demands of the cross-disciplinary space defined by learning analytics. In particular there is no systematic workflow for producing learning analytics tools that are both technologically feasible and truly underpin the learning experience. In this paper, we present a set of guiding principles and recommendations derived from the LATUX workflow. LATUX is a five-stage workflow to design, validate and deploy awareness interfaces in technology-enabled learning environments. LATUX is grounded on a well-established design process for creating, testing and re-designing user interfaces. We extend this process by integrating the pedagogical requirements, to guide the design of learning analytics visualisations that can inform instructors' pedagogical decisions or intervention strategies. The workflow is illustrated with a case study in which collaborative activities were deployed in a real classroom. Finally, the paper proposes a research agenda to support designers and implementers of learning analytics interfaces.


Summary Horizontal silo piles without walls are constructed using packing equipment to adequately pack the forage for air exclusion. During packing, the equipment uses a ramp of forage to access the top of the pile, potentially introducing soil into the forage when the base of the silo is made of soil. Soil contains microorganisms which may cause malfermentation and pose health risks to livestock. The objective of this study was to assess the association of horizontal silo pad type, elevation, and core depth with indicators related to silage hygiene and nutrient quality. We hypothesized that ash and mineral content, microbiological profile, and fermentation profile in silos with soil pads would be indicative of soil contamination, and that measures of potential contamination would be lesser at higher elevations within the silo. Eleven horizontal silos on 7 farms were sampled in a split-split-plot design, with silo pad type as the whole plot factor, elevation on the ramp as the split-plot factor, and core depth as the split-split-plot factor; data were analyzed using mixed models to appropriately recognize experimental units for each factor. Regardless of core depth and elevation, silage pH was increased in concrete pads relative to soil pads. Also, for soil pads, phosphorus (P) was increased in samples of the outer core depth compared to inner core depths. Further, on both pad types, iron (Fe) content was greater at lower vs. medium elevations, but there was no evidence of difference for peak Fe content compared with the other elevations. On soil pads, outer layers had decreased 120-and 240-hour neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and 7-hour starch digestibility compared with inner cores regardless of elevation. The outer segments also had increased pH and decreased density compared with inner core depths, regardless of pad type or elevation. Further, independent of pad type or elevation, outer layers increased NDF, acid detergent fiber (ADF), lignin, ash, and minerals, but decreased


Phragmites australis are the typical vegetation in Zha Long National Natural Reserve. From August 10th to August 21st in 2006, we chose 60 quadrats in 15 sample sites, investigated the reed biomass, height, diameter, water nitrogen and phosphorus concentration. The results are as follow: 1) the average biomass of Phragmites australis models is 2858g•m-2 and the biomass between 15 sample sites is from 2029.0 to 4067.4 g•m-2; 2) the moisture content of Phragmites australis is from 42.95% to 64.95%. The average height of Phragmites australis is 272.47cm, and the average diameter of Phragmites australis is 0.51cm; 3) the NP weight ratio in each sample site concentrate from 9.18 to 15.79. Nitrogen is the most important limiting factor in Phragmites australis vegetation growing while phosphorus is not the limiting factor; 4) the Phragmites australis biomass is restricted by many factors especially water depth and water nitrogen concentration. But the phosphorus concentration in water has irrelativeness with Phragmites australis biomass.


Most men diagnosed with prostate cancer will have an indolent and curable disease, whereas approximately 15% of these patients will rapidly progress to a castrate-resistant and metastatic stage with high morbidity and mortality. Therefore, the identification of molecular signature(s) that detect men at risk of progressing disease remains a pressing and still unmet need for these patients. Here, we used an integrated discovery platform combining prostate cancer cell lines, a Transgenic Adenocarcinoma of the Mouse Prostate (TRAMP) model and clinically-annotated human tissue samples to identify loss of expression of microRNA-34b as consistently associated with prostate cancer relapse. Mechanistically, this was associated with epigenetics silencing of the MIR34B/C locus and increased DNA copy number loss, selectively in androgen-dependent prostate cancer. In turn, loss of miR-34b resulted in downstream deregulation and overexpression of the "stemness" marker, Sox2. These findings identify loss of miR-34b as a robust biomarker for prostate cancer progression in androgen-sensitive tumors, and anticipate a potential role of progenitor/stem cell signaling in this stage of disease.


