English language placements tests are an essential component of preparatory year programmes (PYPs) as they serve to place students in an English course adequate to their level of proficiency. The aim of the study is to evaluate the perceived effectiveness of the Oxford Online Placement Test (OOPT), as seen by teachers in the English Language Institute (ELI) at King Abdulaziz University (KAU). The investigation explores teachers' views on the OOPT, on the ELI modules and on factors affecting students' test performance. It is framed by Messick's (1989) unified view of validity, which informed both the data analysis and the interpretation of the findings.
The study comprised three data collection stages: Stage 1: face-to face interviews, Stage 2: the questionnaire and Stage 3: telephone interviews. The majority of the questionnaire and interview respondents were unfamiliar with the OOPT, however, those who were familiar with the test, agreed that it was an effective tool and generally placed students in the correct level. However, some teachers felt that the content of the OOPT was not relevant to Saudi students.
Educational background, computer literacy and socio-economic status emerged as factors influencing achievement in the OOPT and ELI modules, according to teachers. Teachers also agreed that students specialising in the Sciences generally performed better compared to those specialising in the Arts.
With regards to the ELI modules, the majority of teachers felt that the courses were too short and that students who were placed in higher levels because of their OOPT scores were generally more proficient than those who had progressed through the ELI modules.
Implications for theory and practice are drawn from the findings as well as recommendations for the ELI and for future research.


'Simulation of Civil Engineering' is a '3+1' special courses for the department of civil engineering, The students have difficulty in this study because of many related courses and lacking of time. The CDIO-based engineering education model uses the innovation practice base of construction as a platform, through the study of specific actual project and the organization of students' teams in-depth study in their spare time. On the one hand, this project can string related courses together and sum up knowledge, on the other hand, this project can integrate teacher research projects, student research scheme, the course of simulation of civil engineering and graduation papers (design), to achieve the effect of multiple purposes.


Liver microsomal suspensions from pregnant and nonpregnant Sprague-Dawley rats were assayed for NADPH-dependent metabolism of phenytoin to the hydroxylated products, 5-(rho-hydroxyphenyl)-5-phenylhydantoin (rhoHPPH) and 5-(3,4-dihydroxy-1,5-cyclohexadien-1-yl)5-phenylhydantoin (H2DIOL). UDP-glucuronic acid-dependent glucuronyltransferase activity for conjugating rhoHPPH was also measured. The specific activity for formation of rhoHPPH decreased by 35% in 21-day pregnant rats compared with nonpregnant rats, whereas specific activity for production of H2DIOL was increased approximately 2-fold on the 7th and 14th but not the 21st day of pregnancy. Because of a 25% increase in liver weight during pregnancy, the total hepatic phenytoin hydroxylase activity in pregnant rats (day 21) was not significantly different from that of nonpregnant controls. Folic acid treatment during pregnancy prevented the decrease in phenytoin hydroxylase specific activity. The KM for production of either rhoHPPH or H2DIOL was similar (90 micrometer) in pregnant (day 21) and nonpregnant animals. Thus, overall hepatic microsomal enzyme activity for metabolizing phenytoin was not significantly reduced during pregnancy in rats, although the ratio of H2DIOL to rhoHPPH was increased during the first two weeks. Folic acid may play a role in pregnancy-associated changes in phenytoin hydroxylase activity.


Artificial Insemination service in Kenya has undergone tremendous changes from time it was introduced by the colonial government. At that time it was only available to the to the white farmers who were practicing dairy farming in the white highlands. After independence the government continued offering the service through donor .support. Artificial Insemination has been used in large and small dairy and beef herds and its development has contributed to new knowledge on reproduction and fertility level in these animals. Artificial Insemination service has increased productivity in cattle thus providing livelihood to the growing human population. Increased demand of Artificial Insemination in the country made it difficult for the government to continue with its provision and by 1986 there was a policy change which recommended for cost sharing. This continued until 1991 when the service was privatized though the structural adjustment programme. The main objective of this study was to investigate the impact of privatization of Artificial Insemination delivery service on the productivity of the dairy cattle of smallholder dairy farmers in Nyeri East district, Central Province. As a result of privatization of Artificial Insemination delivery service which occurred, there were changes in cost, accessibility, challenges of breeding diseases, quality of diary breeds and provision of extension services. This study examined how these changes affected productivity of dairy cattle in the district. A representation sample dairy farmers in the six locations of the district was selected using stratified sampling technique. A sample 'of 120 households was obtained using proportionate random sampling from each of the stratum. The impact of privatization of Artificial Insemination delivery service was assessed using qualitative and quantitative research methods. The data which was obtained from the farmers using semi-structured questionnaires was coded and analyzed using descriptive statistics. Secondary data was obtained from the Ministry of Livestock Development monthly and annual reports, related literature review and relevant Journals. The results obtained in the study showed that the cost of Artificial Insemination delivery service increased after privatization and that farmers were willing to pay for the service despite the high cost. The productivity of dairy cattle increased as shown in the increased milk production, and improved calving intervals. Accessibility of the service improved after privatization while more farmers started taking dairy farming as a business enterprise. The findings obtained in the study are useful to the Ministry of Livestock Development and other stakeholders involved in the delivery of Artificial Insemination Service.


Sequential Fully Implicit (SFI) schemes have been proposed as an alternative to the Fully Implicit Method (FIM). A significant advantage of SFI is that one can employ scalable strategies to the flow and transport problems. However, the primary disadvantage of using SFI compared with FIM is the fact that the splitting errors induced by the decoupling operator, which separates the pressure from the saturation(s), can lead to serious convergence difficulties of the overall nonlinear problem. Thus, it is important to quantify the coupling strength in an adaptive manner in both space and time. We present criteria that localize the computational cells where the pressure and saturation solutions are tightly coupled. The approach is using terms in the FIM Jacobian matrix, we quantify the sensitivity of the mass and volume-balance equations to changes in the pressure and the saturations. We identify three criteria that provide a measure of the coupling strength across the equations and variables. The standard CFL stability criteria, which are based entirely on the saturation equations, are a subset of the new criteria. Here, the pressure equation is solved using Algebraic MultiGrid (AMG), or a multiscale solver, such as the Multiscale Restricted-Smooth Basis (MsRSB) approach. The transport equations are then solved using a fixed total-velocity. These 'coupling strength' criteria are used to identify the cells where the pressure-saturation coupling is strong. The applicability of the derived coupling-strength criteria is tested using several test cases. The first test is using a gravitational immiscible dead-oil lock-exchange under a unit mobility ratio and large differences in density. For this case, the SFI algorithm fails to converge to the fully coupled solution due to the large splitting errors. Introducing a fully coupled solution stage on the local subdomains as an additional correction step restores nonlinear convergence. Detailed analysis of the 'coupling strength' criteria indicates that the criteria related to the sensitivity of the mass balance to changes in the pressure and the sensitivity of the volume balance to changes in the saturations are the most important ones to satisfy. Other test cases include an alternate gas-water-gas injection in a top layer of the SPE 10 test case and an injection-production scenario in a three-dimensional reservoir with layered lognormally distributed permeability. We propose novel criteria to estimate the strength of coupling between pressure and saturation. These CFL-like numbers are used to identify the cells that require fully implicit treatment in the nonlinear solution strategy. These criteria can also be used to improve the nonlinear convergence rates of Adaptive Implicit Methods (AIM).


The guidelines for the therapy of multiple sclerosis (MS) are unchanged. An acute episode is treated intravenously with high-dosed glucocorticoid. This is usually followed by an immunomodulating basic therapy, although the currently approved preparations for this purpose are only partially effective. During the last ten years, a series of new therapeutic approaches have been developed. The monoclonal antibody natalizumab (Tysabri®) was approved for use in the U.S.A. in 2004 and showed good success, but had to be removed from the market in February 2005 because of grave side effects. Up until now, the chemokine receptor antagonist CCRi has been tested in a pilot study. A clinical phase III study is being planned with MS patients for the interleukin-2 receptor antagonist daclizumab.


The present reviews attempted to biological activities of 1,4-sustituted-1H-[1,2,3] triazole derivatives. 1H-[1,2,3] triazoles constitute an important class of nitrogen heterocycles in the field of medicinal and material chemistry. Medicinally they have been shown to possess a wide range of diverse interesting pharmacological properties.


The annual migration of small birds depends on the optimal management of time and energy. Since refueling at stopovers between flights consumes most of the birds' time and energy, selection of food-rich sites, and timely departure therefrom are likely crucial to success. We examined this concept quantifying body composition of 200 migrating blackcaps, Sylvia atricapilla, in Eilat, Israel, using dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry and generated a model to predict body composition as it changes with body mass (mb). We then back-calculated body composition of  20 000 blackcaps ringed between 1984 and 2005, and tested the hypothesis that the amount of fuel that a bird stores determines the length of its stopover. We predicted that 1) if time-constrained in spring, birds at the stopover site carry less than a maximum fuel load, but 2) if not time-constrained, as in autumn, their fuel load is much higher than in spring. We found the change in body composition of blackcaps to be biphasic and correlated with increasing mb. At mb  ~ 17.8 g, increasing mb is due to increasing lean mass (ml), while at mb  ~ 17.8 g increasing mb results from increasing fat mass (mf), which is accompanied by decreasing ml. Body composition of blackcaps at a spring stopover site indicates that blackcaps leave stopovers as soon as they regain functionality of their digestive systems, but before laying down much mf. In autumn blackcaps arrive with fuel stores much larger than in spring. For these birds, the Eilat stopover apparently serves to complete fat accumulation before crossing the deserts ahead. We conclude that in spring, the decision to depart is not determined by the bird's fuel stores, especially when early arrival at the breeding site, and therefore time, is of the essence. In autumn, accumulating enough fuel to ensure successful crossing of the deserts ahead probably dictates stopover time.


