ABSTRACT A rich data-set of Lagrangian trajectories from 3D particle tracking velocimetry is used to study the structure of various acceleration components, vorticity, and strain in the intermediate field of a circular jet at Reynolds number Re = 6000. The total acceleration is decomposed into three distinctive sets: (1) streamwise–radial; (2) tangential–normal; and (3) local–convective components. Probability density function (PDF) and joint distributions of each set are characterised at various radial locations from the jet core within a streamwise band 16 ≤ x/dh ≤ 17, where dh is the diameter of the pipe. The PDF of the relative angle between the acceleration components and the velocity vector is also included to aid the characterisation. Results show that the acceleration components are described by two distinctive distributions: one of them exhibits symmetry and heavy tails, while the other is best fitted by a power-law type. The tails of acceleration PDFs are heavier with larger radial distance from the core. The increased departure from the Gaussian distribution with the distance from the core is a result of the increasing turbulence levels promoted by the mean shear. The variation of the third and fourth moments between the streamwise–tangential and the radial–normal accelerations indicate the anisotropy of the jet. Joint PDF of each acceleration decomposition exhibits distinctive distribution that appears to depend from the distance from the jet core. However, the vorticity and strain show similar PDF across radial distances. Finally, complementary analysis of a jet from a semicircular pipe shows the footprint of the nozzle geometry in the acceleration structure of jets.


The Holocaust currently forms part of the National Curriculum in England and Wales and is mandatory in several other countries. Its teaching is frequently justified on the grounds of providing a range of important lessons. However, in recent years this claim has met with a growing scepticism, not least because of the persistence of genocide over the past half century. In the course of this article I outline and respond to the views of three historians--Lionel Kochan, Peter Novick and Nicholas Kinloch--who question the social and moral significance of Holocaust education. In contrast to their pessimism I contend that the Holocaust does contain useful lessons, not only for individual students, but for the educational system as a whole.


Aktopraklik is situated 25 km west of Bursa and located on one of the eastern terraces of Lake Ulubat. Having started in the late 7th millenium, a process has been traced uninterruptedly for a period of nearly one thousand years. In Aktopraklik, the Neolithic and Chalcolithic layers have been detected at three different mound formations which we have labelled as A, B and C. In Area B, the remnants of a settlement, which are characterised with the wattle and daub structures and which date to the Early Chalcolithic Era (around 5800–5700 BC), have been detected. Limited area of this layer has been unearthed; thus, our knowledge about this phase's settlement plan is limited, but it is clear that this layer shows close similarities with Ilipinar VII in terms of its architectural technique. This paper presents technological and typological concept of this phase's pottery assemblage. Examining the technological and typological concept of the pottery assemblage of this phase has an importance for understanding the meaning of pottery production and its usage primarily in Aktopraklik scale and then in the region during that period. Archaeometric analysis on the pottery has not been carried out. The pottery assemblage of this layer is divided into groups. Additives, firing conditions and surface colours are taken into consideration during this process, and a typological concept is functionally classified. Pottery assemblage of this layer shows similarities with other settlements that are not only from Northwest Anatolia, but also from other regions in Anatolia and East Thrace. This article aims to contribute to the understanding of this period of time in Aktopraklik scale by evaluating and comparing pottery assemblage from wattle and daub layer according to its material-technique and typological concept.


Being the first step of foaming, bubble heterogeneous nucleation of aluminum foam has remarkable effects on the final cell structure of aluminum foam. The bubble heterogeneous nucleation of foaming Al-9Si and TiH2 powder compact has been analyzed. The results obtained are given as follows: (1)The remaining TiH2 particles act as the nuclei during heterogeneous nucleation. (2)The nucleation rate increases with the increasing of TiH2 content, the decrease of TiH2 granularity, the elevation of foaming temperature, and the elongation of foaming time. (3) Only about 5‰ bubble nuclei can survive and develop to the final foam cells. (4)The influence of processing parameters on the nucleation rate descends by the following sequence: foaming temperature elevates 20°C, TiH2 granularity decreases from 150μm to 26μm, TiH2 content increases 0.5%wt., and the time for foaming extends 10s.