The Ottoman Empire's immigration and settlement policies were redefined in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a result of the population movements caused by the rise of nationalism, wars and territorial losses. With changing demographics and the acceptance of a new citizenship concept by the Tanzimat Edict in 1839, the millet system which had previously secured the multi-ethnic and multi-religious nature of the empire for centuries was challenged. The central argument of the paper is that the Ottoman state responded to these challenges by supporting a liberal migration and settlement policy in an institutionalized and highly complex structure through the pioneering Ottoman Migration Commission. Although certain restrictions later took place due to internal and external factors such as a changing economic, social and political climate, the institutionalized settlement and migration policy proves that a multi-dimensional system was developed in response to the challenges of a dissolving and yet transforming Empire.


Geochemical Processes, Weathering and Groundwater Recharge in Catchments is a specialist book concerned with the natural processes taking place where water interacts with minerals and organic matter at the earth's surface, in soils or within aquifers. It focuses on the all important interface between the hydrological and geochemical cycles in terrestrial ecosystems, and is thus particularly relevant to understanding the environment. The book is intended primarily as a reference text for graduate students in Earth Sciences, Hydrology or Environmental Sciences, but will be a useful introduction to those studying Chemistry, Biology or Forestry Studies. Geochemical Processes, Weathering and Groundwater Recharge in Catchments presents an overview of the current status of knowledge of catchment studies, with an outline of the challenges of future research. .


Unlike modern nationalist movements whose origin stories usually link "nations" to seemingly pure ethnic groups in an ancient past, late ancient narratives of identity followed the Classical tradition in often hooking their heritage to a specific mythical, semi-divine founder. An obvious example of this practice is the story in Livy and others about Romulus, who ascended to the heavens after founding the city of Rome. Late ancient philosophical schools had a similar convention, imagining a "chain of Hermes" that connected eminent figures such as Proclus1 through a golden string of links to the god and thus to divine wisdom. Equivalent is the Christian notion of apostolic succession in bishops like Irenaeus of Lyon, who assert that the truth of their teachings rested on their participation in an unbroken line …


This work presents an improved perturb and observe with adaptive perturbation size (IAP&O) algorithm for harnessing maximum power from a double stage solar photovoltaic (PV) energy conversion system (SPVECS) interfaced to a three phase distribution grid. Among various MPPT (Maximum Power Point Technique) techniques, the P&O method is most popular technique in industrial and domestic applications because of its simplicity. However, its performance is affected from drift problem and it is increased in quick changes of environmental conditions. In this double stage SPVECS, a VSI (Voltage Source Inverter) to a three phase distribution grid is deployed. To ensure the quality of power as per an IEEE-519 std. on harmonics, it has maintained the power quality norms in three phase distribution feeder network. Therefore, to feed the real power to the three phase distribution network and to maintain the sinusoidal grid currents, this system performs well. The Matlab/Simulink is utilized for simulation purpose and the performance of proposed system is examined in different environmental situations on an experimental prototype, which is established in the laboratory.


The utilization of industrial wastewater into a versatile material that has been the focus of research for economics reasons, environmental and technical. One of the proposed industrial wastewater for a new useful material is wastewater from the desalination process which is also known as brine water. The magnesium content in brine water is able to used as a source of magnesium for the synthesis of Mg/Al hydrotalcite-like compound (Mg/Al HTlc). Mg/Al HTlc are widely investigated for their potential applications in research and industrial processes as adsorbents, catalysts and /or catalyst precursors and pharmaceutical industry excipients. As adsorbents, Mg/Al HTlc are receiving greater interests in the environmental community due to their high adsorption capacity. However, before using natural brine water, has conducted a preliminary study the synthesis of Mg/Al HTlc by using artificial brine water as a model of desalination wastewater. The objective of this research is to synthesis of Mg/Al HTlc from artificial brine water and its ability tested as a methyl orange (MO) adsorbents. The research initiated with the synthesis of Mg/Al HTlc from artificial brine water. Characterization of the Mg/Al HTlc synthesized was confirmed through X-ray Diffraction and FT-IR Spectroscopy. The determination of optimum acidity, adsorption rate, and energy and capacity adsorption were studied. The result showed that pH 3 was the optimum acidity for the adsorption of MO on Mg/Al HTlc. MO was adsorbed at first order adsorption rate of 7.30 × 10-4 s-1 on the Mg/ Al HTlc, the adsorption capacity and adsorption energy were 4.36 × 10-5 mol g-1 and 27.54 kJ mol-1, respectively. From the preparatory process and the synthesis of Mg/Al HTlc by using artificial brine water to provide the information that the byproduct of desalination processes (brine water) which are believed to be used for the synthesis of Mg / Al HTlc.


