ABSTRACT . This study aims to analyze the influence of the performance of distillation equipment and suitability of land stills to patchouli oil in Aceh Jaya. The method used is a Latin square design on the basis of the type of production areas, varieties of patchouli and tools of  refiners. Performance refinery observed that vary according to the area of production, varieties of patchouli and specification tools refiners. The results showed that the performance optimization of different distillation apparatus according to the specifications of agro-climatic regions of production, varieties and types of equipment refiners. This also causes the variation of performance and patchouli oil refining business profits. Futhermore, appropriate agro-climatic regions and agro-ecological production, the smaller the value of the investment required to achieve optimal distillation process. For areas that are less appropriate in each agro-climate varieties of investment required with a larger value. To obtain better distillation process performance when cultivated varieties according to agro-climatic and agroecology.


SUMMARY A well-preserved calyx of the monobathrid camerate crinoid Amphoracrinus gilbertsoni (Phillips) from the Lower Carboniferous (Chadian, Visean) of Salthill Quarry, Clitheroe, Lancashire, is preserved in close association with a solitary rugose coral. Evidence for the coral being an epizoozoan on the crinoid includes its perpendicular orientation to the calyx, its position at the base of a free arm (B ray) in the AB interray, breakage of the crinoid plates around the coral (calyx ligamentation had not rotted post-mortem), and a growth deformity in the AB interray. The position of the coral indicates that, in life, it was elevated above the sea floor and directed into the prevalent water current by the crinoid. Its position, adjacent to a free arm and growth deformity of the AB interray suggest it was also a parasite on the adoral groove of the crinoid arm.


Bone-like hydroxyapatite (HA) coatings were fabricated on titanium implants by a self-assembled technique and biomimetic method. After titanium plates were oxidized in a mixture of H2SO4/H2O2, a hexadecanoic acid self-assembled onto titanium surfaces. Contact angles of water and tricresyl phosphate on the surfaces were measured to characterize the self-assembled monolayer (SAM) and confirm the presence of the functional group. The titanium plates with SAM were used to fabricate HA coatings. In the simulate body fluid (SBF) with and without bovine serum albumin (BSA), Ca2+ and PO4 3- ions could spontaneously deposit onto the titanium surfaces and form bone-like HA coatings. The morphology, component and structure of samples were examined by scanning electronic microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The results suggested that the SAM can induce the formation of the nano-HA coating with a network and microporous structure. For the biomimetical HA coating induced by HDA-SAM, BSA could modulate the growth of HA crystal and decreased the grain size.


Available information on the selenium (Se) status of grazing herbivores in South Africa is reviewed and collated in the form of a geographical distribution map. Marginal to acute Se deficiencies have been reported to occur in the Midlands region and in mountainous areas of the KwaZulu-Natal province and in the southern coastal region of the Western Cape province. These areas receive a high annual rainfall and the soils are predominantly acid. The Se status of livestock in the highland sourveld areas of the Gauteng, northern Free State and Mpumalanga provinces is varied. Selenium intake appears to be adequate in most areas although localised cases of deficiencies occur. Substantial air and water pollution occurs in some of these areas, and the presence of Se antagonists could increase the incidence of Se deficiency in future. Limited data indicates that vegetation in the arid regions of South Africa provides Se sufficient to meet the requirements of grazing herbivores. Subterranean water from a number of locations contains Se at concentrations higher than the norm for safe drinking water, the impact of which has not yet been established. There are large areas of South Africa for which little or no information on the Se status of grazing animals exist, and further investigations are required.


textabstractOn 10 June 2015, the Court of Justice of the European Union ('CJ') delivered its judgment in X AB v. Skatteverket (C-686/13). The CJ held the non-deductibility for Swedish corporate tax purposes of realised foreign exchange losses on shareholdings eligible for relief under the Swedish participation exemption regime compatible with the fundamental freedoms. The case concerned a Swedish company that held a 45% shareholding in a UK subsidiary company whose shares were issued in US dollars. Due to a devaluation of the US dollar relative to the Swedish krona, the Swedish shareholder company would be confronted with a foreign exchange loss upon a disposal of its UK shareholding. Such a loss, however, would not be tax-deductible under the applicable Swedish tax rules. The CJ held such a treatment not to infringe the freedom of establishment, amongst others, because the non-deductibility would have been in place irrespective of whether the shareholding investment involved had been made in a Swedish company or in a company in another EU Member State.


: The late results of 115 children with tetralogy of Fallot born and corrected between 1969 and 1988 are analyzed; the patients were distributed into 3 anatomical groups: normal pulmonary annulus (group A, 49 patients) annular stenosis (group B, 56 patients) and pulmonary atresia (group C, 10 patients). The probability of survival 15 years after correction is 97 p. 100 in cumulated groups A and B and 72 p. 100 in group C (p = 0.005). The probability of reoperation ten years after correction is 4 p. 100 in cumulated groups A and B without a previous shunt, 20 p. 100 in A and B with a previous shunt (p less than 0.05) and 55 p. 100 in group C (p = 0.0004). The proportion of serious cardiac sequellae amounts to 17 p. 100 in group A, 55 p. 100 in group B and 100 p. 100 in group C (p = 0.0005). As a whole, 55 p. 100 of the adolescents operated on for tetralogy of Fallot during infancy present a residual problem of some severity.


Endowing biotechnological platform organisms with new carbon assimilation pathways is a key challenge for industrial biotechnology. Here we report progress toward the construction of formatotrophic Escherichia coli strains. Glycine and serine, universal precursors of one-carbon compounds oxidized during heterotrophic growth, are produced from formate and CO2 through a reductive route. An adaptive evolution strategy was applied to optimize the enzymatic steps of this route in appropriate selection strains. Metabolic labeling experiments with 13C-formate confirm the redirected carbon-flow. These results demonstrate the high plasticity of the central carbon metabolism of E. coli and the applicative potential of directed evolution for implementing synthetic pathways in microorganisms.


End users obtain their desired results by combining elements of information and computation from different applications. Software engineering provides little support for identifying, selecting, or combining these elements – that is, for helping end users to design computational support for their own tasks. Software engineering provides even less support to help end users to decide whether the resulting system is sufficiently dependable –whether it will meet their expectations. Many users, especially end users, base judgments about software on informal and undependable information, and they draw conclusions with informal rather than rational decision methods. We have been developing support for everyday dependability, with an emphasis on expressing expectations in abstractions familiar to the user and on obtaining software behavior that reasonably satisfies those expectations. In this Dagstuhl I would like to explore the differences between everyday informal reasoning and the rational processes of computer science in order to develop means for establishing credible indications of confidence for end users.


Based on the construction of intelligent electrical pilot in the state grid corporation of China, fully grasp the requirements of intelligent power demand management, intelligent network based on the research of smart grid-oriented Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), we design and realize the family comprehensive energy management system for the power users. Based on the family network which is composed of smart meters, intelligent terminals, intelligent sockets and other smart devices, the system can access and measure distributed power sources and electric cars, monitor the comprehensive energy consumption and optimize the family energy management, realize intelligent control of household appliances and the two-way interaction with users. AMI system provides powerful technical support for the construction of new interactive relationship in which energy information and traffic flows real-timely between company and customers, and meet the demand of the advanced technology, economic efficiency, flexible and diverse services, the requirements of opening, friendly to actively development. Keywords-AMI; intelligent power; family energy management; two-way interaction


Future mobile communication networks will offer many ubiquitous services to its clients such as voice and video communication, access to data and files, use of virtual resources in cloud, etc. The provision of these services will have to face the different challenges posed by future wireless networks such as changing network topology, variable load conditions, clients' distribution, QoS requirements etc. is a very difficult task and requires a high degree of self-organization in network operations. One important problem in this context is the self-organized service placement which refers to the problem of finding optimal nodes in the network that are most suitable for hosting a particular service type. An optimal placement of a service and its instances (replicas) not only minimizes the service costs but also reduces the overall network traffic and improves connectivity between clients and servers. This paper proposes a novel network service called Self-Organized Disjoint Service Placement (SO-DSP) service which manages other network services and their instances in order to achieve overall network optimization while keeping the individual service's quality at the same level for its clients. The clients of SO-DSP are not the end-users of the network but the offered network services


Polycomb proteins are essential epigenetic regulators of gene transcription. KDM2B, the chromatin-binding moiety of non-canonical PRC1.1, is critically important for human leukemias. Here, we investigated the complete interactome of KDM2B in human leukemic cells and identified that the deubiquitinase USP7 is an essential component of PRC1.1 and required for its stability and function. USP7 inhibition results in disassembly of the PRC1.1 complex and consequently loss of binding to its target loci. PRC1.1 can be associated with active loci and loss of PRC1.1 binding coincided with loss of H2AK119ub, reduced H3K27ac levels and reduced gene transcription, whereas H3K4me3 levels remained unaffected. Survival was reduced in (primary) acute myeloid leukemia cells in both cycling as well as quiescent populations upon USP7 inhibition, also independent of the USP7-MDM2-p53 axis. Finally, we evaluated the efficacy of USP7 inhibition in vivo and find that progression of MLL-AF9-induced leukemia is delayed, although in a niche-dependent manner.


Abstract Glyphosate is widely used for weed control in the grape growing industry in southern Australia. The intensive use of glyphosate in this industry has resulted in the evolution of glyphosate resistance in rigid ryegrass. Two populations of rigid ryegrass from vineyards, SLR80 and SLR88, had 6- to 11-fold resistance to glyphosate in dose-response studies. These resistance levels were higher than two previously well-characterized glyphosate-resistant populations of rigid ryegrass (SLR77 and NLR70), containing a modified target site or reduced translocation, respectively. Populations SLR80 and SLR88 accumulated less glyphosate, 12 and 17% of absorbed glyphosate, in the shoot in the resistant populations compared with 26% in the susceptible population. In addition, a mutation within the target enzyme 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS) where Pro106 had been substituted by either serine or threonine was identified. These two populations are more highly resistant to glyphosate as a consequence of expressing two different resistance mechanisms concurrently. Nomenclature: Glyphosate; rigid ryegrass, Lolium rigidum Gaud. LOLRI.