Numerous problems in optics, quantum physics, stability analysis, and control of dynamical systems can be brought to an optimization problem with matrix variable subjected to the symplecticity constraint. As this constraint nicely forms a so-called symplectic Stiefel manifold, Riemannian optimization is preferred, because one can borrow ideas from unconstrained optimization methods after preparing necessary geometric tools. Retraction is arguably the most important one which decides the way iterates are updated given a search direction. Two retractions have been constructed so far: one relies on the Cayley transform and the other is designed using quasi-geodesic curves. In this paper, we propose a new retraction which is based on an SR matrix decomposition. We prove that its domain contains the open unit ball which is essential in proving the global convergence of the associated gradient-based optimization algorithm. Moreover, we consider three applications--symplectic target matrix problem, symplectic eigenvalue computation, and symplectic model reduction of Hamiltonian systems--with various examples. The extensive numerical comparisons reveal the strengths of the proposed optimization algorithm.


Single and mixed strain fermentation were compared to check the effect on properties of wine. Two strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (MTCC 11815 & MTCC 170) were used to study the effect of inoculum age and inoculum size on fermentation of grape juice. The inoculum sizes used were 2%, 5%, 10% and 15%, while inoculum age effect was studied using 24 h, 48 h and 60 h old inoculum. Fermentation efficiency of 77.2% was achieved in mixed strain culture using 15% inoculum, 17% initial sugars giving ethanol concentration of 6.70% (w/v) after 48 hrs. Fermentation efficiency of 84.65% was achieved with MTCC170 using 15% inoculum and 17% initial sugars giving ethanol concentration of 7.34% (w/v) in 48 hrs. Strain MTCC11815 produced 8.5% (w/v) ethanol from 17% initial sugars giving 98% efficiency using 2 and 5% inoculum. Concentration of phenolics increased with inoculum concentration while nitrogen and phosphates did not show any regular trend. The nitrogen and phosphate concentration was affected by type of strain rather than other factors.


This paper studies the possibility of implementing a chaos synchronization scheme in the context of Visible Light Communication (VLC) with potential application to message encryption. For this, a unidirectional transmitter-receiver configuration is employed whereby the encrypted data is sent over a VLC optical wireless channel. More precisely, the classical chaotic masking, with the use of a Rossler oscillator and a corresponding nonlinear observer, and the inverse system approach with Lorenz oscillators, have been employed to demonstrate the proof of concept of chaos synchronization in VLC. By employing a pseudo random binary data sequence as a message it is shown that acceptable message recovery is obtained despite the presence of delay, attenuation and noise in the channel. Simulations results using Matlab Simulink are provided to show the performance and the level of the synchronization achieved for both methods.


Effective decision-making relies on both feeling
confident about the decision and realistically
assessing its accuracy. This book presents the
results of several large-scale studies of test-taking
situations in which people stated their level of
confidence in their answers. These judgments were
internally stable and habitual across different
typical and novel cognitive domains. Self-perception
of the competency of the fundamental cognitive
abilities predicted confidence levels; these levels
were compared with the actual results, indexing the
quality of Self-monitoring processes. Errors in
confidence ratings were consistent, habitual, and
linked with particular heuristic modes of thinking;
these errors reflected the irrationality that plagues
metacognitive processes. By determining the status of
confidence judgments and their calibration within the
cognitive/metacognitive taxonomy and their
psychological determinates, this book demonstrates
that both phenomena reside at the
metacognitive/rational level. This book will be
valuable to psychology and education professionals,
and to anyone interested in understanding
decision-making processes and their underlying
intrapersonal factors.


BACKGROUND
Tailoring interventions to address identified barriers to change may be an effective strategy to implement guidelines and improve practice. The purpose of this article is to describe the development and implementation of a tailored intervention to overcome barriers to enterally feeding critically ill patients.

METHODS
A before-after study was conducted in 5 hospitals in North America. We adopted a pragmatic stepwise approach to developing and implementing a tailored intervention-namely, (1) formation of a guideline implementation team, (2) identification of barriers to the provision of enteral nutrition (ie, guideline-practice gap analysis, staff survey, focus group with key stakeholders), (3) focus group to prioritize these barriers, (4) brainstorming to select interventions to overcome the prioritized barriers, (5) a 12-month implementation phase including bimonthly progress meetings, and (6) evaluation of the tailored intervention.

RESULTS
All sites identified and prioritized barriers to target for change and developed a tailored action plan. Three of the 22 potential barriers were prioritized by all sites, resulting in common components to the action plans. However, barriers and interventions that were unique to specific sites were also identified. All sites were successful in implementing most of the selected strategies during the implementation phase, although the degree of implementation varied depending on the type of strategy and the site.

CONCLUSION
This stepwise process to developing and implementing an intervention tailored to barriers is promising and could be considered by dietitians and other providers seeking to improve nutrition practice.


Class A saponins are responsible for the taste of soybean products, and the rapid identification of class A saponins from soybean food is essential for both food safety and cultivar screening. In this study, we propose a colorimetric assay based on the coupling of gap ligase chain reaction (Gap-LCR) with DNAzyme to detect the target GmSg-1 genes of class A soybean saponins with the naked eye, without the involvement of expensive instruments. The limits of detection (LODs) for the GmSg-1a and GmSg-1b genes were determined to be 0.1618 and 0.1625 μM, respectively, with a linear range of 0.2-1.2 μM. The DNAzyme-based Gap LCR assay was successfully employed to identify the target genes from different soybean cultivars, providing a simple means for monitoring the quality of soybean products.


In this paper, we present static and dynamic wetting interactions of water droplets on a variety of superhydrophobic surfaces. For sessile droplets, wetting states were determined by measuring contact angles and comparing them to that obtained from equilibrium Cassie and Wenzel states. Surprisingly, we find that roll-off angles are minimized on surfaces expected to induce Wenzel-like wetting in equilibrium. We argue that droplets on these surfaces are metastable Cassie droplets whose internal Laplace pressure is insufficient to overcome the capillary pressure resulting from the energy barrier required to completely wet the posts. In the case of impacting droplets the water hammer and Bernoulli pressures must be compared with the capillary pressure. Experiments with impacting droplets using a high-speed camera and specific surface textures that can delineate various wetting regimes show very good agreement with this simple pressurebalance model. These studies show that hierarchical micronano surfaces are optimum for droplet impact resistance.


This paper presents a specification-guided safety verification method for feedforward neural networks with general activation functions. As such feedforward networks are memoryless, they can be abstractly represented as mathematical functions, and the reachability analysis of the neural network amounts to interval analysis problems. In the framework of interval analysis, a computationally efficient formula which can quickly compute the output interval sets of a neural network is developed. Then, a specification-guided reachability algorithm is developed. Specifically, the bisection process in the verification algorithm is completely guided by a given safety specification. Due to the employment of the safety specification, unnecessary computations are avoided and thus the computational cost can be reduced significantly. Experiments show that the proposed method enjoys much more efficiency in safety verification with significantly less computational cost.


BACKGROUND:Neonates undergoing cardiac surgery are especially prone to the hemostatic alterations of cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) and are at high risk for post-CPB bleeding. An immature coagulation system, significant hemodilution from the CPB prime, long CPB times at low temperatures, and extensive suture lines increase neonates' susceptibility to bleeding after CPB. In this study, we examined the relationship between excessive bleeding in neonates after CPB and major postoperative adverse events. METHODS:We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 169 neonates who underwent complex congenital heart surgery with CPB between January 1, 2010, and December 31, 2011. Perioperative data were collected and analyzed with specific focus on post-CPB bleeding as measured by 24-hour postoperative chest tube output (CTO), post-CPB transfusion requirements, and major postoperative adverse events, including renal dysfunction, dialysis, thrombosis, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), and in-hospital mortality. We used Spearman correlation to determine correlations between multiple perioperative variables and 24-hour CTO and postoperative blood product requirements. Also, we used logistic regression analysis to determine the association between excessive bleeding (defined as 24-hour CTO >75th percentile) and major postoperative adverse events. RESULTS:Significant correlations were found between 24-hour CTO and postoperative blood product transfusion with weight, Risk Adjustment for Congenital Heart Surgery (RACHS-1) score, CPB time, and lowest temperature. Logistic regression found that excessive bleeding after CPB was an independent predictor of postoperative dialysis (relative risk [RR] 12.0; confidence interval, 1.50–54.69; P = 0.02) and ECMO (RR 9.95; confidence interval, 3.07–28.47; P = 0.0008). RACHS-1 score was a significant predictor of in-hospital mortality (P = 0.03). CONCLUSIONS:Excessive postoperative bleeding in neonates after CPB is independently associated with increased adverse events, specifically the need for postoperative dialysis and ECMO support. Our findings in neonates are congruent with other recent research that also has found increasing transfusion requirements after pediatric CPB to be independently associated with an increase in major postoperative adverse events. Our results may aid clinicians in anticipating potential adverse events after neonatal bypass and in allocating the resources necessary to manage these events.


B cells play diverse and fundamental roles in the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases. Consequently, therapeutic targeting of B cells is gaining prominence in our clinical armamentarium for an ever expanding array of autoimmune and neoplastic disorders. Therefore, it is of great importance to understand the mechanism of action of B cell depletion. Given that the ideal consequence of B cell depletion would be the subsequent re-establishment of immunologic tolerance, a detailed analysis of the properties of the emerging repertoire will be required. The results presented by Rouziere and coworkers in their study of rheumatoid arthritis patients shed some light on this question and are discussed in this commentary.