Estimates of climate conditions before the 19th century are based on proxy data reconstructions or sparse meteorological measurements. The reconstruction of the atmospheric circulation that prevailed during the European Little Ice Age (∼1500–1850) has fostered many efforts. This study illustrates a methodology, combining historical proxies and modern datasets to obtain detailed information on the atmospheric circulation that prevailed over the North Atlantic region during the Little Ice Age. We used reconstructions of temperature gradients over France based on grape harvest dates to infer the atmospheric circulation. We found that blocking situations were more likely in summer, inducing a continental atmospheric flow. This study advocates that the reconstructions of the past atmospheric circulation should take this regime into account.


Standard models used for monetary policy analysis rely on sticky prices. Recently, the literature started to explore also nominal debt contracts. Focusing on mortgages, this paper compares the two channels of transmission within a common framework. The sticky price channel is dominant when shocks to the policy interest rate are temporary, the mortgage channel is important when the shocks are persistent. The first channel has significant aggregate effects but small redistributive effects. The opposite holds for the second channel. Using yield curve data decomposed into temporary and persistent components, the redistributive and aggregate consequences are found to be quantitatively comparable.


Purpose
User-generated social media comments can be a useful source of information for understanding online corporate reputation. However, the manual classification of these comments is challenging due to their high volume and unstructured nature. The purpose of this paper is to develop a classification framework and machine learning model to overcome these limitations.

Design/methodology/approach
The authors create a multi-dimensional classification framework for the online corporate reputation that includes six main dimensions synthesized from prior literature: quality, reliability, responsibility, successfulness, pleasantness and innovativeness. To evaluate the classification framework's performance on real data, the authors retrieve 19,991 social media comments about two Finnish banks and use a convolutional neural network (CNN) to classify automatically the comments based on manually annotated training data.

Findings
After parameter optimization, the neural network achieves an accuracy between 52.7 and 65.2 percent on real-world data, which is reasonable given the high number of classes. The findings also indicate that prior work has not captured all the facets of online corporate reputation.

Practical implications
For practical purposes, the authors provide a comprehensive classification framework for online corporate reputation, which companies and organizations operating in various domains can use. Moreover, the authors demonstrate that using a limited amount of training data can yield a satisfactory multiclass classifier when using CNN.

Originality/value
This is the first attempt at automatically classifying online corporate reputation using an online-specific classification framework.


This article offers a combined reading of Karl Löwith's and Leo Strauss's critique of social theory from the point of view of the natural law tradition broadly understood. Within the context of a growing interest in revisiting social theory's debt to natural law, the piece seeks to unfold the connections between the two traditions without searching to restore any kind of natural law. Rather, it looks at their relationships as one of Aufhebung — the suspension and carrying forward — of natural law premises within modern social theory. The works of these two writers point against conventional wisdom within social theory: Löwith's secularization thesis calls into question the view of the irreligious nature of modernity's historical break as well as its faith in immanent progress; Strauss's reconstruction of natural law (right) gives due credit to the non-religious origins of modernity but at the price of withdrawing even more autonomy from any modern claim to self-assertion. Although some compatibility is recognizable in their critiques, I shall also be arguing that their substantive results point to opposite directions. A critical distance must also be maintained from their interpretations in the spirit of reinvigorating the project of modern social theory.