Abstract The Emu Bay Shale Konservat-Lagerstätte (Cambrian Series 2, Stage 4) on Kangaroo Island, South Australia, is the source of two new non-biomineralized artiopodan arthropods. Squamacula buckorum n. sp. is the first record outside of China of a genus otherwise known only from its type species, S. clypeata, from the Chengjiang biota. The Australian species displays the long cephalic doublure and spiniform exopod setae that are apomorphic for this genus, provides new information on the alimentary tract and midgut glands (the latter preserved as three-dimensional, permineralized structures), and indicates interspecific variability in trunk segment numbers. The distribution of Squamacula strengthens the biogeographic connections between early Cambrian "Burgess Shale-type" biotas of Australia and South China. Australimicola spriggi n. gen. n. sp. represents a monotypic genus resolved in a cladistic analysis of Cambro-Ordovician artiopodans as most closely related to or within Conciliterga (a clade containing Helmetia, Kuamaia, Kwanyinaspis, Rhombicalvaria, Saperion, Skioldia, and Tegopelte). Compared with other members of this clade from Chengjiang and the Burgess Shale, the new genus is diagnosed by an elongate trunk with 23 thoracic tergites having spatulate pleural tips and a small pygidium possessing a single, elongate pair of pleural spines, with specimens also showing a hypostome attached to an anterior (or prehypostomal) sclerite, antennae, short endopods, an annulated alimentary tract, and a series of three-dimensional, permineralized midgut glands. An alternative relationship between Australimicola and the Early Ordovician–Early Devonian Cheloniellida explains the shared anterior flexure of trunk pleurae but forces dubious homologies in other characters, such as dorsally-articulated furcae versus spines.


HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) is becoming the de-facto video delivery technology over best- effort networks nowadays, thanks to the myriad advantages it brings. However, many studies have shown that HAS suffers from many Quality of Experience (QoE)-related issues in the presence of competing players. This is mainly caused by the selfishness of the players resulting from the decentralized intelligence given to the player. Another limitation is the bottleneck link that could happen at any time during the streaming session and anywhere in the network. These issues may result in wobbling bandwidth perception by the players and could lead to missing the deadline for chunk downloads, which result in the most annoying issue consisting of rebuffering events. In this paper, we leverage the Software-Defined Networking paradigm to take advantage of the global view of the network and its powerful intelligence that allows reacting to the network changing conditions. Ultimately, we aim at preventing the re-buffering events, resulting from deadline misses, and ensuring high QoE for the accepted clients in the system. To this end, we use Deterministic Network Calculus (DNC) to guarantee a maximum delay for the download of the video chunks while maximizing the perceived video quality. Simulation results show that the proposed solution ensures high efficiency for the accepted clients without any rebuffering events which result in high user QoE. Consequently, it might be highly useful for scenarios where video chunks should be strictly downloaded on- time or ensuring low delay with high user QoE such as serving video premium subscribers or remote control/driving of an autonomous vehicle in future 5G mobile networks.


The aim of this study is to identify the definition of terms (DT) used in fifty research articles (RA) by non-native English speakers (NNES) scholars.
The objectives of the study are:
(1) identify frequency of definition of terms in each
research articles
(2) identify the types of definition of terms
(3) identify the sections of research articles where the definition of terms appear
(4) determine whether the terms are defined by referring to authoritative source or not
(5) identify the linguistic features for defining terms. Selection criteria of the fifty RA is based on empirical study, English-language related studies, literature related studies or linguistic related studies and published in seven Malaysian journals written by non-
native English speaker scholars. The case study is employed in studying the particular section of definition of terms. The samples of fifty RAs were collected using corpus compilation. There are four types of definition of terms identified in the study: details to show what is a term or concept (n=133, 61.0%), operational definition (n=44, 20.2%), giving components to describe what
a term or concept is (n=23, 10.6%) and equivalent terms (n=21, 9.6%). Four sections in the RAs where definition of terms appeared are the Introduction section
(n=156, 71.6%), Methodology section (n=22, 10.1%), Results and Discussion section (n=34, 15.6%) and Conclusion section (n=6, 2.8%). The terms are used to define by referring to both authoritative source (n=102, 46.8%) and without referring to any source (n=116, 53.2%). Linguistic features use for defining terms are details to show what a
term or concept is (n=98, 58.3%), operational definition
(n=33, 19.6%), giving components to describe what a term or concept is (n=21, 12.5%), and equivalent term (n=16, 9.5%). The study is useful as a reference to
ESP teachers who are interested to carry out the ESP course for NNES researchers.


Fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome are clinical conditions different but they share common components, particularly multifactorial aetiology. High level of action proneness and "overactive" lifestyle can be considered as predisposing risk factors and perpetuating factors for these somatic functional syndromes. For the clinicians managing complex situations, only a holistic, circular and biopsychosocial approach could restore a new equilibrium (allostasis) with strategies of coping with chronic pain and planification of activities.


In experiments on rabbits, the action was studied of vasoactive peptides angiotensin-II, bradykinin and lysyl-vasopressin, injected into the brain ventricles, on a passive defensive reaction to electrical stimulation of the ventromedial hypothalamus. It was found that angiotensin-II and lysyl-vasopressin had a pronounced inhibitory influence, while bradykinin had a facilitatory effect on this reaction. Electrical stimulation of the ventromedial hypothalamus predominantly facilitated reactions of individual neurones of the sensorimotor cortex to angiotensin-II and bradykinin. Intraperitoneal injection of P-substance to rats in conditions of an acute conflict situation producing an emotional stress, brought about a significant diminution of sudden death incidence from cardiovascular insufficiency.


In this paper, a dynamic scheduling scheme is proposed for delivery of on-demand multimedia contents (e.g. movies) for internet service providers (ISP) that receive requests for different available contents from the customers for near future delivery. Each ISP is interested in assigning the available resources to the requests in such a way that the delivery time remains lower than a threshold, and also the profit is maximized. Regarding the diversity of customers in terms of their willingness to pay, there exists a group of budget-constrained receivers who are ready to wait longer. Therefore, since the ISP dynamically receives the requests for future delivery, postponing transmission of videos to some customers can provide the opportunity to increase the profit by reducing cost of distribution paths via multicast cost sharing. So, it can be profitable to postpone transmitting the content for some receivers (who cannot be clustered into cost saving multicast groups in the current transmission period) in hope for receiving more requests until the next transmission period, and consequently sharing the cost with a larger number of receivers. We propose a heuristic algorithm for topology-based multicast scheduling problem to find cost efficient multicast groups in each transmission period. Performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated and compared with a popularity-based scheduling algorithm for a wide range of parameters via extensive simulation experiments.


: The aim of the investigation was to study the significance of the functional condition of endothelium for the evaluation of ischemic episodes in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2). Ninety-three patients (52 men; 41 women; mean age 58.3+/-4.8 years) were examined. Group 1 consisted of 47 patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) and CD2; group 2 consisted of 46 CAD patients without carbohydrate exchange disorder. Both groups were comparable by gender, age, and the main risk factors. The patients were examined using Holter monitoring, physical load test, EchoCG, reactive hyperemia test (ultrasound evaluation of the endothelium-dependent brachial artery dilation). The number of painless ischemic episodes (PIE), the total duration of ischemia, the maximum degree of ST depression prevailed in group 1 patients. Correlation analysis demonstrated a significant negative correlation between endothelial dysfunction, one the one part, and the number and duration of PIE and the time between the ischemic ST depression and pain syndrome, on the other, in group 1 patients.


We report the case of a 33 year old Thai female, who was married in Germany for eight years and used to travel to Thailand every year for several weeks. She presented with abdominal and back pain, prolonged fever, generalized lymphadenopathy, and a recent history of oral thrush. She was diagnosed HIV positive with initial CD4 counts of 18/μl and an HI virus load of 59.000 copies/ml. Antiviral therapy was installed with zidovudin, lamivudin, and efavirenz. Abdominal CT scans revealed greatly enlarged abdominal lymphnodes. Fine needle aspirates of cervical and retroperitoneal lymphnodes, sputum samples, blood samples, and a bone marrow biopsy were microscopically positive for Penicillium marneffei and grew P. marneffei. The isolates were sensitive to amphotericin B, flucytosine, itraconazole, and fluconazole. Both universal and specific fungal polymerase chain reaction assays were positive in various samples. Serum Aspergillus galactomannan antigen, which is known to crossreact with P. marneffei, was elevated and subsequently used for monitoring of therapy. With antifungal treatment (intravenous amphotericin B 0.6 mg/kg/d for two weeks, oral itraconazole 400 mg/d for 10 weeks and 200 mg/d as maintenance therapy), the fever declined in 6 days, the size of the enlarged lymphnodes gradually decreased in the CT scans, and the initial abdominal and back pain vanished.


BACKGROUND
Elderly people are at great risk of poor nutritional status. Identifying those at nutritional risk is complex owing to its multifactorial nature and highlights the need for an easily administered nutritional screening tool.

AIM
To test the robustness of a tool used to identify those patients who require further dietetic assessment.

METHOD
The tool was tested on an 'acute elderly' ward to assess its statistical robustness, i.e. test-retest reliability, inter-rater reliability, internal consistency and factor structure, concurrent and construct validity. The research was carried out by a dietitian and two nurses on an overall sample of 185 consecutive admissions.