Objective Welders are exposed via the inhalation route to respirable-sized (<4µm) metal fume particles, in particular the two main components of welding fume, manganese (Mn) and iron (Fe). Exposure to high levels of Mn and Fe have each been found to be associated with neurological dysfunction. In this study we investigated how the increased exposure to Mn and Fe in welding is reflected in toenail and brain levels of Mn and Fe in vivo. Methods Our study on 30 typically exposed welders and 20 controls in the United States investigated the associations between occupational Mn and Fe exposure from respirable welding fume with magnetic resonance imaging (R1 and R2* mapping), indicative of brain Mn and Fe levels, and a biomarker (toenails). Multiple exposure measures including job tasks, cumulative airborne exposure based on personal respirable airborne concentrations, and metals concentrations determined in toenail samples were utilised to study the associations with regional brain Mn and Fe concentrations. Results Welders were significantly more exposed to airborne respirable Mn and Fe than the control population (Mn: 0.11 vs. 0.007 mg/m3, P < 0.01; Fe: 1.05 vs. 0.11 mg/m3, P < 0.01). Welders were also found to have significantly elevated levels of Mn and Fe in their toenails as compared to controls (Mn: P < 0.01; Fe: P < 0.05). Significant deposition of Mn and Fe were found in several brain regions including globus pallidus (Mn & Fe: p < 0.01), substantia nigra (Fe: P < 0.05), and frontal cortex (P < 0.05). R2* was significantly (p < 0.05) correlated with cumulative exposure in the substantia nigra, whereas R1 was associated (p < 0.01) with exposure in motor cortex and basal ganglia regions Conclusions Our findings suggest that typical U.S. welders are significantly exposed to Mn and Fe through welding fumes. Their exposure is associated with both increased deposition of Mn and Fe in toenails and the brain


Cancer is a major cause of all natural mortalities and morbidities throughout the world.Pointed out the exact tumour types provides an optimized solution for the better treatment and toxicity minimization due to medicines on the patients. To get a clear picture on the insight of a problem, a clear cancer classification analysis system needs to be pictured followed by a systematic approach to analyse global gene expression which provides an optimized solution for the identified problem area. Molecular diagnostics provides a promising option of systematic human cancer classification, but these tests are not widely applied because characteristic molecular markers for most solid tumor save yet to be identified. Recently, DNA microarray-based tumor gene expression profiles have been used for cancer diagnosis. Existing system focussed in ranging from old nearest neighbour analysis to support vector machine manipulation for the learning portion of the classification model. We don't have a clear picture of supervised classifier (Supervised Multi Attribute Clustering Algorithm) which can manage knowledge attributes coming two different knowledge streams. Our proposed system takes the input from multiple source, create an ontological store, cluster the data with attribute match association rule and followed by classification with the knowledge acquired


The development of social media plays a phenomenal role in Malaysia, garnering more
 research on the usage and impact of social media on the users. This illustrates the
 interest on this phenomenon is immensely growing. Despite the rising amount,
 previous efforts in exploring the state of social media studies in Malaysia is scarce
 compared to the West. In keeping pace with the progression of social media, literature
 on social media in Malaysia were examined for a more comprehensive outlook on the
 research patterns of the field from the years 2004 until 2015. Specifically, this research
 utilised quantitative content analysis and in-depth interviews. Two content analyses
 were conducted on 79 articles in selected Malaysian academic journals and 12 doctoral
 theses from universities in Malaysia that had conducted social media studies.
 Descriptive statistics were used to identify the research patterns by adopting a
 framework of analysis from past literature including: theoretical application, research
 topic, methodological approach, social media type and development phases of social
 media research. In-depth interviews of six mass communication and social media
 scholars in Malaysia were also conducted. The interviews were conducted through an
 open-ended set of interview protocols to explore their perceptions on the trends of
 communication theories in social media studies. The interviews were analysed using
 thematic analysis. The results indicated that social media research in Malaysia was still
 in formative stage as this communication technology is considered new and Malaysian
 scholars still lack of skills and experiences in understanding the field. However, a
 pattern of increase was apparent on the numbers of social media studies. Moreover, the
 theoretical presence in social media research in Malaysia is relatively higher than the
 theoretical footings in the West. The most prevalent communication theories were uses
 and gratifications, agenda-setting and diffusion of innovations. Scholars emphasised
 cited theories were chosen based on the research background, personal connection and
 relevancy to the social media issue. Most theories were applied as theoretical
 framework, followed by merely referencing and comparison of theories. Although theoretical application in social media studies showed an upward trend, the practice of
 construction and expansion of theories among Malaysian scholars is still limited,
 implicating a need for a more solidified and elaborated theoretical foundation. The
 findings showed that theoretical footing were underdeveloped because existing theories
 were considered more relevant for their research, lack of credible scholars, no
 affiliation amongst scholars and incompetency in English. Several factors were
 suggested in generating theories such as acquiring solid theoretical foundation, a call
 for more teamwork among scholars, improvement of facilities in institutions, upgrading
 of communication programmes in universities and enhancement of quality in journals.
 This study recognised the need for more research topics on the improvement and
 creation of new concepts and theories for social media; better methodological rigours
 and wider dispersion on the type of social media. The study concludes with main issues
 of theoretical development and recommends further fundamental research for the
 creation of theories to understand the usage and effect of social media on local culture
 and values of Malaysian users.


Objectives To investigate symptoms and self-reported health of patients conservatively treated for aortic stenosis (AS) and to identify factors associated with treatment decision and patient outcomes. Design A cross-sectional survey with an 18-month follow-up. Setting One tertiary university hospital in Western Norway. Participants In all, 1436 patients were diagnosed with AS between 2000 and 2012, and those 245 still under conservative treatment in 2013 were included in this study. Primary and secondary outcome measures Primary outcome measures were symptoms and self-reported health status. Secondary outcomes were treatment decision and patient survival after 18 months. Results A total of 136 patients with mean (SD) age 79 (12) years, 52% men responded. Among conservatively treated patients 77% were symptomatic. The symptom most frequently experienced was dyspnoea. Symptomatic patients reported worse physical and mental health compared with asymptomatic patients (effect size 1.24 and 0.74, respectively). In addition, symptomatic patients reported significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression compared with asymptomatic patients. However, symptom status did not correlate with haemodynamic severity of AS. After 18 months, 117 (86%) were still alive, 20% had undergone surgical aortic valve replacement (AVR) and 7% transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI). When adjusting for age, gender, symptomatic status, severity of AS and European system for cardiac operative risk evaluation (EuroSCORE), patients with severe AS had more than sixfold chance of being scheduled for AVR or TAVI compared with those with moderate AS (HR 6.3, 95% CI 1.9 to 21.2, p=0.003). Patients with EuroSCORE ≥11 had less chance for undergoing AVR or TAVI compared with those with EuroSCORE ≤5 (HR 0.06, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.46, p=0.007). Conclusions Symptoms affected both physical and mental health in conservatively treated patients with AS. Many patients with symptomatic severe AS are not scheduled for surgery, despite the recommendations in current guidelines. The referral practice for AVR is a path for further investigation.


Background & Aim: Quality of sleep and Quality of life Reducing is one of the most common complaints in women, especially during pregnancy and after that it can be an appropriate platform for many disorders during pregnancy and after childbirth for mother and fetus. This Methods: This two group cross-sectional study was conducted in the first six months of 1394. The data collected tools were three questionnaires: demographic characteristics, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and the World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire - Short Form (WHOQOL-BREF). Data on three groups of pregnant women, women with infant children and other women were gathered and with SPSS 21 software and using descriptive and analytical statistics were analyzed. Results: The findings showed that the average quality of sleep and quality of life in women were 7.16 and 70.91, both in the medium level. Quality of life was significantly associated with participant's education As well as between the three groups of pregnant women, infant children and other women also showed a statistically significant difference.   Sleep quality was so poor in 74.5 percent of the women and had a significant positive correlation with quality of life. Conclusion: In addition of high prevalence of sleep disorders in women especially pregnant women and mothers with infant children and reduce their quality of life, the necessity to improve the lives of women required to appear.


This thesis focusses on the neural correlates and treatment of the neurological movement disorder essential tremor (ET). ET, one of the most common movement disorders in clinical neurology, is characterized by an action and intention tremor of mainly the hands, hampering daily life activities. Effects of symptomatic therapy, including propranolol, anti-epileptic drugs and stereotactic neurosurgery, differ between patients. Involvement of the cerebello-thalamo-cortical network, and the cerebellar system in particular, seems likely. However, exact mechanisms are unclear, and are the topic of this thesis. Disease and treatment mechanisms are studied with functional and structural brain imaging methods, combined with clinical neurophysiology applying advanced analysis methods. A well-defined group of propranolol-sensitive, familial ET patients, showed functional involvement of the bilateral cerebellum, together with hyperactive cerebellar outflow tracts, entailing the dentate nucleus and thalamus, and a striking lack of structural changes. In addition, these studies indicated tremor attenuation induced by the beta-blocker propranolol through a central mechanism of action, possibly by changing Renshaw cell sensitivity within the spinal cord. Furthermore, a group of ET patients showed, after therapeutic thalamotomy, structural lesioning effects outside the thalamus, in the cerebellar outflow tracts. The results within this thesis and previous studies support functional involvement of the cerebello-thalomo-cortical network in ET, and especially indicate both the cerebellar cortex and dentate nucleus to be critical players in the pathophysiology of ET. Future insights in the pathophysiology and physiology of treatment of ET will hopefully aid in the development of more effective symptomatic, and even curative, treatment for this disorder.