Introducing the Boltzmann distribution very early in a statistical thermodynamics course (in the spirit of Feynmann) has many didactic advantages, in particular that of easily deriving the Gibbs entropy formula. In this note, a short derivation is proposed from the fundamental postulate of statistical mechanics and basics calculations accessible to undergraduate students.


Ontology evaluation can be defined as assessing the quality and the adequacy of an ontology for being used in a specific context, for a specific goal. In this work, a tool for Collaborative Ontology Reuse and Evaluation (CORE) is presented. The system receives an informal description of a semantic domain and determines which ontologies, from an ontology repository, are the most appropriate to describe the given domain. For this task, the environment is divided into three main modules. The first component receives the problem description represented as a set of terms and allows the user to refine and enlarge it using WordNet. The second module applies multiple automatic criteria to evaluate the ontologies of the repository and determine which ones fit best the problem description. A ranked list of ontologies is returned for each criterion, and the lists are combined by means of rank fusion techniques that combine the selected criteria. A third component of the system uses manual user evaluations of the ontologies in order to incorporate a human, collaborative assessment of the quality of ontologies.


Purpose of the study was to define a prophylactic effect of different preload volumes on the rate of intraoperative nausea and vomiting (IONV) as a complication due to spinal anaesthesia (SA) during caesarian operation (SO) in parturient. Data for analysis was collected during clinical observational multi-center research included several medical centers. Statistics involved originally developed method allowed to analyze relative risk changing along the entire interval of all applied preload volumes. The results suppose that preload is effective method of IONV prophylactics in parturient during SO under SA if only infused preload volumes do not break specially determined limits of effective interval. If preload volume value is out of this range then preinfusion may lead to increasing risk of IONV occurrence.


Wear modeling makes it possible to predict the evolution of wear profile and explain wear mechanism from process variables, such as temperature, pressure and sliding velocity etc. A composite crater wear model considering adhesive and diffusion wear is established by means of experiment and modeling in conventional speed machining. A series of cutting tests are performed to obtain wear profiles and corresponding process variables. The constants in wear model are fitted by regression analysis with crater wear tests. This crater wear model shows a good predictive capability in conventional cutting speed.


Purpose

This paper aims to report the findings from a survey of secondary school students in Chile by exploring their use of social networking services for information-seeking purposes.

Design/methodology/approach

An online survey was distributed via Chile's Ministry of Education and 12,354 responses were received.

Findings

The results indicate that young people in Chile extensively use SNSs, but there are differences in the ways in which they use these services, specifically for information purposes. When considering school-related activities, there are differences in the use of SNSs by students in different types of schools. Those in academic-focussed institutions are more likely to use SNSs for school-related information purposes and are more likely to publish most types of information on SNSs than their counterparts in vocational schools.

Research limitations/implications

The sample was self-selecting and excluded students without online access to the survey.

Practical implications

The findings indicate more needs to be done in schools serving lower socio-economic communities to support students' use of SNSs for information-seeking, especially for academic purposes.

Social implications

The findings suggest that school-associated social capital may have a role in shaping students' use of SNSs for information and learning purposes and, potentially, in exacerbating digital inequalities.

Originality/value

The focus on the use of social media specifically for information-seeking distinguishes this research. The findings challenge possible assumptions about the links between social media use and social class and suggest that differences may be exacerbated by school practices.


Supercritical CO2 is injected into subsurface environments during geologic CO2 sequestration and CO2-enhanced oil recovery. In these processes, the CO2-induced dissolution of formation rocks, which contain plagioclase, can affect the safety and efficiency of the subsurface operation. In subsurface brines, Na+ and Ca2+ are naturally abundant, and Al3+ concentration increases due to acidification by injected CO2. However, our current understanding of cation effects on plagioclase dissolution does not provide sufficiently accurate prediction of plagioclase dissolution at such high salinities. This study investigated the effects of up to 4 M Na+, 1 M Ca2+, and 200 μM Al3+ on anorthite (as a representative mineral of Ca-containing plagioclase) dissolution under conditions closely relevant to subsurface CO2 injection. For the first time, we elucidated the inhibition effects of Al3+ on anorthite dissolution in far-from-equilibrium systems, and found that the Al3+ effects were enhanced at elevated temperature. Interestingly, Na+ inhibited anorthite dissolution as well, and the effects of Na+ were 50% stronger at 35 oC than at 60 oC. Ca2+ had similar effects to those of Na+, and the Ca2+ effects did not suppress Na+ effects when they coexisted. These findings can contribute to better predicting plagioclase dissolution in geologic formations and will also be helpful in improving designs for subsurface CO2 injection.