RESULTS
Test-retest results reflect that the tool is capable of yielding consistent assessments over time. Inter-rater reliability results revealed that when comparisons of agreement between nurses and dietitians were examined there was consistent disagreement. Internal consistency was found to be low but the rotated factor analysis suggested a relationship between the items in the tool. Concurrent validity was exhibited with body mass index, albumin and American Nutrition Risk Index only. Construct validity was not sufficiently exhibited with any of the measures used.

CONCLUSION
The tool has not demonstrated reliability as determined by the statistical measures and hence validity at this stage. Issues which need to be addressed to allow this tool to be used appropriately are discussed.


Objectives: Hypertension is a significant public health problem and one of the major noncommunicable diseases at the endemic level in Pakistan. This study was done to determine the efficacy of amlodipine/valsartan (Aml/Val) once-daily dose in reducing blood pressure (BP) after eight weeks of therapy. Methods: This study is an open-labeled observational study carried out for a period of 12 months. Some 769 participants of either gender between the ages of 18 and 70 years selected after taking written informed consent had a BP of >139/89 mmHg (not controlled) on monotherapy with a minimum 30 days of treatment. Therapy to control their high BP was initiated with Aml/Val (Avsar®, PharmEvo Pvt Ltd, Karachi, Pakistan) at the time of their enrolment in the study. Pregnant females and patients with secondary hypertension were excluded. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 20.0 and chi-square test was used for inferential analysis. p-values less than 0.05 were considered significant. Results: At the end of week one, less than half of the patients achieved the desired level of BP while the majority achieved this level by the end of the study. Some 75.6% patients achieved targeted BP with Aml/Val 80/5 mg tablet, 18.5% achieved targeted BP with Aml/Val 160/5 mg tablet, and 5.9% achieved the targeted BP with Aml/Val 160/10 mg tablet at the end of the eighth week. The compliance rate was 99.2% at the first week, 98.9% at the fourth week, and 99.9% at the eighth week of treatment. Conclusion: Our study concluded that Aml/Val (Avsar) combination therapy was very effective in controlling BP among patients who were uncontrolled with other monotherapies for at least one month.


The growth and survival rate of Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) in Kenya has been one of the major concerns of the policy makers, practitioners and scholars. Whereas entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has been identified to underpin MSME growth, several studies on entrepreneurial orientation-growth nexus have provided mixed results based on the aggregated one-dimensional measure of EO. While some report a significant association, some report no significance. The mixed findings imply that the relationship between EO and growth is not linear, pointing to other causal factors either internal or external to the enterprise. Against this backdrop, this study set out to assess the effect of entrepreneurial orientation on the growth of manufacturing sector MSMEs in Nairobi County, Kenya and the moderating role of environmental factors. Anchored on the contingency fit view, the economic theory of entrepreneurship and the life cycle theory the study adopted a positivist approach, employing the explanatory research design of a cross sectional nature. With a target population of 98,607 firms, a stratified sample of 384 MSMEs from the manufacturing sector in Nairobi County was drawn. Data was collected by use of structured questionnaires and analysed by both descriptive and inferential statistics including Pearson correlation and regression analyses. The study controlled for both age and sub-sector, as they have been previously found to affect firm growth. Results indicate that entrepreneurial orientation has a significant effect on MSME growth (β=.139, p=.012<.05). The study also found that environmental factors significantly moderate the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and MSME growth (β =.0092, p=.040<.05; LLCI=.0004; ULCI=.0180). The study concludes that environmental factors significantly influence the extent to which entrepreneurially oriented owners/managers in the manufacturing sector steer their enterprises towards growth. It is recommended that MSME owners/managers innovate, take risks and stay proactive in their businesses in order to grow. MSMEs are also advised to adopt competitive strategies to navigate the competitive business environment in the manufacturing sector. It is further recommended that the government provides an enabling policy environment and business support to foster growth among MSMEs.


Advancements in silicon technology, embedded systems, sensors, micro electro mechanical systems and wireless communications have led to the emergence of embedded wireless sensor networks (EWSNs). System explained here is an embedded system which uses ARM & a wireless sensor network. Typical widely available GPS receivers consume high energy, which limits its usefulness in any applications. In many sensing scenarios, preprocessing of location information is adequate at the time of data uploading to a server, Cloud-Offloaded GPS (COGPS) solution is designed that allows a sensing device to forces to manage duty-cycle its GPS receiver and log just raw data GPS signal for post processing. Cloud can compute good quality GPS location can be derived by using publicly available information such as GNSS satellite ephemeris and an Earth elevation database service, from a few milliseconds of raw data. GPS Module give us the output in terms of Latitude & Longitude of the location. Using GPRS module at we can collect all the information from the wireless sensor nodes & we can transmit it to the server. By using webpage, all the status of the system can be monitored.


This study aimed to evaluate whether resveratrol (RSV) and its microbial metabolites dihydro-resveratrol (DHR) and lunularin (LUN) affected fatty acid metabolism and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (n3-PUFA) synthesis in cultured hepatocytes. To this end, cultured human HepG2 hepatocytes were treated with non-toxic concentrations of these polyphenols (40 μM) and Δ5- and Δ6-desaturase (FADS1 and FADS2, respectively) expression was measured. Resveratrol induced both genes but DHR and LUN showed no effect. Co-incubation of RSV with α-linolenic acid (ALA) also induced FADS1 and FADS2 expression. Moreover, transcription of carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1A and fatty acid synthase expression was increased, indicating induction of β-oxidation and fatty acid synthesis, respectively. Using gas chromatography to measure fatty acid levels, we observed the impact of RSV with and without ALA treatment on fatty acid composition. However, RSV reduced unsaturated while increasing saturated fatty acid levels. We found lower amounts of monounsaturated fatty acids (16:1n-7c, 18:1n-9c, 18:1n7c, and 20:1n-9) and n3-PUFA docosahexaenoic acid whereas unsaturated fatty acid levels, especially of stearic acid, were elevated. Of interest, once we co-incubated the cells with RSV together with bovine serum albumin, we found no differences in gene expression compared to cells without RSV treatment. Although we found no positive effect of RSV on n3-PUFA synthesis, the stilbene could possibly prevent cellular stress by decreasing unsaturated fatty acid levels.


A novel strategy for modulating the photophysics of organic dyes in super-resolution fluorescence imaging using an external magnetic field was reported. The magnetic field induced increase in fluorescence intensity, localization number of probe molecules, and the number of photons emitted per molecule as compared to those acquired without a magnetic field were experimentally confirmed. Improved dSTORM localization precision and imaging resolution were consequently achieved.


Agriculture is the Indian economy's backbone. Big data analytics are becoming more precise and feasible in agricultural research. Current water scarcity, uncontrollable costs owing to demand-supply imbalances, and weather instability need farmers to be prepared with smart farming techniques. Crop yields must be addressed due to unknown climate changes, limited irrigation infrastructure, soil fertility decrease, and conventional agricultural approaches. In agriculture, machine learning (ML) is used to forecast crop output. Many ML approaches such as prediction, classification, regression, and clustering anticipate agricultural production. We presented the WCP approach for predicting agricultural yields based on climatic variables in Big data analytics. The proposed study proposes a crop recommendation system that employs MapReduce and improved K-means (IKM) clustering to get computationally efficient results. The MapReduce framework may be used to build MapReduce and crop prediction based on meteorological conditions by employing Categorization, Attribute Selection, C5.0, and association algorithms. Choosing the proper method from the pool of available algorithms, on the other hand, offers a problem to the researchers in terms of the crop. This work looks at how different machine learning techniques may help estimate agricultural production. A method for predicting agricultural production using ML algorithms in the big data computing paradigm has been suggested. This report also includes a study of ML algorithms for large data analytics.


Background DNA damage repair plays an important role in the onset and progression of cancers and its resistance to treatment therapy. This study aims to assess the prognostic potential of DNA damage repair markers in skin cutaneous melanoma (SKCM). Method In this study, we have analyzed the gene expression profiles being downloaded from TCGA, GTEx, and GEO databases. We sequentially used univariate and LASSO Cox regression analyses to screen DNA repair genes associated with prognosis. Then, we have conducted a multivariate regression analysis to construct the prognostic profile of DNA repair-related genes (DRRGs). The risk coefficient is used to calculate the risk scores and divide the patients into two cohorts. Additionally, we validated our prognosis model on an external cohort as well as evaluated the link between immune response and the DRRGs prognostic profiles. The risk signature is compared to immune cell infiltration, chemotherapy, and immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) treatment. Results An analysis using LASSO-Cox stepwise regression established a prognostic signature consisting of twelve DRRGs with strong predictive ability. Disease-specific survival (DSS) is found to be lower among high-risk patients group as compared to low-risk patients. The signature may be employed as an independent prognostic predictor after controlling for clinicopathological factors, as demonstrated by validation on one external GSE65904 cohort. A strong correlation is also found between the risk score and the immune microenvironment, along with the infiltrating immune cells, and ICIs key molecules. The gene enrichment analysis results indicate a wide range of biological activities and pathways to be exhibited by high-risk groups. Furthermore, Cisplatin exhibited a considerable response sensitivity in low-risk groups as opposed to the high-risk incidents, while docetaxel exhibited a considerable response sensitivity in high-risk groups. Conclusions Our findings provide a thorough investigation of DRRGs to develop an DSS-related prognostic indicator which may be useful in forecasting SKCM progression and enabling more enhanced clinical benefits from immunotherapy.