The article analyzes the problem of developing professional reflection in Ukrainian and foreign psycho-pedagogical literature. It shows that such definitions as "reflection", "professional reflection" and "teacher's professional reflection" are interconnected in the context of general, special and specific features. A detailed review of current neurocognitive approaches has made it possible to determine the main aspects of biological mechanisms of reflection. One can see that Ukrainian psycho-pedagogical discourse does not consider neurophysiological aspects of shaping and developing professional reflection. Given the views of Ukrainian researchers on the matter, teacher's professional reflection is seen as the correlation of their capabilities with the requirements of the teaching profession; a set of internal conditions for reaching a new level of professional performance; a certain technology of objective analysis and organization of one's experience, as well as understanding and use of others' experience. Together, they determine a values-based attitude towards the teaching profession. However, Ukrainian methodology employs diagnostic tools which partially rely on the lateral features of the actors in the educational process and, thus, neuroscientific insights.


Two issues that are fundamental to developing autonomous intelligent robots, namely rudimentary learning capability and dexterous manipulation, are examined. A powerful neural learning formalism is introduced for addressing a large class of nonlinear mapping problems, including redundant manipulator inverse kinematics, commonly encountered during the design of real-time adaptive control mechanisms. Artificial neural networks with terminal attractor dynamics are used. The rapid network convergence resulting from the infinite local stability of these attractors allows the development of fast neural learning algorithms. Approaches to manipulator inverse kinematics are reviewed, the neurodynamics model is discussed, and the neural learning algorithm is presented.<<ETX>>


The feeding regime, health status, feed allowance, body weight and mineral status of local pigs kept by smallholder farmers in Lao PDR were assessed. The long-term effect of supplemental salt (NaCl) on voluntary feed and water intake, growth, sodium (Na) and potassium (K) balance was evaluated in local pigs, and faecal K/Na ratio was assessed as a marker of Na intake in pigs.

A field study of management of local pigs kept by smallholder farmers was carried out in three districts (Borrikun, Khamkeuth and Pakkading) of central Lao PDR, where pig keeping is mainly women's work. The main feed ingredients used in the region are rice bran and cassava root, with agricultural by-products and green plants used as supplements to varying degrees. Daily crude protein and calcium (Ca) allowances to sows, piglets and growing pigs in all districts were lower than the recommended levels, as was Na allowance to growing pigs in Borrikun and Khamkeuth and to lactating sows in all districts. Phosphorus (P) allowance to growing pigs in Pakkading and sows in Borrikun and Pakkading was lower than recommended, but K allowance to both growing pigs and sows was higher. Piglet mortality was around 20%. Feed supplementation had no effect on the body weight of pigs raised by smallholder farmers, but affected plasma iCa concentration. Ionised Ca level was outside the normal range for all pigs. There was a tendency for higher faecal K/Na ratio in sows not supplemented with Na.

In two experiments examining the effect of high and low levels of NaCl in the diet of native Moo Lath pigs, dietary Na content affected feed and water intake, Na and water retention. Low dietary Na level (0.6 g/kg DM) reduced intake, retention and weight gain, while high intake (3.0 g/kg DM) increased intake, retention, extracellular volume and weight gain, without increasing N and K retention. A dietary Na content of 1.2 g/kg dry matter proved sufficient to support a positive Na balance and growth in these pigs. Individual faecal K/Na ratio was a rough indicator of Na intake.

Overall, the studies showed that the protein, Ca and Na supply to local pigs in central Lao PDR appears to be below requirements. Thus farmers should aim to include more green plant materials and NaCl in the feed allowance.


The concept of parallel processing is applied to power system simula tion. The Component Connection Model (CCM) and appropriate numerical methods, such as the Relaxation Algorithm, are established as a conceptual basis for the parallel simulation of small power networks and individual power system components. A commercially available multiprocessing system is intro duced for the power system simulator, and the system is adapted to facilitate high-speed parallel simulations. Two separate strategies for controlling the parallel simulation, synchronous and asynchronous relaxation, are introduced, and their performances are evaluated for the parallel simulation of an induction motor drive system. The performances of the parallel methods are also com pared to a similar simulation run on a single processor, and the results show that considerable simulation speed-up can be obtained when parallel processing is employed.


Cloud computing is an extension of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). For cloud elastic nature, it will often need to dynamically reconfiguring and reorganising the services interaction as some unpredictable events, such as crashes or network problems, will typically cause service unavailability. The complexity and dynamism of current global network system require an architecture that is capable of autonomously changing its structure and functionality to meet the changes with little human intervention. In this paper, an autonomic SOA framework is proposed to extend the intelligence and capability in the cloud. The use of case-based reasoning and the architectural consideration of autonomic computing paradigm are presented.


Hispanics have a lower burden of heart disease than would be predicted from their risk factors. Explanations for this phenomenon, the Hispanic paradox, focus on specific characteristics of the culture that affect stress appraisal and accumulation, including social connections. Features of culture evolve in the context of language, which influences the way emotions are appraised and expressed. The Spanish language, a unifying component defining Hispanic cultures, has unique features that may promote emotional expression, expand the emotional concepts implicated in the construction of emotion, and influence the appraisal of stress. Under chronic stress conditions, sustained responses can become maladaptive, leading to disease. Features of the Spanish language allow its speakers a wide range of emotion schemas by virtue of its emotion lexicon, the ability to easily minimize or exaggerate expressions, and ease in considering hypothetical situations with the use of the subjunctive. The hypothesis here proposes that the Spanish language is directly and indirectly (via culture) responsible for mitigating some of the effects of acute stress responses in Hispanics and, therefore, limits stress accumulation and is partly responsible for the Hispanic paradox.


ABSTRACT Individuals with bulimia nervosa report elevated rates of childhood maltreatment, which appears to increase risk for co-occurring substance use problems and negatively impact clinical course. The current study sought to examine the mechanistic pathways by which specific forms of childhood maltreatment may give rise to substance use problems among individuals with bulimic-spectrum pathology. Women with bulimic-spectrum disorders (N = 204) completed measures of childhood trauma, emotion dysregulation, impulsivity, and substance use. Path analysis was used to examine emotion dysregulation and impulsivity as mediators of the relationship between distinct forms of childhood trauma (physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, and sexual abuse) and the presence of problematic alcohol/drug use. In the full path model, significant pathways from childhood emotional abuse to emotion dysregulation, childhood emotional neglect to impulsivity, and emotion dysregulation to problematic substance use emerged. Further, emotion dysregulation significantly mediated the relationship between emotional abuse and substance use. Results indicate that emotion dysregulation may be an important mechanism linking a history of childhood emotional maltreatment to later eating and substance use problems, and therefore may be an important treatment target among individuals with co-occurring eating and substance use concerns. Childhood emotional abuse was related to greater emotion dysregulation. Childhood emotional neglect was related to greater impulsivity. Emotion dysregulation was related to greater problematic substance use. Emotional abuse may impact substance use through emotion dysregulation. Creating emotion dysregulation may improve substance and eating disorder symptoms.


I aim to explore the conditions that either facilitate or disable effective networking within the complex, transitory professional networks that support 'looked after' adolescents. Drawing on my experience of undertaking specialist mental health assessments, I identify dynamics within multiagency, inter-disciplinary systems that influence the extent to which these assessments contribute positively to the care planning process. I discuss how the intra-psychic and psychosocial difficulties of many 'looked after' adolescents are mirrored in their professional support networks. I use a grounded theory approach, underpinned by psychoanalytic theory, to analyse two reflective case studies of 'looked after' adolescents and two focus group interviews with residential care workers and CAMHS clinicians. Through my analysis I identify six interlinked themes with associated sub-themes. Two relate to the challenging 'external worlds' of many children who enter care and also of those professionals who support them. Two relate to the intense emotional pain and turmoil of the 'internal worlds' of these young people and their workers. The final two relate to various ways in which adolescents who have been neglected and abused attempt to numb or distract themselves from their emotional pain; and to defensive barriers erected by professionals to ward off their young clients' unbearable projections. I argue that defences erected by individual workers against the significant emotional disturbance generated through close contact with these troubled and troubling young people may become rigidly entrenched at an organisational level. The intense anxiety generated by the work can trigger requests for specialist assessments in which the needs of adolescents take second place to those of workers. Conversely, when professionals are in less anxious states of mind they may, in order to enhance the quality of the care planning process, seek an expert opinion in recognition of the value of skills differentiation, alternative viewpoints and collaborative working practices.


Atrial fibrillation (AF), the most common atrial arrhythmia, has a complex aetiology and causes relevant morbidity and mortality due to different mechanisms, including but not limited to stroke, heart failure, and tachy- or bradyarrhythmia. Current therapeutic options (rate control, rhythm control, antithrombotic therapy, 'upstream therapy') only prevent a part of this burden of disease. New treatment modalities are therefore currently under evaluation in clinical trials. Given the multifold clinical consequences of AF, controlled trials in AF patients should assess the effect of therapy in each of the main outcome domains. This paper describes an expert consensus of required outcome parameters in seven relevant outcome domains, namely death, stroke, symptoms and quality of life, rhythm, left ventricular function, cost, and emerging outcome parameters. In addition to these 'requirements' for outcome assessment in AF trials, further outcome parameters are described in each outcome domain. In addition to a careful selection of a relevant primary outcome parameter, coverage of outcomes in all major domains of AF-related morbidity and mortality is desirable for any clinical trial in AF.