It is found that the electrocatalytic activity of Cu2−xS thin films used in quantum dot-sensitized solar cells (QDSSCs) as counter electrode (CE) for the reduction of polysulfide electrolyte depends on the surface active sulfide and disulfide species and the deficiency of Cu. The preferential bonding between Cu2+ and S2−, leading to the selective formation of a Cu1.8S stacked platelet-like morphology, is determined by the cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide surfactant and deposition temperature; the crab-like Cu–S coordination bond formed dictates the surface area to volume ratio of the Cu1.8S thin films and their electrocatalytic activity. The Cu deficiency enhances the conductivity of the Cu1.8S thin films, which exhibit near-infrared localized surface plasmon resonance due to free carriers, and UV-vis absorption spectra show an excitonic effect due to the quantum size effect. When these Cu1.8S thin films were employed as CEs in QDSSCs, a robust photoconversion efficiency of 5.2% was obtained for the film deposited at 60 °C by a single-step chemical bath deposition method.


Chemical separations play a vital role in refinery and reprocessing of critical materials, such as platinum group metals, rare earths, and actinides. The choice of separation system─whether it is liquid-liquid extraction (LLE), sorbents, or membranes─depends on specific needs and applications. In almost all separation processes, the desired metal ions adsorb or transfer across an aqueous interface, such as the solid/liquid interface in sorbents or oil/water interfaces in LLE. Despite these separation technologies being extensively used for decades, our understanding of the molecular-scale mechanisms governing ion adsorption and transport at interfaces remains limited. This knowledge gap presents a significant challenge in meeting the increasing demands for these critical materials due to their growing use in advanced technologies. Fortunately, recent advancements in surface-specific experimental and computational techniques offer promising avenues to bridge this gap and facilitate the development of next-generation separation systems. Interestingly, unanswered questions regarding interfacial phenomena in chemical separations hold great relevance to various fields, including energy storage, geochemistry, and atmospheric chemistry. Therefore, the model interfacial systems developed for studying chemical separations, such as amphiphilic molecules assembled at a solid/water, air/water, or oil/water interface, may have far-reaching implications, extending beyond separations and opening doors to addressing a wide range of scientific inquiries. This perspective discusses recent interfacial studies elucidating amphiphile-ion interactions in chemical separations of metal ions. These studies provide direct, molecular-scale information about solute and solvent behavior at aqueous interfaces, including multivalent and complex ions in highly concentrated solutions, which play key roles in LLE of critical materials.


Image fusion is one of the most commonly used image enhancement techniques for improving the spatial quality of the source image with minimal spectral distortion in remote sensing. Until now, data fusion algorithms were developed and applied to improve the spatial resolution of the multispectral images and also their performances were evaluated depending on the source images such as Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), Landsat Multispectral (MS)/Panchromatic (PAN), Satellite pour l'Observation de la Terre (SPOT) XS/PAN and IKONOS MS/PAN datasets. This paper assesses whether hyperspectral images, having very narrow bands compared to multispectral images, can be fused with high spatial resolution panchromatic images using common and current new algorithms including Intensity‐Hue Saturation (IHS), Principal Component Substitution (PCS), Gram Schmidt Transformation (GST), Smoothing Filter‐based Intensity Modulation (SFIM), Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT), wavelet‐based IHS (DWT‐IMS) and PCS (DWT‐PCS) and Fast Fourier Transform (FFT)‐enhanced IHS. We also examine the performance of the fused hyperspectral images with respect to the fused multispectral images. For this purpose, two different source datasets (EO1 Hyperion/ALI PAN and EO1 ALI MS/PAN) were used. Some qualitative and quantitative analyses were implemented to assess the spatial and spectral quality of the fused images. The results show that it was possible to carry out the fusion of a narrow‐band hyperspectral image and a high spatial resolution panchromatic image. The fusion of EO1 Hyperion/ALI PAN and EO1 ALI MS/PAN datasets using the SFIM, DWT‐PCS, DWT‐IHS and FFT‐IHS algorithms produces better results than other techniques. Also, the results show that the fusion methods behaved for both datasets in the same performances except the DWT algorithm. The DWT method has a lower performance for the hyperspectral image compared to the multispectral image. Therefore the DWT algorithm should be further studied to improve the spectral qualities of a fused hyperspectral image based on wavelet transformation.