With the rise of the Internet as an important dimension of business, fierce competition is resulting in industries that fit skew distributions, where those few firms that can best leverage the digital economy accrue the majority of the revenues. Porter points out that the Internet erodes industrial profitability and intensifies the need for sound strategy. As a tool for modeling the growth of firms in the competitive Internet environment, we apply Herbert Simon's model for business firm growth and relate its two key parameters—rate of entry and industrial growth potential—to Porter's strategic theories. We also introduce the idea of individual growth potential as a measure of firm competitiveness within an industry. We present a research proposal to empirically test the model, and provide the results from a simulation to demonstrate the applicability and usefulness of Simon's model to the business environment in the digital economy.


Sound—including music and noise—can relieve pain in humans, but the underlying neural mechanisms remain unknown. We discovered that analgesic effects of sound depended on a low (5-decibel) signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) relative to ambient noise in mice. Viral tracing, microendoscopic calcium imaging, and multitetrode recordings in freely moving mice showed that low-SNR sounds inhibited glutamatergic inputs from the auditory cortex (ACxGlu) to the thalamic posterior (PO) and ventral posterior (VP) nuclei. Optogenetic or chemogenetic inhibition of the ACxGlu→PO and ACxGlu→VP circuits mimicked the low-SNR sound–induced analgesia in inflamed hindpaws and forepaws, respectively. Artificial activation of these two circuits abolished the sound-induced analgesia. Our study reveals the corticothalamic circuits underlying sound-promoted analgesia by deciphering the role of the auditory system in pain processing. Description The pain-reducing effects of music That sound can effectively suppress pain has been known for some time. However, it is still unclear what drives the analgetic effect induced by music or noise. Zhou et al. used a range of methods to demonstrate in mice that the auditory cortex is functionally connected to regions involved in nociception (see the Perspective by Kuner and Kuner). The neuronal circuits depend on the physical location of the pain. Whereas the analgetic effect of a 5-decibel signal-to-noise ratio white noise on the hindpaws involved projections from the auditory cortex to the posterior thalamic nuclei, on the forepaws, it involved projections from the auditory cortex to the ventral posterior nuclei. Distinct thalamic nuclei are thus involved in the processing of nociceptive information perceived at distinct physical locations. —PRS Sound with low signal to ambient noise ratio relieves pain by reducing auditory cortical inputs to somatosensory thalamus.


While the deployment of the smart grid, modernizing the nation's electric power infrastructure, is currently in the public eye with attention paid predominantly to deployment of advanced equipment, technologies and applications, a less prominent but equally vital factor to the smart grid's success is the need for a highly skilled electric power sector workforce. With the current labor force aging, a considerable number of the most knowledgeable workers in the power industry are heading toward retirement. Furthermore, even the most experienced workers often lack the updated skills and training needed to successfully support the advanced systems, tools and devices that make up the smart grid. An important aspect of the smart grid is communication and security. Supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, and to train our students in the area of smart gird, a new course titled "Smart Grid Communications and Security" was developed and offered to train students with the required skills to succeed in this competitive job market. This paper presents the development of this new multidisciplinary course at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of the District of Columbia. The course content includes various communication technologies that are essential in the evolution of smart grid, types of cyber-attacks on the grid, privacy and security issues, and their possible solutions. This paper will discuss the course content, the pedagogical approach used to deliver the course and the students' projects and presentations that have resulted from its offering.


Tailwater fisheries below hydroprojects are affected by variable flows and water quality in dam releases. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) identified undesirable flow regimes, low dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations, and undesirable temperatures as having the greatest biological impact on tailwater, and steps are being taken to mitigate impacts at numerous dams. To help evaluate mitigation efforts, an interdisciplinary team of water quality modelers, fisheries biologists, and environmental engineers developed a one-dimensional dynamic fish growth model. This model was coupled with previously developed dynamic flow and water quality models. The model results were compared to (1) fish growth data in Norris Dam tailwater under pre- and post-mitigation conditions and (2) rainbow trout growth in aquaria studies with differing DO concentrations. Model was found to reproduce impacts of DO on fish growth.


Mapping lava flows frequently during effusive eruptions provides crucial parameters to better understand their dynamics, in turn improving our ability to model lava flow behavior. New photogrammetric methods have recently been developed, shifting the paradigm of photogrammetry from pure method to a multidisciplinary approach able to reduce the cost of volcanic monitoring and widen the potential spectrum of application. In this work, we demonstrate how multi‐view and single‐view photogrammetry methods can be used effectively to extract accurate quantitative information from photographs taken during routine surveys over an active lava flow. One intriguing advantage of these methods is that they can re‐use images acquired previously to extract new data from past eruptions. In particular, we reconstructed quantitatively the evolution of the lava flow field emplaced during 2004–2005 at Mt. Etna, subdivided in five eruptive phases from the earliest simple lava flows to the final compound lava field about 6 months later. Our results show that, in the first week of eruption, lava field formation was characterized by an increasing lava length that followed a power law growth and by a decreasing front velocity that followed a power law as well. Thereafter, the length increasing became almost constant until the developed lava tube system was able to drain the lava for long distances, with the area inundated by lava that grew linearly in the first 20 days. Finally, we demonstrate the crucial role that the syn‐eruptive DEMs acquisition could have to improve our understanding of the emplacement dynamics of complex lava fields.


As a part of preparing for an exhibition, Mindy Lee, Amanda Couch, and Andrew Hladky have been meeting regularly to discuss their artistic practice and shared interest in guts. At the Body Horror 2 conference, we presented a snapshot of these discussions as a three-way conversation. Our artistic research centres on changing conceptualisations of the digestive system, the role these ideas have played in constructing and destabilising our sense of self/self-image, and the distaste and horror they can inspire. Recent medical research re-imagines the digestive system as a sensory organ and second brain, 'a vibrant, modern data-processing center' and the site of our most direct and complex physical interaction with the external world. The messages it sends to the rest of the body have a profound effect on our mood and ability to function, but its reasoning remains largely inaccessible to consciousness. The idea that our entrails lurk behind the scenes exerting a decisive influence on our actions is an unsettling one, challenging modern cerebro-centred images of selfhood and agency. Our artwork highlights these digestive ruminations, usually kept so carefully hidden. It emphasises its own materiality and brings to light its inner workings, showing those imagistic indigestions and textual regurgitations that can shatter the fragile surface illusion. Our three-way conversation exposes and disembowels the artwork and the ideas within it. In research we take in and incorporate the ideas and stories of the other, processing and digesting to regurgitate and repeat through our own perspectives as artists: Research as rumination.


There is a demand for the extension of participation in organizational decision-making. If realized, this should strengthen the stability of a democratic society through providing more people with a meaningful experience of democratic processes. At the same time, however, organizations are continuing to become bigger and their control more centralized. This trend is illustrated for Britain. It leads to an increasing remoteness of decision making on policy issues away from employees and members of the public. The effects of bureaucratization, which accompanies growth, exacerbate the remoteness. So far as participation is concerned, a growing contradiction is therefore emerging between social ideology and social reality, and this is not being given adequate recognition. The likely result is a weakening commitment to collective social objectives and a declining perceived legitimacy of social institutions. It is concluded that a resolution of this problem would be assisted by recognizing how the economic advantages of large-scale organization have been exaggerated and how there are organizational design possibilities for avoiding the socially less desirable aspects of bureaucracy.


Background—Orthostatic intolerance is characterized by postural tachycardia syndrome (POTS) with exaggerated tachycardia, orthostatic symptoms, and "pooling" (which comprises acrocyanosis and dependent edema when upright). My colleagues and I tested the hypothesis that pooling results from increased venous compliance in POTS patients. Methods and Results—Fifteen patients aged 13 to 19 years were compared with 11 healthy, age-matched controls. The POTS group was divided into patients with high venous pressure (Pv>20 mm Hg) and normal Pv on the basis of resting supine Pv obtained in previous work. Subjects were studied using strain gauge plethysmography to measure blood flow, Pv, and the venous compliance volume-pressure relation while supine and during incremental head-up tilt testing at −10°, 0°, 20°, and 35°. Volume-pressure relations of controls and POTS patients with normal Pv and high Pv were not different and were unchanged by orthostasis. Supine leg peripheral resistance was greater than control resistance in patients with high Pv (54±9 versus 30±6 mm Hg · mL−1 · 100 mL−1 · min−1) and less than control resistance in patients with normal Pv (17±2 mm Hg · mL−1 · 100 mL−1 · min−1). On upright tilt, resistance decreased in high Pv to approximate resistance in normal Pv. Resistance in controls increased throughout tilt. Leg Pv increased in patients with normal Pv and in controls but remained unchanged in the high Pv group. Conclusions—The findings suggest that pooling in POTS is due to blunted arterial vasoconstriction, which produces passive redistribution of blood within peripheral venous capacitance beds. Venous compliance in POTS is similar to that in control subjects.


Direct digital manufacturing is a set of rapidly evolving technologies that provide easy ways to manufacture highly customized and unique products. The development pipeline for such products is radically different from the conventional manufacturing pipeline: 3D geometric models are designed by users often with little or no manufacturing experience, and sent directly to the printer. Structural analysis on the user side with conventional tools is often unfeasible as it requires specialized training and software. Trial-and-error, the most common approach, is time-consuming and expensive. We present a method that would identify structural problems in objects designed for 3D printing based on geometry and material properties only, without specific assumptions on loads and manual load setup. We solve a constrained optimization problem to determine the "worst" load distribution for a shape that will cause high local stress or large deformations. While in its general form this optimization has a prohibitively high computational cost, we demonstrate that an approximate method makes it possible to solve the problem rapidly for a broad range of printed models. We validate our method both computationally and experimentally and demonstrate that it has good predictive power for a number of diverse 3D printed shapes.