Abstract Background: The International Lymphedema Framework developed an international study, Lymphedema Impact and Prevalence International (LIMPRINT), to estimate the prevalence and impact of chronic edema (CO) in heterogeneous populations. Methods and Results: A validation study using the LIMPRINT methodology was undertaken in Denmark. Participants with CO were identified from inpatient services and compared with those identified within a specialist lymphedema service and three primary care settings. Of 452 inpatients available for screening, CO was present in 177 (39%) and absent in 275 (61%). In addition, 723 participants were found from specialist and primary care services (LPCSs). Inpatients were significantly older and more likely to be underweight or normal weight. They were more likely to suffer from heart failure/ischaemic heart disease (44.6% vs. 23.4%, p < 0.001) and have neurological problems (18.1% vs. 10.9% p = 0.009). Patients in the inpatient group were nearly all suffering from secondary lymphedema and were less likely to have a cancer or venous diagnosis, but more likely to have immobility as the cause of CO (44.0% vs. 17.7%, p < 0.001). No inpatients had midline CO compared with 30 within LPCSs. Fewer in the inpatient group had standard CO treatment (17.1% vs. 73.5%, p < 0.001) and subjective control of swelling was worse (19.9% vs. 66.7%, p < 0.001). While the inpatient group experienced fewer acute infections, when they did so, they were more likely to be admitted to hospital for this (78.6% vs. 51.0%, p = 0.049). Conclusion: The prevalence of CO in inpatient facilities is high and those with CO have multiple comorbidities that vary according to setting. The feasibility study showed that the methodology could be adapted for use in different health systems.


In today's life, it has likewise turned out to be imperative to be upgraded constantly. It might be news, business, a way of life, and so forth. Extend update has turned into a cardinal issue in IT industry. Till now in the product organizations there was no office of giving current redesigns of the project to the customer along these lines, to take care of this issue we are making a web application named 'PROJECT ESTADO QUO'. 'ESTADO QUO' is a Spanish word utilized for alluding current status. This web application will be solely for project administration done in the organizations, which will be fit for demonstrating the advance of the project of various modules(through UI). This app will provide a client retention, save the time of a client as well as developers, also client will be relaxed of checking e-mails, calls, and meetings.


A high-parallel VLSI core architecture for MPEG-4 motion estimation is proposed in this paper. It possesses the characteristics of low memory bandwidth and low clock rate requirements, thus primarily aiming at 3G mobile applications. Based on a one-dimensional tree architecture, the architecture employs the dual-register/buffer technique to reduce the preload and alignment cycles. As an example, full-search block matching algorithm has been mapped onto this architecture using a 16-PE array that has the ability to calculate the motion vectors of QCIF video sequences in real time at 1 MHz clock rate and using 15.5 Mbytes/s memory bandwidth.


Programmed ribosomal frameshifting is the controlled slippage of the translating ribosome to an alternative frame. This tightly regulated process is widely employed by human viruses such as HIV and SARS-CoV and is critical for their life cycle and virulence. It is also utilized throughout the tree of life to implement a feedback control mechanism to regulate polyamine levels. However, despite its universality and clinical relevance, a limited number of studies investigated this process on only a few selected examples, largely due to a lack of experimental means. Here, we developed a high-throughput, fluorescence-based approach to assay the frameshifting potential of a sequence. We designed and tested >12.000 sequences based on 15 viral and human frameshifting events, allowing us to elucidate the rules governing ribosomal frameshifting in a systematic way and to discover novel regulatory features. We also utilized our approach to search for novel frameshifting events and identified dozens of previously unknown frameshifting sites in human, showing that programmed ribosomal frameshifting is more common than previously anticipated. We assessed the natural variation in HIV gag-pol frameshifting rates by testing >500 clinical isolates and identified subtype-specific differences as well as associations between viral load in patients and the optimality of gagpol frameshifting rates. We further devised a machine learning algorithm that accurately predicts frameshifting rates of novel variants (up to r=0.70), including subtle differences between HIV isolates (r=0.44), providing a basis for the development of antiviral agents acting on programmed ribosomal frameshifting.


AbstractProbabilistic forecasts provided by numerical ensemble prediction systems have systematic errors and are typically underdispersive. This is especially true over complex topography with extensive terrain induced small-scale effects which cannot be resolved by the ensemble system. To alleviate these errors statistical post-processing methods are often applied to calibrate the forecasts. This article presents a new full-distributional spatial post-processing method for daily precipitation sums based on the Standardized Anomaly Model Output Statistics (SAMOS) approach. Observations and forecasts are transformed into standardized anomalies by subtracting the long-term climatological mean and dividing by the climatological standard deviation. This removes all site-specific characteristics from the data and permits to fit one single regression model for all stations at once. As the model does not depend on the station locations, it directly allows to create probabilistic forecasts for any arbitrary location. SAMOS uses a left-censored power-transformed logistic response distribution to account for the large fraction of zero observations (dry days), the limitation to non-negative values, and the positive skewness of the data. ECMWF reforecasts are used for model training and to correct the ECMWF ensemble forecasts with the big advantage that SAMOS does not require an extensive archive of past ensemble forecasts as only the most recent four reforecasts are needed and it automatically adapts to changes in the ECMWF ensemble model. The application of the new method to the central Alps shows that the new method is able to depict the small-scale properties and returns accurate fully probabilistic spatial forecasts.


Multi-paragraph reasoning is indispensable for open-domain question answering (OpenQA), which receives less attention in the current OpenQA systems. In this work, we propose a knowledge-enhanced graph neural network (KGNN), which performs reasoning over multiple paragraphs with entities. To explicitly capture the entities' relatedness, KGNN utilizes relational facts in knowledge graph to build the entity graph. The experimental results show that KGNN outperforms in both distractor and full wiki settings than baselines methods on HotpotQA dataset. And our further analysis illustrates KGNN is effective and robust with more retrieved paragraphs.


Population subdivision or recent admixture of populations can lead to spurious associations between the certain phenotypes and unlinked candidate loci in case-control and cohort studies of association. False positive associations due to population stratification can be controlled by genotyping a few dozen unlinked genetic markers. Lots of researches have reported SNP markers with high ethnic differentiation among African and European populations, but very few SNP panels can test stratification among Asians, especially in eastern Asians. Therefore, we developed the first SNP assay to test stratification between Chinese and Japanese populations living in East Asia. The ancestry informative SNP markers (AIMs) were selected from HapMap Affymetrix 500K data and evaluated on 113 unrelated subjects recruited from Xi'an City, located Northwest of China. This SNP based assay has proven very reliable, and made it possible to perform population stratification analyses with Sequenom MassARRAY SNP genotyping technology. The SNP assay showed excellent promise as a highly potential application to test population stratification in case-control studies of association in Eastern Asians. Key words: Chinese, Japanese, population stratification, ancestry informative markers (AIMs).


3D reconstruction is a challenging work for the autonomous navigation of robots. This paper proposes a novel 3D reconstruction method based on projection of virtual height line (PVHL). At first partition the scene scope uniformly into grids with a certain size. Then introduce virtual height lines (VHLs) which do not exist in the scene. Each VHL is projected on left image and right image, and two projection lines are generated. Each projection line has a point of intersection with the scene, which is the only existent and visible point on the projection line. So this point has the maximum similarity metric, and the height of the point is that of the corresponding scene. Finding the height of the scene is converted to prove whether the point of intersection has the maximum similarity metric or not. The experiments to reconstruct 3D scene are performed and the results show the proposed method is feasible and effective.


Abstract Context: Ketamine is an emerging drug for the treatment of acute undifferentiated agitation in the prehospital environment, however no prospective comparative studies have evaluated its effectiveness or safety in this clinical setting. Objective: We hypothesized 5 mg/kg of intramuscular ketamine would be superior to 10 mg of intramuscular haloperidol for severe prehospital agitation, with time to adequate sedation as the primary outcome measure. Methods: This was a prospective open label study of all patients in an urban EMS system requiring chemical sedation for severe acute undifferentiated agitation that were subsequently transported to the EMS system's primary Emergency Department. All paramedics were trained in the Altered Mental Status Scale and prospectively recorded agitation scores on all patients. Two 6-month periods where either ketamine or haloperidol was the first-line therapy for severe agitation were prospectively compared primarily for time to adequate sedation. Secondary outcomes included laboratory data and adverse medication events. Results: 146 subjects were enrolled; 64 received ketamine, 82 received haloperidol. Median time to adequate sedation for the ketamine group was 5 minutes (range 0.4–23) vs. 17 minutes (range 2–84) in the haloperidol group (difference 12 minutes, 95% CI 9–15). Complications occurred in 49% (27/55) of patients receiving ketamine vs. 5% (4/82) in the haloperidol group. Complications specific to the ketamine group included hypersalivation (21/56, 38%), emergence reaction (5/52, 10%), vomiting (5/57, 9%), and laryngospasm (3/55, 5%). Intubation was also significantly higher in the ketamine group; 39% of patients receiving ketamine were intubated vs. 4% of patients receiving haloperidol. Conclusions: Ketamine is superior to haloperidol in terms of time to adequate sedation for severe prehospital acute undifferentiated agitation, but is associated with more complications and a higher intubation rate.


There are few epidemiologic studies on the shedding of Campylobacter among dogs in the United States, despite the potential public health implications. Our objectives were to estimate the prevalence of faecal Campylobacter shedding among Texas shelter dogs as detected by culture methods and to characterize the isolates by species and antimicrobial susceptibility. Using a cross‐sectional study design, faecal samples were collected from 185 dogs in six animal shelters throughout Texas between May and December 2014. Four culture methods were used to isolate Campylobacter from samples, and isolates were characterized. The prevalence of Campylobacter shedding was 45.4% (84/185; 95% CI, 38.1%–52.9%). Of 294 isolates from the 84 positive dogs, 26 (8.8%) isolates from seven dogs were identified as Campylobacter jejuni. Two of the isolates from one dog demonstrated resistance to ciprofloxacin and nalidixic acid. Direct plating on mCCDA‐CAT agar without enrichment identified the highest number of positive dogs (62%; 52/84). Incidence of ciprofloxacin‐resistant Campylobacter infections among humans has increased over the last several years. Canine shedding of Campylobacter is a potential source of zoonotic transmission.