Considerable F-for-OH substitution can occur in the structure of hambergite, Be 2 (BO 3 )(OH,F). The substitution results in a linear reduction of the indices of refraction. This relation can be used to estimate the F content of hambergite, subject to the constraint that samples may be compositionally heterogeneous. Previous X-ray-diffraction studies of five crystals of hambergite showed that increasing amounts of F for OH lead to a decrease in the a dimension and an expansion of the b dimension. The F content of hambergite may be readily estimated if the unit-cell dimensions are known. Although originally described from an alkaline syenitic pegmatite, the majority of hambergite occurrences are in complex Li-rich granitic pegmatites of the elbaite or transitional elbaite-lepidolite subtypes. Hambergite occurs as a comparatively early phase in massive pegmatites from several localities in the Czech Republic. More commonly, hambergite is a late-crystallizing phase produced in miarolitic pockets as the highly evolved magma approaches its solidus. The F content of hambergite from pegmatites appears to reflect the F activity of the medium (melt or fluid) from which it crystallizes. Hambergite found in miarolitic pockets is typically more homogeneous in composition and commonly has a lower F content than that found in a massive pegmatite, although F-rich examples from pegmatitic pockets also are observed. It is unclear whether the lower F content of hambergite from miarolitic pockets is strictly a result of crystallization in lower-F systems, or involves precipitation in equilibrium with exsolved aqueous fluids.


Many therapeutic applications of pulsed focused ultrasound are based on heating of detected lesions which may be localized in tissues at different depths under the skin. In order to concentrate the acoustic energy inside tissues at desired depths a new approach using a planar multi-element annular array transducer with an electronically adjusted time-delay of excitation of its elements, was proposed. The 7-elements annular array transducer with 2.4 MHz center operating frequency and 20 mm outer diameter was produced. All its elements (central disc and 6 rings) had the same radiating area. The main purpose of this study was to investigate thermal fields induced in bovine liver in vitro by pulsed focused ultrasonic beams with various acoustic properties and electronically steered focal plane generated from the annular array transducer used. The measurements were performed for the radiating beams with the 20 mm focal depth. In order to maximize nonlinear effects introducing the important local temperature rise, the measurements have been performed in two-layer media comprising of a water layer, whose thickness was specific for the transducer used and equal to 13 mm, and the second layer of a bovine liver with a thickness of 20 mm. The thickness of the water layer was determined numerically as the axial distance where the amplitude of the second harmonics started to increase rapidly. The measurements of the temperature rise versus time were performed using a thermocouple placed inside the liver at the focus of the beam. The temperature rise induced in the bovine liver in vitro by beams with the average acoustic power of 1W, 2Wand 3Wand duty cycle of 1/5, 1/15 and 1/30, respectively, have been measured. For each beam used the exposure time needed for the local tissue heating to the temperature of 43◦C (used in therapies based on ultrasonic enhancement of drug delivery or in therapies involving stimulation of immune system by enhancement of the heat shock proteins expression) and to the temperature of 56◦C (used in HIFU therapies) was determined. Two sets of measurements were done for each beam considered. First, the thermocouple measurement of the temperature rise was done and next, the real-time monitoring of dynamics of growth of the necrosis area by using ultrasonic imaging technique, while the sample was exposed to the same acoustic beam. It was found that the necrosis area becomes visible in the ultrasonic image only for beams with the average acoustic power of 3 W, although after cutting the sample the thermo ablated area was visible with the naked eye even for the beams with lower acoustic power. The quantitative analysis of the obtained results allowed to determine the exposure time needed to get the necrosis area visible in the ultrasonic image.


The fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) in the second Landau level (SLL) likely stabilizes non-Abelian topological orders. Recently, a parton sequence has been proposed to capture many of the fractions observed in the SLL [Ajit C. Balram, SciPost Phys. {\bf 10}, 083 (2021)]. We consider the first member of this sequence which has not yet been studied, which is a non-Abelian state that occurs at $4/11$. As yet FQHE in the SLL at this fraction has not been observed in experiments. Nevertheless, by studying its competition with other candidate FQHE states in the SLL we show that this parton state might be viable. We also make predictions for experimentally measurable properties of the parton state which can distinguish it from other topological orders.


This paper focuses upon investigating the characteristics of engineering changes and identifying the main reasons for changes arising during the different phases of the lifecycle of complex engineering products. Two case studies representing products with different development processes have been selected and change documentation analysed. The two cases selected were: (1) a variant design product, an aeroengine and (2) a customised product, drilling equipment for the oil industry. The change requests were analysed to understand their distribution and motivation across the lifecycle of the two products. The findings show that change requests peak during the manufacturing phase and indicate that the motivation for change varies throughout a product's lifecycle. The results provide insights into the factors to be considered during the development process in order to reduce the number of change requests from the later phases of a product's lifecycle and to support designers to efficiently address the unavoidable change requests. The findings also show that knowledge is transferred implicitly in the customised design case, resulting in very little knowledge of changes transferred to the next generation of products, whereas in the case of the variant design, knowledge can be transferred incrementally to the next generation of products.