Echolocating greater horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum) emit their biosonar pulses nasally, through nostrils surrounded by fleshy appendages ('noseleaves') that diffract the outgoing ultrasonic waves. Movements of one noseleaf part, the lancet, were measured in live bats using two synchronized high speed video cameras with 3D stereo reconstruction, and synchronized with pulse emissions recorded by an ultrasonic microphone. During individual broadcasts, the lancet briefly flicks forward (flexion) and is then restored to its original position. This forward motion lasts tens of milliseconds and increases the curvature of the affected noseleaf surfaces. Approximately 90% of the maximum displacements occurred within the duration of individual pulses, with 70% occurring towards the end. Similar lancet motions were not observed between individual pulses in a sequence of broadcasts. Velocities of the lancet motion were too small to induce Doppler shifts of a biologically-meaningful magnitude, but the maximum displacements were significant in comparison with the overall size of the lancet and the ultrasonic wavelengths. Three finite element models were made from micro-CT scans of the noseleaf post mortem to investigate the acoustic effects of lancet displacement. The broadcast beam shapes were found to be altered substantially by the observed small lancet movements. These findings demonstrate that—in addition to the previously described motions of the anterior leaf and the pinna—horseshoe bat biosonar has a third degree of freedom for fast changes that can happen on the time scale of the emitted pulses or the returning echoes and could provide a dynamic mechanism for the encoding of sensory information.


Guanylate-binding proteins coordinately regulate oxidative and autophagic responses to intracellular bacteria. Immune interferon gamma (IFN-γ) is essential for mammalian host defense against intracellular pathogens. IFN-γ induces nearly 2000 host genes, yet few have any assigned function. Here, we examined a complete mouse 65-kilodalton (kD) guanylate-binding protein (Gbp) gene family as part of a 43-member IFN-γ–inducible guanosine triphosphatase (GTPase) superfamily in mouse and human genomes. Family-wide loss-of-function analysis found that at least four Gbps—Gbp1, Gbp6, Gbp7, and Gbp10—conferred cell-autonomous immunity to listerial or mycobacterial infection within macrophages and gene-deficient animals. These Gbps solicited host defense proteins, including the phagocyte oxidase, antimicrobial peptides, and autophagy effectors, to kill intracellular bacteria. Thus, specific 65-kD Gbps coordinate a potent oxidative and vesicular trafficking program to protect the host from infection.


OBJECTIVE: To investigate haematological variations and iron related changes in the serum of participants in a 1600 kilometre ultramarathon run. PARTICIPANTS: Seven male and two female participants in a 1600 km foot race. METHODS: Blood samples were obtained from the participants before, after four and 11 days of running, and at the end of the event. Samples were analysed by standard methods for haemoglobin, packed cell volume, total red cell count, mean red cell volume, mean red cell haemoglobin, total white cell count and differential, platelets, reticulocytes, iron, ferritin, total iron binding capacity, percentage transferrin saturation, haptoglobin, and bilirubin and corrected for changes in plasma volume. RESULTS: The following variables decreased during the event (p < 0.05): haemoglobin, packed cell volume, mean red cell volume, percentage lymphocytes, percentage monocytes, serum iron, total iron binding capacity, and percentage transferrin saturation. Increases (p < 0.05) were found in plasma volume, total red cell count (day 4 only), total white cell count, percentage and absolute numbers of neutrophils and reticulocytes, absolute numbers of lymphocytes and monocytes (day 4 only), absolute numbers of eosinophils (day 11 and race end), absolute numbers of basophils (race end only), platelets, ferritin, haptoglobin, and bilirubin (day 4 only). CONCLUSION: Ultramarathon running is associated with a wide range of changes in haematological parameters, many of which are related to the normal acute phase response to injury. These should not be confused with indicators of disease.


Gesture and language development are fundamentally intertwined in typically developing children. Key differences in communicative development are found in children who develop Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), making early communication an important focus in promoting early identification. Research has begun to examine the later born siblings of children with ASD, a population found to be at a higher risk of developing ASD and even greater risk for non-ASD language delay. This study investigates the use of gesture and language in children at heightened risk for ASD in order to identify differences based on diagnostic outcome at age 3 (ASD, language delay, or no diagnosis). Participants were 29 toddlers (15 male, 14 female) observed at ages 2 and 3 during 13 minutes of naturalistic semi-structured play with caregivers at home. Language and gesture were transcribed and analyzed in order to: 1) characterize language in the three outcome groups; 2) identify group differences in the way gesture is used in communication; and 3) examine types of gestures that were combined with language at both ages. Overall, the ASD group showed major differences from the language delay and no diagnosis groups. This group displayed reduced language skills, evidenced through fewer different words, shorter utterances, and less growth between 2 and 3 years. They also used proportionally more gesture-only utterances and did not show decreased use of gesture with age to the extent that the other groups did. Furthermore, the children diagnosed with ASD used fewer pointing gestures combined with language. These findings suggest that there are differences in gesture and language use in toddlers at heightened risk for ASD based on diagnostic outcome at age 3; however, further research with larger sample sizes is needed.


In order to improve productivity and global competitiveness, a novel equipment maintenance method, hybrid intelligent maintenance system (HIMS), is proposed. HIMS's key challenge is how to integrate and combine some intelligent methods, make use of their merits and avoid their demerits to forecast the incipient fault efficiently, and to prevent the fault from further deterioration. Inspired by "divide and conquer" and "learn strong points to offset weakness", we try to simplify the complicated equipment maintenance task by decomposing the work into two subsystems: hybrid intelligent fault diagnosis system and hybrid intelligent condition forecasting system based on advanced signal processing and artificial intelligence methods. The HIMS is applied to the maintenance of the turbo-generator set in a power plant, and the simulated results show that the proposed method is very effective.


The estimation of the time- and frequency-dependent coherent-to-diffuse power ratio (CDR) from the measured spatial coherence between two omnidirectional microphones is investigated. Known CDR estimators are formulated in a common framework, illustrated using a geometric interpretation in the complex plane, and investigated with respect to bias and robustness towards model errors. Several novel unbiased CDR estimators are proposed, and it is shown that knowledge of either the direction of arrival (DOA) of the target source or the coherence of the noise field is sufficient for unbiased CDR estimation. The validity of the model for the application of CDR estimates to dereverberation is investigated using measured and simulated impulse responses. A CDR-based dereverberation system is presented and evaluated using signal-based quality measures as well as automatic speech recognition accuracy. The results show that the proposed unbiased estimators have a practical advantage over existing estimators, and that the proposed DOA-independent estimator can be used for effective blind dereverberation.


Purpose
Awareness on and importance of sustainability in all aspects of our lives is becoming more and more important. The question arises, how – not if – scientists can contribute to a sustainable development. As information plays an important role for development, information scientists should be included in this debate. However, is there a sustainable information science or an information science of sustainability? The purpose of this paper is to perform a mapping of publications in library and information science (LIS) directly dealing with sustainability and sustainable development.

Design/methodology/approach
A structured literature review was conducted, enhanced by bibliometric analyses. For this purpose, 102 LIS journals and conferences were considered. The authors identified 81 publications dealing with sustainability and sustainable development and analyzed the concrete contents and methodological approaches of these.

Findings
A large proportion of articles could be found dealing with sustainable development and libraries. Other publications focus on information and communication technology or information systems. Only few articles deal with further topics like government, urban development or scientific output.

Research limitations/implications
Sustainability and sustainable development are complex topics. This work only considers literature whose title or keywords contain the string sustainab*.

Originality/value
The presented work helps to get an overview on sustainability research and activities in the LIS field and additionally, potential research gaps may be identified. The authors call for more research in this area and concrete ideas to help develop a sustainable future.


Off-chip communication consumes a significant part of main memory system power. Existing solutions imply the use of specialized memories or assume error free environments. This is either unrealistic or impractical in many industrial situations. In this paper, we propose an architecture which implements classic low power encoding but uses industry standard DRAMs. Moreover, the low power encoding is combined with error-protection in order to extend the application to noisy channels or to the presence of soft and hard failures in the memory. Parallelism between the two encoding processes avoids any latency adder. Our experimental results, based on current consumption measurements of DDR2 DRAM components in mass production, show savings up to 31% on the I/O power and 6% on the total memory energy of a single channel memory system of 4 GB at practically no cost.


A three-waveguide coupler, combining directional and contradirectional coupling between the central and side waveguides, respectively, is discussed. Coupled-mode formalism is used to examine the superposed processes both in synchronism and near synchronism. The nature of the solution is shown to depend on the relative coupling strengths of the individual processes. For stronger contradirectional coupling, the power is divided among the three output ports, at ratios closely related to the ratio of the coupling coefficients, and with a nonperiodic, slowly varying length dependence. The coupler can thus be used as a power divider without the need for a precisely special case where the directional and contradirectional coupling coefficients are equal. >


The generalist fungal pathogen Pyrenophora semeniperda occurs primarily in cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) seed banks, where it causes high mortality. We investigated the relationship between this pathogen and its cheatgrass host in the context of fire, asking whether burning would facilitate host escape from the pathogen or increase host vulnerability. We used a series of laboratory and field experiments to address the ability of host seeds and pathogen life stages to survive fire. First, we determined the thermal death point (TDP50; temperature causing 50% mortality) of seeds and pathogen propagules at two time intervals using a muffle furnace. We then measured peak fire temperatures in prescribed burns at sites in Utah and Washington, and quantified seed and fungal propagule survival using preand post-burn seed bank sampling and inoculum bioassays. Last, we investigated the survival of both seeds and pathogen after wildfires. We found that radiant heat generated by both prescribed and wild cheatgrass monoculture fires was generally not sufficient to kill either host seeds or pathogen propagules; most mortality was apparently due to direct consumption by flames. The 5-minute mean TDP50 was 164oC for pathogen propagules and 148oC for host seeds, indicating that the pathogen is more likely to survive fire than the seeds. Peak fire temperature at the surface in the prescribed burns averaged 130oC. Fire directly consumed 85-98% of the viable seed bank, but prescribed burns and wildfires generally did not lead to dramatic reductions in pathogen inoculum loads. We conclude that the net effect of fire on this pathosystem is not large. Rapid postburn recovery of both host and associated pathogen populations is the predicted outcome. Post-fire management of residual cheatgrass seed banks should be facilitated by the persistent presence of this seed bank pathogen. Rebuttal Letter Click here to download Rebuttal Letter: Rebuttal letter_15aug2010.doc


When the dirt was cleaning away by the ultrasonic cleaning device, the insulating layer of the motor winding would be destroyed and the motor safety would be affect. The destructive effect mechanism is analyzed, a enameled wire-based destructive experiment method was designed. Finally the selection of cleaning power and time were realized. It was indicated by the motor experiments that the cleaning parameters selected in this way didn't destroy the insulating layer of the motor winding, and was an excellent method to ensure the safety and reliability of the designed ultrasonic cleaning method.