Originalism has played a part in many court decisions including on the issue of whether states can ban same sex marriage. For the most part, the argument goes that the modern constitutional meaning trumpeted by supporters is not the original public meaning of the constitutional provision. Regarding same sex marriage, for example, originalists argue that the original public meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause was the protection of African-Americans from discrimination by states, not the protection of gays and lesbians from discrimination by states. So, the equal protection clause did not and cannot protect gays and lesbians from such discrimination. These arguments assume that originalism should play a significant role in the interpretation of all provisions in the Constitution. This essay argues that this assumption is misplaced. The interpretation of the Constitution must begin with the text. The text of the Seventh Amendment is the only part of the Constitution that explicitly incorporates originalism, doing so through the use of the words "common law" and "preserved" in the context of limiting the authority of the judiciary and the jury. The express inclusion of originalism in the Seventh Amendment necessarily limits the use of originalism for the interpretation of the rest of the Constitution. Originalism must play a lesser role or no role in the interpretation of the rest of the Constitution, including the Fourteenth Amendment. While acknowledging that some role for originalism in the interpretation of the Constitution has been generally accepted, this essay argues that originalism does not strictly govern the Constitution outside of the Seventh Amendment, and nor should it same sex marriage.


This research project is multidisciplinary in nature. It involves the use of biomolecular design –peptide design – and the synthesis of small organic compounds to generate conformational switching in peptide structures.

In this thesis, we demonstrate that we can design and synthesize de novo peptide sequences with the necessary information to assemble as α-helical coiled-coil structures when associated with their corresponding peptide partners. In addition, some of the peptide structures are designed to form both α-helical coiled-coils and fibrous systems.

Since we aim to promote conformational changes in the initial folding states of our peptide assemblies, the design of these individual sequences that we refer to as chassis peptides includes tuneable positions which after being modified will help these changes to happen.

We make use of the Negishi reaction to synthesize unnatural amino acids – pyridyl-alanine analogues – for metal-binding investigations. The insertion of these novel amino acids into our self-assembling peptide systems provides different conformational changes depending on the positions in which these amino acids are inserted. These experiments are an attempt to form novel metal-based chiral biocatalysts. They also allow us to investigate to what extent peptide self-assembly can control metal binding and to what extent the metal binding can control peptide self-assembly.

This research project also includes the synthesis of an azobenzene derivative for trans-to-cis and cis-to-trans photoisomerization. We successfully attached an azobenzene linker to three different coiled-coil forming peptide structures, exhibiting different switching efficiency in each. By using these photoswitches we induce conformational changes in the secondary structure of the peptide structures by the use of light. Some of these are reversible structural changes which makes it a potential power source for protein motors.


Interactions between two aromatic rings with various substituents in a near-sandwich configuration have been quantitatively studied by using the triptycene derived molecular models. This model system allows a stacking arrangement of two arenes to assume a near-perfect face-to-face configuration in its ground state conformation. Comparing to our previous study of the parallel displaced configuration, repulsive interactions are predominant for most arenes currently studied. However, if one arene is strongly electron deficient (Ar2=pentafluorobenzoate), attractive interactions were observed regardless of the character of the other arene (Ar1). For stacking interactions between Me2NC6H4 and C6F5CO groups, a DeltaH of -1.84+/-0.2 kcal/mol and a DeltaS of -2.9+/-0.8 cal/(mol.K) were determined. The general trend in the attractive stacking interaction toward a pentafluorobenzoate is Me2NC6H4>Me3C6H2>Me2C6H3>MeC6H4>MeOC6H4>C6H5>O2NC6H4. The observed trend is consistent with a donor-acceptor relationship and the acceptor is a C6F5CO group.


We derive integral expressions of the equivalent impedance of ring-type coils for induction heating systems. These expressions are obtained by integrating the analytical solution of the field generated by a circular filamentary current placed between two linear and homogeneous semi-infinite media. Constant current density is assumed for the coils, since they are wound with an appropriate Litz wire. The model also gives the magnetic field in the cross section of the windings, which is necessary to calculate the proximity losses in the cables. The solution is given in terms of Bessel function integrals, showing an improvement of the convergence with respect to the filamentary model solution. We constructed several prototypes having different turns and layers and tested them with different substrates. Our measurements confirm the validity of the analytical models.