The research focuses on the emerging domain of Big Data and the Internet of Things in the context of architectural design and operation. The profession of architecture relies on the use of data in almost all stages of the building cycle. However, this data is often utilised in a trivial manner, without clearly addressing how the data is utilised, when it is utilised, the value of such utilisation and the impact the data has on the design operations and the overall building. Data in architecture mainly serves as a medium of communication to generate a design. Data can only be as good as the technology available at the time it is gathered. Nevertheless, the role of data has changed with the advancement of digital data technologies such as Big Data and the Internet of Things. Digital data is now a driver for businesses and operations in other industries. The investigation of contemporary data utilisation in architecture design reveals that data is not utilised as a driver for the design in most cases and, when it is utilised as a driver, it is not exploited and is not explicitly addressed as part of the business. A knowledge gap in architecture in addressing the utilisation of data and addressing digital data as a driver in design operations is identified. This identification is supplemented by observing that data-driven operations provide the potential for better and more efficient design and business. To fill this knowledge gap and to build a foundation for data utilisation in architecture, this thesis proposes a Data-Driven Operational Framework for architecture, which is the main output of this research and its main contribution to knowledge. The Data-Driven Operational Framework reveals and explains the required components and operations for employing a data-driven design approach in architectural processes and business. In order to develop such a framework, an investigation of current architectural cases that utilise digital data was completed, which is a crucial part of the research. However, it was not possible to investigate these cases without having a thorough understanding of the state-of-the-art data technologies and an understanding of the existing taxonomy of data and the existing taxonomy of value in architectural operations. To build this taxonomy of data, a literature review investigating the terms data, digital data operations, Big Data and the Internet of Things was conducted. To build the taxonomy of value, a literature review of values, value creation and valuation methods in architecture was performed. Also, this value investigation led to the development of a Digital Value Equaliser, which is a conceptual representation that supports the analysis of values in architectural design cases. The case studies were analysed following the coding techniques of Grounded Theory Methodology. The coding procedures were followed systematically and continuously until data saturation was reached. Reaching data saturation led to the development of the Data-Driven Operational Framework for architecture. The Data-Driven Operational Framework has two theoretical applications, the Data-Driven Levels in architectural operations framework and the Data-Driven Impact on the AEC framework. These two theoretical frameworks are the findings of the second part of the research and add to the research contribution. The Data-Driven Levels framework reveals the different automation levels in utilising data in architectural operations. This framework classifies data operations in architecture into six levels according to how automated they are and the degree of human involvement in each operation. The Data-Driven Impact framework shows the anticipated impact of employing data-driven operations on the existing business and cultural models in architecture, engineering and construction (AEC). This shows the required business and cultural changes in operating an architecture business. The Impact framework supports architects to identify what measures and changes are needed to benefit from the use of data-driven operations in their practices and business.


In this study, the fiber type specificity of dihydropyridine receptors (DHPRs) and ryanodine receptors (RyRs) in different rat limb muscles was investigated. Western blot and histochemical analyses provided for the first time evidence that the expression of both receptors correlates to a specific myosin heavy chain (MHC) composition. We observed a significant (p=0.01) correlation between DHP as well as Ry receptor density and the expression of MHC IIa (correlation factor r=0.674 and r=0.645, respectively) in one slow-twitch, postural muscle (m. soleus), one mixed, fast-twitch muscle (m. gastrocnemius) and two fast-twitch muscles (m. rectus femoris, m. extensor digitorum longus). The highest DHP and Ry receptor density was found in the white part of m. rectus femoris (0.058±0.0060 and 0.057±0.0158 ODu, respectively). As expected, the highest relative percentage of MHC IIa was also found in the white part of m. rectus femoris (70.0±7.77%). Furthermore, histochemical experiments revealed that the IIA fibers stained most strongly for the fluorophore-conjugated receptor blockers. Our data clearly suggest that the expression of DHPRs and RyRs follows a fiber type-specific pattern, indicating an important role for these proteins in the maintenance of an effective Ca2+ cycle in the fast contracting fiber type IIA.


BackgroundVasodilator perfusion imaging has not been extensively evaluated for predicting severe coronary artery disease (CAD) or long-term prognosis.Methods and ResultsThe goals of this study were to develop a model to predict left main/3-vessel CAD in patients undergoing vasodilator thallium 201 imaging and coronary angiography (angiographic population) and to test the long-term prognostic value of this model in a separate cohort of patients who were not referred for angiography (prognostic population). In the angiographic population (n = 653) the X2 value of the clinical model (containing the variables age, sex, and prior myocardial infarction) in the prediction of severe CAD was 32. The addition of 3 vasodilator Tl-201 variables (magnitude of ST-segment depression, summed reversibility score, and increased lung uptake) increased the model X2 value to 114 (P < .001). Only 9% of predicted low-risk patients versus 57% of predicted high-risk patients had severe CAD. In the prognostic population (n = 521) survival rates free of cardiac death or myocardial infarction at 7 years were 91%, 73%, and 51%, respectively, for patient groups predicted to be at low, intermediate, and high risk of severe CAD (P < .001).ConclusionsClinical and vasodilator Tl-201 variables can accurately predict the risk of severe CAD. Stress Tl-201 variables add incremental information to clinical variables. The same model also predicts patient outcome.


In the practice of sports that require impact and pivot movements such as football or skiing, knee injuries are common and among these is important to underline the rupture of the Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL). Noncontact movements cause a 70% of ACL injuries and there is a high incidence of ruptures in women. Therefore, the objective of this study is to analyse what are the causes for the difference in incidence between men and women in terms of ACL ruptures. Through the search in the previous literature it has been observed that the fact that female athletes suffer ACL injuries with a higher frequency than male athletes is mainly due to anatomical, hormonal, biomechanical and neuromuscular control factors. Due to this occurrence, it is important to promote mainly treatments and prevention plans in order to reduce neuromuscular imbalances, that is predominant in women, to decrease the risk of ACL injuries in female athletes.


With the growth of multimedia data generation and consumption, image-based data analytics plays an increasingly important role in big data analytics systems. For image analytics, feature detection algorithms provide a foundation for a variety of image-based applications. These algorithms are typically computationally intensive and thus are good candidates for acceleration with field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). In this paper, we investigate a Harris-Laplace variant of scale-invariant feature detection, a widely used image analytics algorithm, to demonstrate the capability of acceleration. Based on stream computing, we construct a fully pipelined implementation that can process one pixel per FPGA clock cycle. Our implementation significantly outperforms the existing published work. The proposed implementation adopts a single-precision floating-point representation and can detect the features of 640 $\times$ 480-pixel images at 540 frames per second. This throughput is sufficient for multistream real-time video interpretation.


Right ventricular (RV) afterload is commonly defined as pulmonary vascular resistance, but this does not reflect the afterload to pulsatile flow. The purpose of this study was to quantify RV afterload more completely in patients with and without pulmonary hypertension (PH) using a three-element windkessel model. The model consists of peripheral resistance (R), pulmonary arterial compliance (C), and characteristic impedance (Z). Using pulmonary artery pressure from right-heart catheterization and pulmonary artery flow from MRI velocity quantification, we estimated the windkessel parameters in patients with chronic thromboembolic PH (CTEPH; n = 10) and idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH; n = 9). Patients suspected of PH but in whom PH was not found served as controls (NONPH; n = 10). R and Z were significantly lower and C significantly higher in the NONPH group than in both the CTEPH and IPAH groups (P < 0.001). R and Z were significantly lower in the CTEPH group than in the IPAH group (P < 0.05). The parameters R and C of all patients obeyed the relationship C = 0.75/R (R(2) = 0.77), equivalent to a similar RC time in all patients. Mean pulmonary artery pressure P and C fitted well to C = 69.7/P (i.e., similar pressure dependence in all patients). Our results show that differences in RV afterload among groups with different forms of PH can be quantified with a windkessel model. Furthermore, the data suggest that the RC time and the elastic properties of the large pulmonary arteries remain unchanged in PH.


The trend in the social networks has been to have large networks where each user is connected to hundreds of other users. There is a need to provide better support for groups with below ten participants. In UbiCollab this is addressed by a collaboration instance (CI), where a closer type of collaboration is present. A service to manage these CIs, the CI Manager (CIM), is investigated in this thesis. This is done by using scenarios from the area of city-wide collaborative learning (developed in cooperation with the FABULA project, www.fabula.idi.ntnu.no). Based on an analysis of the scenarios, CIM is designed and deployed as an Android service as part of the UbiCollab platform. The service is distributed and is built on XMPP, an open generic protocol that allows for real-time communication. In addition to provide support for other applications, the thesis has resulted in a tool to make the service directly available for end users. Focus groups were arranged during the design and implementation and were used in the evaluation process. The CIM has been evaluated by a set of external applications which make use of the API provided to realise a scenario. It is found that XMPP works well for real-time collaboration, and it is suggested to use something else for the asynchronous collaboration.