Limit the abstract to 250 words or fewer and concisely summarize the basic content of the paper without presenting extensive experimental details. Avoid abbreviations and references, and do not include diagrams. When it is essential to include a reference, use the same format as shown for the References section but omit the article title. Because the abstract will be published separately by abstracting services, it must be complete and understandable without reference to the text. Introduction. The introduction should supply sufficient background information to allow the reader to understand and evaluate the results of the present study without referring to previous publications on the topic. The introduction should also provide the hypothesis that was addressed or the rationale for the present study. Use only those references required to provide the most salient background rather than an exhaustive review of the topic. Materials and Methods. The Materials and Methods section should include sufficient technical information to allow the experiments to be repeated. When centrifugation conditions are critical, give enough information to enable another investigator to repeat the procedure: make of centrifuge, model of rotor, temperature, time at maximum speed, and centrifugal force ( g rather than revolutions per minute). For commonly used materials and methods (e.g., media and protein concentration determinations), a simple reference is sufficient. If several alternative methods are commonly used, it is helpful to identify the method briefly as well as to cite the reference. For example, it is preferable to state "cells were broken by ultrasonic treatment as previously described (9)" rather than to state "cells were broken as previously described (9)." This allows the reader to assess the method without constant reference to previous publications. Describe new methods completely and give sources of unusual chemicals, equipment, or microbial strains. When large numbers of microbial strains or mutants are used in a study, include tables identifying the immediate sources (i.e., sources from whom the strains were obtained) and properties of the strains, mutants, bacteriophages, and plasmids, etc. Enzyme purifications should be described in this section, but the results of such procedures should be described in the Results section. A method or strain, etc., used in only one of several experiments reported in the paper may be described in the Results section or very briefly (one or two sentences) in a table footnote or figure legend. It is expected that the sources from whom the strains were obtained will be identified. Results. The Results section should include the results of the experiments. Reserve extensive interpretation of the results for the Discussion section. Present the results as concisely as possible in one of the following: text, table(s), or figure(s). Avoid extensive use of graphs to present data that might be more concisely presented in the text or tables. For example, except in unusual cases, double-reciprocal plots used to determine apparent Km values should not be presented as graphs; instead, the values should be stated in the text. Similarly, graphs illustrating other methods commonly used (e.g., calibration plots for molecular weight by gel filtration or electrophoresis) need not be shown except in unusual circumstances. Limit photographs (particularly photomicrographs and electron micrographs) to those that are absolutely necessary to show the experimental findings. Number figures and tables in the order in which they are cited in the text, and be sure to cite all figures and tables. Discussion. The Discussion should provide an interpretation of the results in relation to previously published work and to the experimental system at hand and should not contain extensive repetition of the Results section or reiteration of the introduction. In short papers, the Results and Discussion sections may be combined. Acknowledgments. The source of any financial support received for the work being published must be indicated in the Acknowledgments section. (It will be assumed that the absence of such an acknowledgment is a statement by the authors that no support was received.) The usual format is as follows: "This work was supported by Public Health Service grant CA-01234 from the National Cancer Institute." Recognition of personal assistance should be given as a separate paragraph, as should any statements disclaiming endorsement or approval of the views reflected in the paper or of a product mentioned therein. Appendixes. Appendixes, which contain additional material to aid the reader, are permitted. Titles, authors, and References sections that are distinct from those of the primary article are not allowed. If it is not feasible to list the author(s) of the appendix in the byline or the Acknowledgments section of the primary article, rewrite the appendix so that it can be considered for publication as an independent article, either full-length or Note style. Equations, tables, and figures should be labeled with the letter "A" preceding VOL. 191, 2009 2009 JB INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS 9


Among various statistical and data mining discriminant analysis proposed so far for group classification, linear programming discriminant analysis has recently attracted the researchers' interest. This study evaluates multi-group discriminant linear programming (MDLP) for classification problems against well-known methods such as neural networks and support vector machine. MDLP is less complicated as compared to other methods and does not suffer from having local optima. This study also proposes a fuzzy Delphi method to select and gather the required data, when databases suffer from deficient data. In addition, to absorb the uncertainty infused to collecting data, interval MDLP (IMDLP) is developed. The results show that the performance of MDLP and specially IMDLP is better than conventional classification methods with respect to correct classification, at least for small and medium-size datasets.


In this work the impact of combined module variances on the overall performance of a high-bypass aircraft engine is investigated. Therefore, a comprehensive sensitivity analysis on the example of a turbofan engine performance model is provided by means of Kucherenko indices. Direct influences of selected model inputs on key model outputs as well as influences due to interaction effects between these input variables are identified. The selected input variables of the performance model are partly subject to considerable dependencies that are taken into account by the Kucherenko indices.
 The results confirm known direct influences of deterioration effects on the key performance parameters of the aircraft engine on the one hand, and provide profound insights into complex interaction effects between the components and their impact on the V2500-A1 aircraft engine performance on the other.


Background: Subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) has been associated with electrocardiographic (ECG) changes, arrhythmias, and release of cardiac enzymes. Recently, Takotsubo cardiomyopathies, presenting typical ECG changes and left ventricular (LV) regional wall-motion abnormalities (RWMAs), have been reported and considered to be a result of high norepinephrine (NE) levels. We hypothesized that ST-T-wave changes in patients with SAH may be manifestations of Takotsubo cardiomyopathy and associated with RWMAs. Methods: We instituted consecutive echocardiographic screening of all patients with acute aneurysmal SAH. A standard 12-lead ECG and blood samples for creatine kinase (CK) MB isoenzyme and troponin-T (Tn-T) were obtained. To evaluate sympathetic nervous activity, we obtained blood samples and urine samples for NE. Results: Of 42 patients with acute aneurysmal SAH, 26 had abnormal ECG including rhythm abnormalities. Ten of 12 patients with ST-T-wave changes had severe neurologic deficits, but 1 patient had RWMAs on echocardiography. Another patient with LV dysfunction showed a normal ST-T wave. In patients with ST-T-wave changes, elevated Tn-T (8.3 vs. 3.3%), CK-MB (8.3 vs. 10.0%), plasma and urine NE (16.7 and 33.3% vs. 16.7 and 50.0%), and mortality (8.3 vs. 13.3%) were not significantly higher. All 5 deaths resulted from noncardiac causes. High plasma and urine NE levels were not related to neurologic severity or mortality. Conclusions: Although ECG abnormalities are frequently seen in SAH patients, the incidence of RWMAs is very low. Electrocardiographic manifestations in patients with SAH and Takotsubo cardiomyopathy are similar, but ECG abnormalities in patients with SAH are mostly not related to LV dysfunction.


Memory and I/O intensive applications always use a huge amount of memory and the performance decreases quickly when memory pressure arises. With the development of high performance network and widely used in cluster, the latency of remote memory access is much less than that of disk operation. In this paper, we present an approach to let the VM (Virtual Machine) use cluster-wide free memory, which can overcome the limitation of physical memory by exploiting low-latency access to the memory of other nodes in cluster. This approach can reduce the execution time for memory and I/O intensive applications significantly by utilizing cluster-wide memory and increase the whole cluster utilization.


A meta-analysis reported that nifedipine increased mortality dose-dependently in patients with coronary artery disease. However, there have been few studies (specifically in Asians) on the long-term prognosis of patients treated with calcium antagonists after successful coronary angioplasty (PTCA). The subjects consisted of 583 consecutive patients (461 males, aged 59 +/- 10), who underwent successful elective PTCA between 1985 and 1990. First, they were divided into two groups; the calcium antagonist (+) group (n = 560) and the calcium antagonist (-) group (n = 23), and were evaluated in terms of total survival and cardiac events. Second, the calcium antagonist (+) group was further divided into 4 groups according to calcium antagonist type, i.e., short-acting nifedipine group (n = 156), long-acting nifedipine group (n = 203), diltiazem group (n = 184) and the other group (n = 17), and these groups were evaluated in the same way. The primary end-point was set as death from any cause. Secondary end-points were any cardiac events, including non-fatal acute myocardial infarction, coronary artery bypass surgery and repeat PTCA. The mean follow-up period was 4.5 +/- 1.8 years. A multivariate analysis was performed with the Cox proportional-hazard model. The Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that the calcium antagonist (-) group had significantly worse prognoses than the calcium antagonist (+) group (p < 0.05), and that there was no significant difference among the prognoses of the four calcium antagonists groups. The multivariate analysis revealed that the use of a calcium antagonist was one of the independent factors positively contributing to the prognosis. The use of any type of calcium antagonist did not increase mortality in patients who underwent successful elective PTCA, rather, it contributed to a favorable outcome.