First of all, this paper reviews the challenges that adolescent literature faces nowadays, its most common topics and motives and its pedagogical function. We shall shortly pay attention to the presence of this literature in the works of Macedonian authors and then we shall focus on this turbulent period in the novels for children and young people by Grozdana Olujik and Metodi Manev, the problems that their heroes are faced with; we shall make a comparison between the two families that the heroes come from and the love which takes the first place as a moving force among people. For that purpose, examples from the novels shall be elaborated, which shall assist in proving the thesis: regardless of which society we belong to, regardless of the social class, the adolescence is present everywhere. We shall be introduced to heroes who are in the period between childhood and maturity, heroes who want to show and prove themselves, to be at the center of attention. All of them go through this rough period of time or, with delay, they are faced with the changes so they are changed as well, and they gradually enter the maturity period, i.e. the world of adults


Understanding the behavior of the fiber/matrix interface region over a range of temperatures is essential for designing composites that will have a high service temperature. In the current work, the interface failure sequence was observed during fiber pushout tests on two model composites (steel/epoxy and polyester/epoxy) with different Young's moduli ratio and residual stress values. Novel photoelastic experiments were conducted on the model composites to measure the interfacial crack length versus load during the fiber push-out test. The data were used to better understand the failure mechanisms during the test and to determine the range of applicability of analytical and computational models of the test. Debonding was observed to occur from either the top or the bottom of the sample depending on the ratio of the elastic moduli of the fiber and matrix and the residual stress state. The pushout data from a polyester/epoxy system which debonded from the top was fit to a shear lag solution to obtain the fiber-matrix interfacial toughness (GIIc). The resulting interfacial toughness was then used to check the predicted debond length as a function of pushout force. The debond length calculated from the shear lag model was less than the measured debond length by a nearly constant 1.5 fiber radii which may correspond to the thickness of the surface effects region for polyester/epoxy.
 In the future, the results of the model experiments will be used to understand the interfacial properties of two representative high temperature composites, SiC/Ti-Al-V and Al2O3/Ti-Al-V. A special high temperature apparatus was constructed for performing the push-out test at temperatures ranging from room temperature to 1000°C under vacuum. Performing interfacial measurements at elevated temperatures can be used to optimize interfacial performance at service temperatures and to better evaluate the effects of residual stresses and matrix ductility on fiber debonding and sliding.


Purpose: Evaluate differences in counts/min, physical activity intensity estimates, and perceived protocol compliance between wearing an accelerometer in the traditional waist attachment site versus worn in the thigh pocket. Methods: Ten participants wore 2 accelerometers concurrently while engaging in 3 treadmill-based laboratory test conditions, including a 4.8 km/h athletic short, 4.8 km/h blue jeans, and 9.6 km/h athletic shorts and one free-living test condition. Accelerometer 1 was attached in the traditional method (belt-worn at the waist) while accelerometer 2 was placed in the front thigh pocket. Questionnaire reported compliance beliefs pertaining to a 7-day wear time protocol were also obtained. Results: All participants self-reported that the pocket option would increase the convenience of study compliance. In laboratory testing, small mean differences were observed for condition 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Larger incongruity in central tendency was identified for vector magnitude and step counts for all laboratory based testing. High agreement was observed for all Bland-Altman analyses. Of practical importance, free-living assessment provided high agreement (≥ 90%) and correlation (r≥.758) between monitors at the two locations, with estimates of time spent in MVPA (r=.962). Conclusion: Results from free living evaluation are promising. Due to the mixed findings across the evaluated metrics for laboratory tests, future research is needed to determine the suitability of utilizing the pocket as a potential site for accelerometer monitoring.