Evisceration in the holothurian Eupentacta quinquesemita (Selenka) results from a rapid softening of autotomy structures comprised of connective tissue. The mechanical properties of two autotomy tissues, the introvert and the retractor muscle tendon, were tested to investigate their function in the non-evisceration state and their behaviour during autotomy. The results show that these structures do not have a pre-existing mechanical weakness to account for their rapid failure during evisceration. The autotomy response was mimicked in vitro by increasing K+ concentration. The introvert exhibited viscous behaviour and the absence of Ca2+ and Mg2+ decreased introvert viscosity, whereas excess Ca2+, and low and high pH, increased viscosity. These agents may influence the mechanical properties of the autotomy structures by directly affecting connective tissue ionic interactions and may induce proteoglycan conformational changes. K+ may also exert an indirect effect through responses of cells controlling connective tissue tensility. The most likely mechanism of autotomy is through an alteration of connective tissue ionic interactions.


The ability of lactic acid bacteria to regulate their cytoplasmic or intracellular pH is one of the most important physiological requirements of the cells. Cells unable to maintain a near neutral intracellular pH during growth or storage at low extracellular pH may lose viability and cellular activity. Despite the importance of pH homeostasis in the lactic acid bacteria, however, an understanding of cytoplasmic pH regulation has only recently begun to emerge. This review describes the specific effects of low pH on lactic acid bacteria, reports recent research on the physiological role of intracellular pH as a regulator of various metabolic activities in lactic acid bacteria, and presents the means by which lactic acid bacteria defend against low intracellular pH. Particular attention is devoted to the proton-translocating ATPase, an enzyme that is largely responsible for pH homeostasis in fermentative lactic acid bacteria.


The thesis explores the hypothesis that some plots might rely on spatiality as an organising principle that impacts on the narrative structure and, consequently, on the strategies adopted by readers to understand them. In order to lay the grounding for a spatially-oriented approach to narrative understanding, this study pursues both a theoretical line of inquiry and an applied line of inquiry in literary criticism. A cognitive stance on the nature of thought as non-propositional (Johnson-Laird 1983) and of the mind as embodied (Lakoff and Johnson 1999; Varela et al. 1993) provides the theoretical point of departure for the subsequent identification of a range of principles and frameworks that can be implemented to support a spatially-oriented interpretation according to the specificities of narratives. The three case studies provided by Alessandro Baricco's City, Andrea Camilleri's Montalbano crime series, and Italo Calvino's Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore illustrate how a spatially-oriented perspective can add new interpretive angles and an unprecedented insight into the ways narratives achieve a coherent structure. At the same time, the case studies serve to extrapolate a set of features that constitute the preliminary criteria for assessing whether it would be fruitful to apply a spatially-oriented approach to a specific narrative. Baricco's, Camilleri's and Calvino's works represent three plot types in which spatiality impinges in three different ways on the narrative, which, as I will show, can be epitomised by the image schemata of map, trajectory, and fractal. Far from simply referring to objects which plot is compared to, these images indicate procedural techniques and strategies of sense-making that a certain type of narrative is designed to prompt in the reader through textual cues. The study, in fact, builds on and advances a notion of plot to be analysed as a process rather than a given structure, something that readers understand as they read, and not retrospectively only.


Protein loads in normal subjects increase glomerular filtration rate (GFR), which implies a renal functional reserve (RFR). Patients who have suffered a loss in the number of nephrons may show normal values of GFR due to hyperfiltration of remnant nephrons, with subsequent loss of RFR. This could be an early sign of renal damage, and probably a contributory factor to renal damage progress. The objective of this study is to determine the RFR through technetium-99m diethylene-triamine-penta-acetic acid (99m Tc-DTPA) clearance in patients who have recovered from hemolytic uremic syndrome. Renal functional reserve was determined in 33 children from 2 to 16 years old, with normal values of proteinuria, serum creatinine and creatinine clearance after over a year of having suffered hemolitic uremic syndrome. For that purpose 99m Tc-DTPA clearance was determined in basal condition and following protein load. In 17 patients DTPA clearance increased 20% or more after protein load compared to basal condition, and they were considered to have normal RFR, a probably index of totally recovered renal function; in the remaining 16 patients the increases were lower than 20%, and were considered to have no RFR, condition that was postulated as a contributing factor to renal damage progress. There was not significant differences either in age or basal GFR between both groups. Being the test easier than inuline clearance and more accurate than creatinine clearance, it proves particularly useful for early diagnosis of patients that need special follow-up and treatment.