Background/Aims: Recent studies have indicated that local inflammatory mediators are importantly involved in the regulation of renal function. However, it remains unknown how such local inflammation is triggered intracellularly in the kidney. The present study was designed to characterize the inflammasome centered by Nlrp3 in the kidney and also test the effect of its activation in the renal medulla. Methods and Results: By immunohistochemistry analysis, we found that inflammasome components, Nlrp3, Asc and caspase-1, were ubiquitously distributed in different kidney areas. The caspase-1 activity and IL-1β production were particularly high in the renal outer medulla compared to other kidney regions. Further confocal microscopy and RT-PCR analysis showed that Nlrp3, Asc and caspase-1 were particularly enriched in the thick ascending limb of Henle's loop. In anesthetized mice, medullary infusion of Nlrp3 inflammasome activator, monosodium urate (MSU), induced significant decreases in sodium excretion and medullary blood flow without changes in mean arterial blood pressure and renal cortical blood flow. Caspase-1 inhibitor, Ac-YVAD-CMK and deletion of Nlrp3 or Asc gene abolished MSU-induced decreases in renal sodium excretion and MBF. Conclusion: Our results indicate that renal medullary Nlrp3 inflammasomes represent a new regulatory mechanism of renal MBF and sodium excretion which may not depend on classical inflammatory response.


The small-step SOS/MSOS approaches discussed in Sections 3.3 and 3.6 define a language semantics as a proof system whose rules are mostly conditional. The conditions of such rules allow to implicitly capture the program execution context as a proof context. This shift of focus from the informal notion of execution context to the formal notion of proof context has a series of advantages and it was, to a large extent, the actual point of formalizing language semantics using SOS. However, as the complexity of programming languages increased, in particular with the adoption of control-intensive statements like call/cc (see Chapter 12) that can arbitrarily change the execution context, the need for an explicit representation of the execution context as a first-class citizen in the language semantics also increased. Reduction semantics with evaluation contexts (RSEC) is a variant of small-step SOS where the evaluation context may appear explicit in the term being reduced. Figure 3.28: Decomposition of syntactic term p into context c and redex e, written p = c[e]: we say p splits into c and e, or e plugs into c yielding p. These operations are assumed whenever needed. In an RSEC language definition one starts by defining the syntax of evaluation contexts, or simply just contexts, which is typically done by means of a context-free grammar (CFG). A context is a program or a fragment of program with a hole, where the hole, which is written ◻, is a placeholder for where the next computational step can take place. If c is an evaluation context and e is some well-formed appropriate fragment (expression, statement, etc.), then c[e] is the program or fragment obtained by replacing the hole of c by e. Reduction semantics with evaluation contexts relies on a tacitly assumed (but rather advanced) parsing mechanism that takes a program or a fragment p and decomposes it into a context c and a subprogram or fragment e, called a redex, such that p = c[e]. This decomposition process is called splitting (of p into c and e). The inverse process, composing a redex e and a context c into a program or fragment p, is called plugging (of e into c). These splitting/plugging operations are depicted in Figure 3.28. Consider a language with arithmetic/Boolean expressions and statements like our IMP language in Section 3.1. A possible CFG definition of evaluation contexts for such a language may include the following …


Carbon nanotube used as cold cathode, the triode FED with staggered gate-electrode layer structure was fabricated with the screen-printing technique and conventional sintering process. Using superior mica plate as gate substrate material, the silver slurry was prepared to form the staggered gate electrode. The insulation layer was also manufactured over the gate substrate surface. The design and fabrication of the staggered gate-electrode layer was described in detail. By means of glass frit, the whole panel structure was vacuum-sealed. With the fabricated staggered gate-electrode layer, the modulation of electron emission from CNT field emitter by the gate voltage was confirmed. The packaged tridoe FED possessed better field emission uniformity, good image display performance and high display image brightness.


Aims and method: To determine female authorship of original articles and editorials between January 1997 and December 2008 in the British Journal of Psychiatry and the Psychiatric Bulletin. Editorials from Advances in Psychiatric Treatment and the geographical region of the female first author of original articles were also included in the study. Results: The gender was determined for 99.2% of the 2324 first authors of original articles and 100% of the 614 editorials. The percentage of original articles by female first authors fluctuated over the study period, ranging from 22.5 to 42.1% (mean 33.6) in the British Journal of Psychiatry, and from 25.5 to 46.8% (mean 37.6) in the Psychiatric Bulletin. There was a gross underrepresentation of females as first authors of editorials in all three journals. The percentage of female first authors of original articles from low- and middle-income countries ranged from 0.3 to 3.4% in both the British Journal of Psychiatry and the Psychiatric Bulletin. Clinical implications: There is an increasing trend in female first authorship of original articles. However, females remain underrepresented, especially in editorials, in the British psychiatric journals examined. The representation of female first authors from low- and middle-income countries is disproportionately low. Strategies to address these inequalities should be implemented. Declaration of interest: M.E.O-E. is female.


Population demographics impact both the time-series and cross-section of expected asset returns. A number of theories link the average age of a population to expected market returns. For example, Bakshi and Chen (1994) argue that an older population will demand a higher premium on equity investment because their risk aversion is higher. We argue that, in an international context, population demographics are more likely to reveal information about the risk exposure of a particular country. Our evidence supports the risk hypothesis. This is the last working paper version of our 1997 Financial Analysts Journal article.


Abstract The known photoreactions of melanin include production of melanin free radicals and oxygen consumption. While qualitative descriptions of the intermediates and products of these processes have been published, no quantitative procedures have been reported that allow the convenient measurement of the products of oxygen reduction. We have used complementary fluorescence and electron spin resonance techniques to study free radical production from extracted hair melanin irradiated at wavelengths above 320 nm. As a comparison, sepia was also studied. Irradiation of aerated suspensions of melanin in the presence of terephthalic acid dianion (TA)‡ gives rise to the characteristic fluorescence spectrum of the 2-hydroxyterephthalate ion (HTA, λeλ = 315 nm, λem = 425 nm). Production of HTA has been studied as a function of time (at constant light flux) and in the presence of other substrates including hydroxyl radical sources and scavengers. The use of TA as a fluorescent probe can be conveniently adapted to other systems.


This paper examines technological challenges of the agricultural extension in North Gondar Zone of Ethiopia. Understanding technological gaps in public agricultural extension helps to devise demand driven and compatible technologies to existing contexts of farmers. The study used cross sectional survey using quantitative and qualitative techniques. Data were generated from primary and secondary sources using household survey from randomly taken households, focus group discussions, key informant interview, observation and review of relevant documents and empirical works. The result of study shows that there are mismatches between needs of smallholders in crop and livestock production and available agricultural technologies delivered by public agricultural extension system. The existing agricultural technologies are limited and unable to meet the diverse needs of farm households. On the other hand, some of agricultural technologies in place are not appropriate to existing context because of top-down recommendations than need based innovation approaches.

 Key words: Agriculture extension, challenge, mismatch, smallholder, technology.


Localized phenomena, such as pinch-and-swell boudinage or localized folds, are usually interpreted to arise from viscosity contrasts. These are caused by structural heterogeneities, such as geometric or material imperfections. An alternative possibility for strain localization exists in material science, where dynamic localization emerges out of a steady state for a given critical set of material parameters and loading rates (Montési and Zuber, 2002). In our contribution, we will investigate the conditions under which this type of instabilities triggers localized deformation. Moreover, we discuss whether geological materials necessarily require structural heterogeneities, such as weak seeds, in order to generate aforementioned localized structures. We set up a random distribution of grain sizes in a layer embedded in a matrix with a diffusion creep rheology. Deformation within the layer is accommodated by dislocation and diffusion creep as end member deformation mechanism. The grain size evolution follows the paleowattmeter scaling relationship for calcite creep (Austin and Evans, 2007), which is controlled by thermo-mechanical feedbacks (Herwegh et al., 2014). During the first strain increments in the numerical simulation, the layer establishes a viscous steady state, which is the systems' response to optimize energy following the paleowattmeter (Herwegh et al., 2014). With further loading, localization interestingly arises out of a homogeneous state. We will demonstrate the robustness of this numerical solution by identifying the natural mode shapes and frequencies of the simulated structure and material parameters, including geometric imperfections (Rudnicki and Rice, 1975). This technique aims at the determination of the spatial manifestation of the instability pattern (Peters et al., in review). The eigenvalues are thought to represent the nodal points, where the onset of (visco)-elasto-plastic localization can initiate in the structure (Rudnicki and Rice, 1975). The eigenmodes appear as sinusoidal vibrations with geometryand material parameter-specific natural modal frequencies and shapes. In a next step, the eigenmodes are perturbed and superposed to the initial conditions. We observe that this pattern of perturbations guides the ultimate material bifurcation. Boudinage and folding can therefore be seen as either a pure geometric problem or a fundamental material bifurcation, which evolves out of homogeneous state. The latter class offers the great possibility to extract fundamental material parameters out of localized structures directly from field observations.


Forty patients with active systemic lupus erythematosus were treated with methylprednisolone. Their ages ranged from 11 to 73 years. The pattern of clinical improvement was similar to that previously seen after the use of prednisone, triamcinolone, and other anti-inflammatory hormones; the fever abated in 24 hours, joint pains disappeared in several days, and pleural effusion and cutaneous lesions subsided in one to several weeks. The doses needed were of the same order of magnitude as those of prednisone and triamcinolone; the mean initial dose was 29.2 and the mean maintenance dose 25.9 mg. per day. While methylprednisolone seemed to differ from the other steroids with respect to some side-effects, the incidence of moonface, hirsutism, acne, and striae was about the same.