Background Inflammation is one of the major hallmarks of cancer. This study was designed to profile a panel of inflammatory mediators in gastric adenocarcinoma (GA) and to identify their potential differences separately in metastatic and non-metastatic patient subgroups. Methods Serum samples from 216 GA patients and 333 healthy controls from China were analyzed for six proteins using the Luminex multiplex assay. Results The serum levels for all the six proteins were significantly elevated in metastatic GA compared to non-metastatic GA. Two acute phase proteins (SAA and CRP) and a CXC chemokine (GRO) were significantly elevated in metastatic GA (p <0.01) but smaller changes were observed in non-metastatic GA compared to healthy controls. OPN is moderately increased in non-metastatic GA (2.05-fold) and more severely elevated in metastatic GA (3.34-fold). Surprisingly, soluble VCAM1 and AGP were significantly lower in both non-metastatic and metastatic GA patients compared to controls. Several individual proteins were shown to possess moderate diagnostic value for non-metastatic GA (AUC = 0.786, 0.833, 0.823 for OPN, sVCAM1 and AGP, respectively) and metastatic GA (AUC = 0.931, 0.720, 0.834 and 0.737 for OPN, sVCAM1, SAA and CRP, respectively). However, protein combinations further improve the diagnostic potential for both non-metastatic GA (best AUC = 0.946) and metastatic GA (best AUC = 0.963). The protein combination with best AUC value for both comparisons is OPN+sVCAM1+AGP+SAA. Conclusions These results suggest that several serum proteins are directly related to the severity of gastric cancer. Overall, stronger associations are observed with metastatic than non-metastatic GA as the protein changes are greater with the metastatic status. A combination of these serum proteins may serve as non-invasive markers to assess the severity status and stage of gastric cancer.


4687 Anti-tumor T lymphocytes play a pivotal role in immune surveillance of cancer cells. The cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA-4) is a vital negative regulator of T lymphocyte activation and proliferation, which may influence immune surveillance of malignancies. We tested whether genetic variantsin the CTLA-4 gene are associated with cancer susceptibility. Using a haplotype-tagging SNP approach, we found that the 49G>A polymorphism in the CTLA-4leading sequence causing Ala17 to Thr17 amino acid substitution, is associated with increased risk of lung cancer. Biochemical analyses showed thatCTLA-4-Thr17 had higher affinity to bind B7.1 molecule and had stronger inhibitory effect on T lymphocyte activation compared with CTLA-4-Ala17. T lymphocytes carrying the 49AA genotype had significantly lower activation and proliferation rates compared with T lymphocytes carrying the 49GG genotype upon stimulated with PHA ex vivo. Case-control analyses of 4,446 individuals with cancer and 4,433 controls in a Chinese population showed that this genetic variant is associated with increased susceptibility to multiple types of cancer, including lung, esophageal, gastric cardia, pancreatic, breast, and cervical cancers, acting in an allele dose-dependent manner. The odds ratios of overall cancer were 1.92 (95% CI = 1.64-2.25) for the 49AA genotype and 1.26 (95% CI = 1.15-1.37) for the 49GA genotype. These results support the hypothesis that genetic variants influencing T lymphocyte activation and proliferation modify cancer susceptibility.


Since the introduction of social media into everyday communication, a series of claims and
counterclaims have been made about its potential to either rectify or exacerbate the so-called
crisis within representative democracy. Theoretical arguments suggest that social media may
increase the closeness between representatives and citizens through more direct and
communicative forms of representation. Based on these assumptions, this thesis seeks to assess
the ways social media has changed the conduct of political representation in the United Kingdom.
It does this through an original methodological approach to answer research questions from the
perspective of MPs (interviews), citizens (surveys), and social media data from three social
networks. This approach goes past previous literature on the use of social media that does not
provide either multi-platform analysis or encapsulate data from citizens to offer a bottom-up
approach.

The results show that in many ways, MPs do not fully utilise Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to
their expected potential. They seldom seek interpersonal dialogue with citizens, with only
marginal increases in two-way communication attributable to social media. Instead, MPs are
pursuing a strategy of broadcasting, limiting interactions to citizens who display positive
sentiment towards the MP or their party: rejecting the notion that social media might foster the
concept of direct representation. Concurrently, the evidence suggests citizens might not be
seeking to interact with MPs, as only a limited number of participants pursued communication
with them. Instead, citizens seem to follow representatives for information gathering, news, or
to show support. This implies that the crisis within representative democracy cannot be overcome
by interactive communication platforms alone.

However, findings indicate that social media increases feelings of representation by citizens when
they follow MPs. From this, social media is found not to provide representative benefits in
expected ways, but as a communication platform for a process of informational convergence
which shapes the way citizens interpret the MPs they follow. This highlights a new way of
approaching the benefits of representative communication towards a model in which what MPs
post is of greater importance than levels of interactivity.

Keywords: Political Communication; Political Representation; Social Media; Deliberative Representation


OBJECTIVES
Apoptosis is believed to be a major mechanism of cisplatin-induced cell death. We investigated the kinetics of apoptosis in four human ovarian cancer cell lines treated with cisplatin to obtain insight into the role and the behavior of a variety of factors involved in this process.

METHODS
The cell lines A2780, H134, and IGROV-1 (all wild-type p53) and OVCAR-3 (mutant p53) were exposed to cisplatin for 1 h and the antiproliferative effects were measured after 96 h. At various time points up to 96 h after the 1-h exposure to the individual 90% growth-inhibiting cisplatin concentrations, FACS analysis and May-Grünwald Giemsa staining were carried out to determine the extent of apoptosis. At the same time points protein expression levels of p53, p21/WAF1, Bax, and Bcl-2 and the activity of caspase-3 were measured. FACS analysis was also carried out to determine changes in cell cycle distribution as a response to cisplatin.

RESULTS
The four cell lines differed in sensitivity to cisplatin. A2780 was the most sensitive and IGROV-1 was the least sensitive. In contrast, IGROV-1 cells showed the highest percentage of apoptosis (30-40%), while A2780 had the lowest percentage (6-14%) (r = 0.99). The occurrence of apoptosis was not dependent on functional p53. Of interest, caspase-3 activity was in line with the percentage of apoptosis and preceded DNA fragmentation and the visualization of condensed nuclei. Wild-type p53 cells accumulated in the S phase, while OVCAR-3 arrested in the G2/M phase. The protein expression levels of p53, p21/WAF1, Bax, and Bcl-2 varied in time, but were not related to the apoptotic behavior of the cells. Upregulation of p53 was already evident before activation of caspase-3.

CONCLUSIONS
Time-dependent changes in the various factors involved in the apoptotic process induced by equitoxic doses of cisplatin vary strongly among the cell lines. Caspase-3 activation plays an important role in cisplatin-induced apoptosis and this precedes morphological changes. The ability of cells to enter apoptosis, however, does not seem to predict sensitivity to cisplatin.


Infiltration capacity reduction due to the progressive clogging of land surfaces is the most important feature controlling pervious pavement life use. It is influenced by material and local characteristics. The rainfall regime can be influenced by water volume and rainfall intensity. A laboratory study was conducted to analyze the influence of the rainfall intensity on the sediments dynamics on pervious pavements. Three different rainfall intensities were settled using a rainfall simulator: 50 mm/h, 100 mm/h and 150 mm/h. Pervious concrete (PC) and porous asphalt (PA) slabs of 50 × 26 × 5 cm, with void contents of 15%, 20% and 25% were tested. They were clogged using sediments containing mostly sand and an assembled PSD (particle size distribution) that fall within the range of real case scenarios. The sediments were applied over the slabs on aerial loadings of 0.5 kg/m2, 1.0 kg/m2 and 2.0 kg/m2. Using a falling head permeameter discharge measurements were made over the samples in newly built conditions, after clogging and after rainfall simulation. The obtained results showed that in most cases the rainfall intensity does not produce significant differences in discharge time. The information obtained through this study provides better understanding of sediments transport mechanisms on pervious pavements and could lead to customized maintenance routines.


Population and urban growth is one of the major challenges facing Africa. Rapid urbanization poses major infrastructure, economic, environmental and social problems. Total water supply and sanitation coverage is extremely low particularly in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and cities are becoming to a large extent informal. Untreated urban wastewater is polluting water sources throughout SSA changing freshwater irrigation into wastewater irrigation in and around most cities. Because of its contribution to urban food supply and poverty alleviation, this informal irrigation sector has positive effects but constitutes at the same time a public health and environmental threat. Different population groups are exposed to serious health risks such as diarrheal diseases. These can be significantly decreased through water and sanitation investments adequately targeted to achieve impact. Traditionally designed sanitation systems have failed because they were inappropriate, ill-planned, - implemented or -managed and did not take into account the whole urban water system including options for reuse and impacts on the receiving environment. The way forward requires a paradigm shift in a) national curricula and the donor community towards appropriate African solutions for wastewater collection, treatment and reuse, b) the decentralization and potential transfer of at least some "treatment" functions to the places of reuse where health risk reduction can be more easily realized according to the particular reuse, and c) the adoption of an approach combining different health protection measures. Designing a range of cost-effective solutions that addresses the technical, institutional, social, behavioural and cultural obstacles for the adoption of such an approach has to be supported. This requires a long-term strategy taking action step-by-step and the creation of new local values and business models. The involvement of practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and local communities in multi-stakeholder platforms may facilitate dialogue, participatory technology development, innovation uptake and social learning and create the effective mechanisms for an integrated urban-rural water management strategy.


This study developed and tested the efficacy of a real-time thermography technique to improve survey methods for Australian arboreal mammal species, with a focus on the greater glider. Development involved the use of thermal imaging cameras combined with spotlight transect surveys of an endangered greater glider population at Seven Mile Beach National Park. Over 30 h of nocturnal spotlight transect surveys were undertaken over 14 (1 km) transects within 70 ha of dry sclerophyll forest. A protocol for the use of thermography to survey greater gliders was developed. The efficacy of the thermography protocol was then experimentally tested in comparison to traditional spotlighting. Overall, thermography was better at detecting arboreal mammals than spotlighting (P < 0.05). However, the effect was not significant for greater gliders (P = 0.79), even though there was a trend towards improved detection of the species using thermal cameras. Thermography is a novel approach to undertaking arboreal mammal surveys and future studies should consider its relevance, effectiveness and associated costs to improve survey designs, especially for threatened species.