Vapochromic materials, which undergo colour and/or emission changes upon exposure to certain vapours or gases, have received increasing attention recently because of their wide range of applications in, e.g., chemical sensors, light-emitting diodes, and environmental monitors. Vapochromic crystals, as a specific kind of vapochromic materials, can be investigated from the perspective of crystal engineering to understand the mechanism of vapochromism. Moreover, understanding the vapochromism mechanism will be beneficial to design and prepare task-specific vapochromic crystals as one kind of low-cost 'electronic nose' to detect toxic gases or volatile organic compounds. This review provides important information in a broad scientific context to develop new vapochromic materials, which covers organometallic or coordination complexes and organic crystals, as well as the different mechanisms of the related vapochromic behaviour. In addition, recent examples of supramolecular vapochromic crystals and metal-organic-framework (MOFs) vapochromic crystals are introduced.


Most fungal cell walls are constructed with significant amounts of chitin, a linear polysaccharide that contributes mechanical resistance to the structure. In the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, chitin is synthesized by three different isozymes, each of which has a separate cellular function. In this yeast, the most important role of chitin is in cytokinesis, when a thin primary septum is synthesized by chitin synthase II to separate mother and daughter cells. If no primary septum can be formed, an irregular remedial septum is synthesized, a process that relies on chitin synthase III. It was found that, with osmotic stabilization, S. cerevisiae tolerates a loss of all chitin synthase activities. Chitin-deficient mutants display a cytokinesis defect which leads to the formation of cell chains with incompletely separated cytoplasms. In these mutants septa are formed rarely. The few septa found are bulky structures which contain inclusions of cytoplasm. Nuclear division proceeds under these conditions, demonstrating that there is no cell cycle arrest triggered by a failure to form a septum between mother and daughter cell. A genetic suppressor arises quickly in chitin-deficient mutants, giving rise to the synthesis of chitin-free remedial septa. The suppressed chitin-free mutants grow well without osmotic stabilization and display hyper-resistance against the chitin-synthase inhibitor polyoxin D.


Flow cytometry was originally established as an automated method for measuring optical or fluorescence characteristics of cells or particles in suspension. With the enormous increase in development of reliable electronics, lasers, micro-fluidics, as well as many advances in immunology and other fields, flow cytometers have become user-friendlier, less-expensive instruments with an increasing importance for both basic research and clinical applications. Conventional uses of flow cytometry include immunophenotyping of blood cells and the analysis of the cell cycle. Importantly, methods for labeling microbeads with unique combinations of fluorescent spectral signatures have made multiplex analysis of soluble analytes (i.e. the ability to detect multiple targets in a single test sample) feasible by flow cytometry. The result is a rapid, high-throughput, sensitive, and reproducible detection technology for a wide range of biomedical applications requiring detection of proteins (in cells and biofluids) and nucleic acids. Thus, novel methods of flow cytometry are becoming important for diagnostic purposes (e.g. identifying multiple clinical biomarkers for a wide range of diseases) as well as for developing novel therapies (e.g. elucidating drug mechanisms and potential toxicities). In addition, flow cytometry for multiplex analysis, coupled with automated sample handling devices, has the potential to significantly enhance proteomics research, particularly analysis of post-translational modifications of proteins, on a large scale. Inherently, flow cytometry methods are strongly rooted in the laws of the physics of optics, fluidics, and electromagnetism. This review article describes principles and early sources of flow cytometry, provides an introduction to the multiplex microbead technology, and discusses its applications and advantages in comparison to other methods. Anticipated future directions, particularly for translational research in medicine, are also discussed.


Much of our conceptual understanding of midlatitude atmospheric motion comes from two-layer quasi-geostrophic (QG) models. Traditionally, these QG models don't include moisture, which accounts for an estimated 30-60% of the available energy of the atmosphere. The atmospheric moisture content is expected to increase under global warming, and therefore a theory for how moisture modifies atmospheric dynamics is crucial. We use a two-layer moist QG model with convective adjustment as a basis for analyzing how latent heat release and large-scale moisture gradients impact the scalings of a midlatitude system at the synoptic scale. In this model, the degree of saturation can be tuned independently of other moist parameters by enforcing a high rate of evaporation from the surface. This allows for study of the effects of latent heat release at saturation, without the intrinsic nonlinearity of precipitation. At saturation, this system is equivalent to the dry QG model under a rescaling of both length and time. This predicts that the most unstable mode shifts to smaller scales, the growth rates increase, and the inverse cascade extends to larger scales. We verify these results numerically and use them to verify a framework for the complete energetics of a moist system. We examine the spectral features of the energy transfer terms. This analysis shows that precipitation generates energy at small scales, while dry dynamics drive a significant broadening to larger scales. Cascades of energy are still observed in all terms, albeit without a clearly defined inertial range.