The effects of cyclophosphamide (CY) and busulfan (BU) on the hematopoietic stromal function (HS-P) of mouse marrow were evaluated. Stromal function of femoral marrow was assessed by implanting the test femur s.c. into an isogeneic host and determining the number of CFU-S in the implant 6 weeks later. Since the CFU-S have been shown previously to be primarily of host origin, this presumably measures the abilit- of donor hematopoietic sites to harbor host CFU-S. After injection of CY, the number of CFU-S in the marrow fell but recovered to normal within 6 weeks. The HS-P function fell to half-normal after 10 mg of CY and did not regenerate detectably in 6 weeks. On the other hand, 2 mg of BU i.p. caused a lesser initial decline in the number of CFU-S, but recovery was still incomplete after 6 weeks. BU given p.o. had a more marked effect on CFU-S and caused a significant decline in the HS-P function. Doses of CY (5 mg/dose) given intermittently appear to cause cumulative damage to HS-P function. HS-P function did not, in any experiment, recover significantly in the 6 weeks following the last dose of CY. This result suggests that large doses of the alkylating agent CY causes prolonged and perhaps permanent HS-P damage. This damage to the HS-P is cumulative when the CY is given at weekly intervals. Despite lack of HS-P recovery, CFU-S regenerate rapidly after CY therapy is stopped. On the other hand, BU also causes damage to the HS-P. However, even when BU is given at a dosage that does not significantly affect the HS-P, CFU-S recovery is delayed, suggesting that BU affects the CFU-S in a manner that differs qualitatively from that of CY.


Abstract The Khabarovsk Complex, a Jurassic accretionary complex distributed in and around the Khabarovsk city area, Far East Russia, comprises mélange and schist facies. From the review of previous studies including Russian papers, the lithology and age of the constituent rocks of the mélange facies can be summarized as follows: Upper Paleozoic basic volcanic rocks, mainly pillow lava, and altered gabbro, Upper Carboniferous to Upper Permian fusulinoidean-bearing limestone associated with tuff, Lower and Middle Jurassic siliceous mudstone, Upper Jurassic tuffaceous mudstone, uppermost Jurassic carbonate concretions embedded in mudstone, and age-unknown sandstone. Newly found sequences of limestone-chert and of basalt-chert in the mélange facies crop out along the Amur River in the Khabarovsk city area. A chert sample of the limestone-chert sequence contains Albaillella aff. asymmetrica and Pseudoalbaillella aff. lomentaria, and a chert sample of the basalt-chert sequence includes Follicucullus monacanthus, Follicucullus porrectus, and Pseudoalbaillella cf. yanaharaensis. The radiolarian assemblages from the limestone-chert and basalt-chert sequences have a maximum age of middle Early Permian and late Middle Permian, respectively, overlapping the time of deposition of the fusulinoidean-bearing limestone. The co-occurrence of chert and limestone indicates that the fusulinoidean-bearing limestone was formed on a basaltic topographic high in a pelagic ocean whereas the radiolarians accumulated in a deeper part. Limestone debris occasionally flowed into the depositional site of the radiolarian chert. Although the Khabarovsk Complex was simply considered as a northern extension of the Mino–Tamba Belt of the Inner Zone of southwest Japan, we propose a new correlation based on the lithologic associations. The mélange facies of the Khabarovsk Complex is correlative with one of the Kasugano, Funabuseyama, Nabi, and Yabuhara Formations in the Mino–Tamba Belt, whereas the schist facies is correlative with the Hikami Formation of the Ultra–Tamba Belt.


The survival of three kinds of microorganisms under strongpulse electric field conditions was investigated with a possible application of the electric pulse method for sterilization of consumable liquids. The results of the investigations of survival ratio of Gram-negative (Escherichia coli, Yersinia enterocolitica) and Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus, Listeria monocytogenes) bacteria and yeastlike fungi (Candida albicans) are presented. The HV pulses with peak voltage U = 0 to 100 kV and rise time t , = 0.5 to 1.2 ps were applied. The microorganisms were suspended in an NaCl solution with 7 = 6 to 13 mS/cm conductivity and pH = 7.2. The experimental setup and the dependency of the microorganism survival ratio on the rise time, peak voltage and on the number of pulses applied, are presented. It has been found that the lethal effect on microorganisms caused by HV pulses depends on the pulse parameters as well as on the kind of microorganism being treated.


Bioregenerative life support system (BLSS) is one of the key technologies that must be solved before founding permanent base in space. The configuration and closure of BLSS largely depends on the astronauts' diet. Thus, it's necessary to set up a dietary management system for astronauts. A dietary management software system for BLSS is designed in this work. The nutritional requirements are used as constraints of the optimization process. Constrained nonlinear programming algorithm is used to accomplish the optimization process. The optimization results achieved by this software are compared with the standard nutritional needs. It will provide assistant decision support for BLSS designers.


The objective of the study was to identify the characteristics of the superior, the subordinate, and the situation which were related to the manner in which the Management by Objectives', pso) process is carried out. Data collected from 112 managers in a national industrial firm was used in the analysis. Previous research with this data had demonstrated that the manner in which the MBO process was carried out influenced the results obtained with the MBO approach. A number uf factors were found to be related to characteristics of the goals established, the procedures used to establish the goals, and how frequently performance was reviewed with respect to these goals. How the superior's boss carried out the MBO Process with him, the superior's personality, his perceptions of higher management support and concern for the MBO program, and the competence of his subordinates all were significantly related to how the superior implemented the MBO process with his subordinates. (Author) FACTORS RELATED TO HOW SUPERIORS ESTABLISH GOALS AND REVIEW PERFORMANCE FOR THEIR SUBORDINATES* Stephen J. Carroll Jr.


This article explores how nurses (nurse educators, and doctoral and masters students) from three countries experienced learning through drama in the field of nursing education. In this era of internationalisation, there is an urgent need to prepare nurses with global perspectives. This qualitative study builds on the fourteen participants' involvement in a drama workshop and their related reflective journals, which were the subject of a quality content analysis. Two categories and five sub-categories emerged in the analysis of the participants' journals. This study has implications for nursing education and curriculum activities in nursing programs related to the preparation of nurses with a global perspective using drama as core pedagogy. Through drama, participants can access their lifeworlds and share them with one another. Drama makes the experience-based knowledge visible, and in addition develops knowledge about a certain topic depending on the group's background and contribution.


An innovative product with societal acceptance is the one that aids the comfort, convenience and efficiency in everyday life. Purchasing and shopping at big malls is becoming daily activity in metro cities. We can see big rush at these malls on holidays and weekends. At billing counter the cashier prepare the bill using bar code reader which is very time consuming process and results in long queue at billing counter. In this paper, we discuss a product "SMART TROLLEY IN MEGA MALL" being developed to assist a person in everyday shopping in terms of reduced time spent while purchasing. The main objective of proposed system is to provide a technology oriented, low-cost, easily scalable, and rugged system for assisting shopping in person. In modern era, for automation of mall we are developing a microcontroller based TROLLEY which is totally automatic. When the customer want to purchase an items then customer has to hold the QR code side of the product wrapper in front of QR code scanner. Then corresponding data regarding product will be displayed on display. By using this trolley, customer can buy large number of product in very less time with less effort. At the billing counter, computer can be easily interfaced for verification and bill print out.


Author(s): Cowan, Phil; Duckworth, Janine; Cui, Xianlan; Molinia, Frank; Lubitz, Werner; Walcher, Petra | Abstract: Fertility control vaccines are under development for a number of pest wildlife species, mostly based on whole zona pellucida (ZP) or individual ZP proteins. Such vaccines must be effective, long lasting, cheap and readily deployed. One approach to deployment is oral delivery in baits. This is one strategy being taken in New Zealand for control of brushtail possums, 2- to 4-kg marsupials introduced from Australia in the 1850s, and now major pests of both conservation and agricultural production. New Zealand has highly effective aerial and ground systems for delivery of toxic baits to possums that could be adapted readily to deliver vaccine baits. Recent trials in captivity where female possums were immunised with recombinant possum ZP3 and ZP2 proteins demonstrated 70-75% reductions in fertility in natural and assisted breeding trials. Immunisation with possum-specific epitopes of the ZP2 and ZP3 proteins has also proved effective at reducing the numbers of fertilised eggs recovered from immunised females. For field delivery of an oral vaccine, we are investigating the use of bacterial "ghosts". These are the empty cell walls of bacteria that have been modified to express possum ZP proteins in their cell walls. The possum's immune system recognises the bacterial ghost as foreign, and produces antibodies against them. At the same time, it is tricked into developing antibodies against the possum egg proteins, causing a contraceptive effect. In a recent proof of concept trial, female possums immunised with a possum ZP2-bacterial ghost vaccine by nasal spray showed a significant reduction in fertility. Oral delivery may require protection of vaccine ghosts from degradation. We have developed a protective system and are currently repeating this trial using oral delivery of the ZP2 ghost vaccine. Our future priority is increasing the vaccine efficacy and longevity ahead of limited field trials in 2009.


The rapid institutional changes taking place today, including the emergence and global spread of new institutions bring to the fore the question of how new institutions develop. From the 1990s onwards, a new technical term has begun to spread in the literature: institutional entrepreneurship, reflecting the revaluation of people's activity in institutional change. The aim of the paper is to answer the questions regarding this kind of entrepreneurship. How does institutional entrepreneurship emerge, how can we interpret and define this phenomenon? What kind of driving forces are behind it? How does it work in the real economy? The novelty of the paper is in addressing institutional entrepreneurship as the result of a special ability and activity of actors to combine different, already known elements for building up new institutions. The study introduces the characteristics of institutional entrepreneurship, using the example of the sharing economy, by contrasting sharing as an alternative to conventional market solutions. The paper also demonstrates how the institutional entrepreneurship of sharing changes its socio-economic environment, from mobilization of unused resources through perception of ownership to the increase of the growth potential of the economy.