The interplay between analysis on Lie groups and the theory of special functions is well known. This monograph deals with the case of the Heisenberg group and the related expansions in terms of Hermite, special Hermite, and Laguerre functions. The main thrust of the book is to develop a concrete Littlewood-Paley-Stein theory for these expansions and use the theory to prove multiplier theorems. The questions of almost-everywhere and mean convergence of Bochner-Riesz means are also treated. Most of the results in this monograph appear for the first time in book form.


: With the continuing increase in the number of severely immunocompromised patients, hospitals are faced with the growing problem of invasive aspergillosis and other opportunistic fungal infections. Since treatment of these infections are difficult and outcome is often fatal, preventive measures are of major importance in the control of invasive filamentous fungal infections. Until recently, inhalation of airborne conidia was believed to be the primary route of acquiring Aspergillus infection. Despite the fact, that efforts to filter the hospital air has led to a reduction of airborne conidia paralleled by a decrease in the frequency of invasive infections, the correlation between the concentration of Aspergillus conidia in hospital air and the risk of invasive infections remains unclear. Furthermore, alternative modes of transmission may exist and should be recognized and investigated. The discovery of hospital water as a potential source of Aspergillus fumigatus and other filamentous fungi may suggest a new route for the transmission of invasive filamentous fungal infections. Epidemiological studies, based on molecular characterization and comparisons of fungal isolates recovered from patients and environment, are needed to expand our understanding of these alternative routes of transmission.


As we move further into the twenty-first century, it is becoming absolutely clear that the effective management of an organization's human resources is a major source of competitive advantage and may even be the single most important determinant of an organization's performance over the long term. Organizations have started to realize that their success is dependent on their ability to attract, develop, and retain talented employees and build long term employee relationships. The long-term, sustained success of an organization in today's changing and challenging business environment involves top management's commitment to designing and implementing Human Resource Management (HRM) programs geared to developing both high-performing employees and organizations. Human resources management is the term increasingly used to refer to the philosophy, policies, procedures, and practices related to the management of an organization's employees. HRM is particularly concerned with all the activities that contribute to successfully.


A trade gravity model is used to calculate the bilateral export potential of Southern Cone countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay) and identify patterns of weak performance across destinations and productive sectors. After controlling for key trade fundamentals and country and time effects, we find that exports to large advanced economies like the United States and the European Union fall short of expected levels. Potential trade with the rest of Latin America shows a high degree of heterogeneity across sectors and countries. Exports within the Southern Cone are generally above the predicted value, but there is still space for higher flows, particularly regarding Chile-MERCOSUR relations.


A procedure to characterize municipal solid waste (MSW) for geotechnical engineering purposes is developed based on experience with waste characterization and testing. Existing MSW classification systems are reviewed briefly, and the field and laboratory waste characterization programs of two important projects are presented. Findings on the influence of the waste's physical composition on its mechanical response from these projects and recent studies of MSW are integrated to develop a waste characterization procedure for efficient collection of the relevant information on landfill operation and waste physical characteristics that are most likely to affect the geotechnical properties of MSW. A phased approach to implementation of this procedure is proposed as a best practice for the physical characterization of MSW for geotechnical purposes. The scope of the phased procedure can be adjusted to optimize the effort required to collect relevant information on a project-specific basis. The procedure includes a systematic evaluation of the moisture and organic content of MSW, because they are important factors in the geotechnical characterization of MSW.


Objectives: Non-surgical contraceptives are under development to provide accessible, affordable and humane alternatives for the management of free-roaming cat populations. The objective of this project was to develop a research approach for promising non-surgical contraceptives using outbred cats in a simulated free-roaming setting, meeting high standards for both animal welfare and scientific rigor. Methods: A facility, specially constructed with indoor and outdoor living areas, was approved and regulated as both an animal shelter and a United States Department of Agriculture research facility. Thirty female and five male cats, healthy but at high risk of euthanasia, were recruited from animal shelters and private homes. Guided by a detailed protocol, cats were housed in this facility for up to 18 months after acclimatization. Cats were administered the study product or a placebo, and then entered into a breeding trial. Cats were adopted at the end of the study. A range of methods was used to provide enrichment and balance a natural environment with the need for detailed daily monitoring. Results: Primary study results related to contraceptive safety and efficacy are published separately. Achieving a research model that is an intermediate step between a laboratory and an uncontained free-roaming cat colony was complex. Significant learnings shared in this current publication span: the selection of cats; acclimatization to a simulated colony environment; cat behavioral training during the study and in preparation for adoption; disease management; contract staff and volunteer support; and cat behavior throughout a breeding study. Conclusions and relevance: This model inspires continued movement away from the paradigm of breeding cats for research and instead sources existing cats at risk for euthanasia. The housing and management of the cats elevates research animals' quality of life and provides positive post-study outcomes. While not appropriate for every feline research scenario, this hybrid model (between a laboratory and field study) proved to be a practical, humane and reliable scenario for research requiring a simulated real-world environment.


Payne, M. R. 2010. Mind the gaps: a state-space model for analysing the dynamics of North Sea herring spawning components. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 67: 000– 000. The North Sea autumn-spawning herring (Clupea harengus) stock consists of a set of different spawning components. The dynamics of the entire stock have been well characterized, but although time-series of larval abundance indices are available for the individual components, study of the dynamics at the component level has historically been hampered by missing observations and high sampling noise. A simple state-space statistical model is developed that is robust to these problems, gives a good fit to the data, and proves capable of both handling and predicting missing observations well. Furthermore, the sum of the fitted abundance indices across all components proves an excellent proxy for the biomass of the total stock, even though the model utilizes information at the individual-component level. The Orkney–Shetland component appears to have recovered faster from historic depletion events than the other components, whereas the Downs component has been the slowest. These differences give rise to changes in stock composition, which are shown to vary widely within a relatively short time. The modelling framework provides a valuable tool for studying and monitoring the dynamics of the individual components of the North Sea herring stock.


Existing researches on location tracking focus either entirely on indoor or entirely on outdoor by using different devices and techniques. Several solutions have been proposed to adopt a single location sensing technology that fits in both situations. This paper aims to track a user position in both indoor and outdoor environments by using a single wireless device with minimal tracking error. RSSI (received signal strength indication) technique together with enhancement algorithms is proposed to cater this solution. The proposed RSSI-based tracking technique is divided into two main phases, namely the calibration of RSSI coefficients (deterministic phase) and the distance along with position estimation of user location by iterative trilateration (probabilistic phase). A low complexity RSSI smoothing algorithm is implemented to minimize the dynamic fluctuation of radio signal received from each reference node when the target node is moving. Experiment measurements are carried out to analyze the sensitivity of RSSI. The results reveal the feasibility of these algorithms in designing a more accurate real-time position monitoring system.


In this paper, the Raman gain coefficients of ammonium dihydrogen phosphate(ADP) and potassium dihydrogen phosphate(KDP) crystals are measured. By using a pump source of a 30-ps, 532-nm laser, the gain coefficients of ADP and KDP are 1.22 cm/GW, and 0.91 cm/GW, respectively. While for a 20-ps, 355-nm pump laser, the gain coefficients of these two crystals are similar, which are 1.95 cm/GW for ADP and 1.86 for KDP. The present results indicate that for ultra-violet frequency conversion, the problem of stimulated Raman scattering for ADP crystal will not be more serious than that for KDP crystal. Considering other advantages such the larger nonlinear optical coefficient, higher laser damage threshold,and lower noncritical phase-matching temperature, it can be anticipated that ADP will be a powerful competitor to KDP in large aperture, high energy third-harmonic generation or fourth-harmonic generation applications.


The effect of Al contents on the magnetic properties of Ba hexaferrite powders has been investigated in order to increase the coercivity. In this study, a self-propagating combustion method has been developed to form Ba hexaferrite nanopowders. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis showed that nanopowders with a size of 40-60 nm were successfully produced. With increasing Al contents, the coercivity of the nanopowders increased until the powders had a magnetoplumbite structure. We obtained a coercivity of 7559 Oe in BaFe10Al2O19 powders calcined at 850deg for 1 h.


With the increasing incidence and diverse etiologies of fungal infections, chromogenic yeast culture media are increasingly used for routine diagnosis. Rhodotorula species, which are characterized by the production of carotenoid pigments, are considered as emerging opportunistic pathogens. We recently diagnosed two fungemia due to Rhodotorula spp. and noticed that in both cases, the yeast failed to grow in subculture on the chromogenic yeast culture medium. This study was thus undertaken to investigate more thoroughly the ability (or inability) of Rhodotorula species to grow on different commercially available chromogenic media for yeast. Eighteen Rhodotorula spp. were checked for their ability to grow on four chromogenic yeast culture media: CHROMagar Candida (BD), Candi 4 Select (Biorad), Brilliance Candida (Oxoid), and Candida ID 2 (BioMerieux). All the Rhodotorula spp. strains grew on Brilliance and Candida ID 2, while only six isolates grew on Candi 4, and seven on CHROMagar. Two chromogenic yeast culture media showed a significant inhibitory effect on the growth of Rhodotorula species. As all Rhodotorula species are resistant to echinocandins and fluconazole, it is essential to isolate and identify these yeast quickly to initiate appropriate amphotericin B antifungal treatment as early as possible. The choice of media for routine use should take into account the ability of different media to allow all emerging fungal pathogens to grow.