Life is nothing less than a hell without any entertainment in it. Thanks to mobile phones that let us entertain ourselves on the go. Mobile phones that are being launched nowadays, come with super impressive features that revolve around entertainment. Mobile manufacturers know it pretty well that entertainment has become an indispensable part of human life in the current era. This is the reason why mobile phones are nothing but a complete portable entertainment package. The main source of portable entertainment is music. A very common but irritating problem faced by the youngsters of this era is missing their favorite beat, or pausing a song frequently while conversing with someone. This seems to be negligible, but irritates most as they have to rewind the song or even restart it from beginning for the single beat. So think about a system that stops playing when the buds are taken off, and automatically continues when it is placed back. This seems to be simple but it is not so. This will change the whole experience of enjoying media, making a new mile stone in the entertainment world. This system will bring a new generation of media players that not only allows us to listen to our favorite music whenever we want but also allows automatic access without having to unlock our phones every now and then


In cognitive radio networks, the channel gain between primary transceivers, namely, primary channel gain, is crucial for a cognitive transmitter (CT) to control the transmit power and achieve spectrum sharing. Conventionally, the primary channel gain is estimated in the primary system, and thus unavailable at the CT. To deal with the issue, two estimators are proposed by enabling the CT to sense primary signals. In particular, by adopting the maximum likelihood (ML) criterion to analyze the received primary signal, an ML estimator is first developed. To reduce the computational complexity of the ML estimator, a median-based (MB) estimator is then proposed. By comparing the ML estimator and the MB estimator from the aspects of the computational complexity as well as the estimation accuracy, both advantages and disadvantages of two estimators are revealed. Simulation results show that the estimation errors of both estimators can be as small as 0.015. Meanwhile, the ML estimator outperforms the MB estimator in terms of the estimation accuracy if the sensed primary signal at the CT is weak. Otherwise, the MB estimator is superior to the ML estimator from the aspects of both the computational complexity and the estimation accuracy.


The Relationship Between Reading Fluency, Writing Fluency, and Reading Comprehension in Suburban Third-Grade Students by Mary Leonard Palmer Doctor of Education San Diego State University and the University of San Diego, 2010 The topic of reading fluency is of great importance in education today. Research has shown a significant positive relationship between reading fluency and reading comprehension. However, little is known about writing fluency and its connection with reading comprehension. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between reading fluency, writing fluency, and reading comprehension. First, using the principles of assessing reading fluency, I designed a writing assessment and measured the writing fluency of 54 3rd graders. I examined the writing assessments as they related to the students' reading fluency and reading comprehension scores. Secondly, I performed a quasi-experimental scientific study with 3rd grade students. The control group (n=36) were taught the board-adopted language arts curriculum, while the experimental group (n=18) had systematic direct instruction in reading and writing fluency in addition to the regular language arts curriculum. The research questions were: What is the relationship between students' reading comprehension and reading fluency among a group of third graders? What is the relationship between their reading comprehension and writing fluency? What is the relationship between their reading fluency and writing fluency? Will the experimental group of students with direct instruction in reading and writing fluency outperform the control group in reading comprehension? What other factors are involved in increasing reading comprehension? Pearson's correlation statistic, paired t-tests, independent samples t-tests, and multiple linear regression analysis were used to analyze the data. All statistical analyses were performed using PASW (formerly SPSS) for Windows. Consistent with reading research, the results showed there was a strongly positive correlation between reading comprehension and reading fluency. This study also found a correlation between reading comprehension and writing as well as a correlation between reading comprehension and writing fluency. However, the link between reading comprehension and writing fluency was not found in pretest measurement, or the posttestpretest measurement. The ANOVA results showed that reading and writing fluency explained a statistically significant 50% of the total variance in reading comprehension scores. This study also showed a strong positive correlation between reading fluency and writing fluency in the posttest measurement. In the quasi-experimental study, the experimental group did not outperform the experimental group: both groups made significant progress. The major implication of this study is that writing could help increase reading comprehension, which results in another tool for teachers to use in teaching reading