In the face of increasingly frequent extreme weather events, the need to manage climate risk becomes more urgent, especially for the most vulnerable countries and communities. With the aim of reducing vulnerability, climate risk transfer in the form of climate risk insurance (CRI) has been gaining attention in climate policy discussions. When properly designed, CRI acts as a safety net against climate change impacts by providing financial support after an extreme weather event. Two main types of insurance enable payouts: indemnity (traditional) insurance or predefined parameters (index-based) insurance. Individuals, groups, or even governments may take out policies with either type of insurance and receive payouts directly (insurer to beneficiary payout) or indirectly (insurer to aggregator to beneficiary payout). Direct insurance is usually implemented at the micro-level with individual policyholders. Indirect insurance is usually implemented through group contracts at the meso-level through risk aggregators and at the macro-level through the state.


The defunct coal mining industries have turned into slums, and abandoned by its inhabitants, thereby leaving behind a damaged environment with complex social problems. However, in Sawahlunto, Indonesia, abandoned and damaged coal mining industries can be rejuvenated into productive areas that are an environmentally friendly and exciting place to visit. Therefore, this research aims to analyze processes and the various techniques used to rejuvenate the abandoned coal mining area located at Sawahlunto, Indonesia, into an industrial heritage site. The process also acts as a solution to overcoming the environmental threat and social problems associated with the defunct coal mining industry area. This study used qualitative research methods, with data primarily collected through observations and in-depth interviews. Furthermore, in-depth interviews were conducted on various city stakeholders with adequate knowledge of the process and its impact on the rejuvenation of the former coal mining industry area in Sawahlunto. The results showed that the rejuvenation of the former coal mining industry as an industrial heritage site has proven to be the right strategy to generate productivity and restore hope to local communities living around the area. The rejuvenation of the former mining area was also the primary factor driving the city's regeneration. It helped ensure that the area is not turned into slums or deserted by the inhabitants. Currently, Sawahlunto has grown into a highly-valued coal mining heritage city in Indonesia and has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Keywords– post coal mining industry; environmental and social problems; ghost town; rejuvenation of mining area; coal mining heritage; regional productivity


The Summit Exercise was a success because it brought together more than 40 knowledgeable engineers and their thought-provoking work on 30 current engineering topics, and it demonstrated good systems engineering and collaboration. The Exercise resulted in reasonable prioritizations, technical recommendations, and breadth of knowledge expansion for most people on the related topics. The power behind this activity remains available to anyone that takes the time to review the individual presentations and participate in the Exercise. The key aspects for IEEE AESS include the topic selections, the Exercise development, and the summary debriefings from the participants. The SE methodology could be utilized by AESS Chapters as a useful exercise in member introductions, idea generation, and appreciation of IEEE engineering challenges (as demonstrated in the AESS Washington, DC/Northern Virginia Chapters). There would be a benefit to IEEE AESS if these existing and additional topics were further vetted, to a more complete solution, and direct relations to the AESS readers who develop systems in many IEEE areas.


The idea that expanding work and consumption opportunities always increases people's wellbeing is well established in economics but finds no support in psychology. Instead, there is evidence in both economics and psychology that people's life satisfaction depends on how experienced utility compares with expectations of life satisfaction or decision utility. In this paper I suggest that expanding work and consumption opportunities is a good thing for decision utility but may not be so for experienced utility. On this premise, I argue that people may overrate their socioeconomic prospects relative to real life chances and I discuss how systematic frustration over unfulfilled expectations can be connected to people's educational achievement. I test the model's predictions on Italian data and find preliminary support for the idea that education and access to stimulating environments may have a perverse impact on life satisfaction. I also find evidence that the latter effect is mediated by factors such as gender and age. Indeed, the model seeks to go beyond the Italian case and provide more general insights into how age/life satisfaction relationships can be modelled and explained. JEL Classification: A13; D1, D60; H11; I2, J13, J24, I38.


Vascular lesion with consumptive anaemia and thrombocytopenia (Kasabach Merritt phenomenon, KM phenomenon) is considered to be related to congenital vascular malformation rather than genuine haemangioma. Unlike the classical strawberry haemangioma, patients with KM phenomenon are often resistant to both steroid and interferon treatment, and the vascular malformation does not regress spontaneously. In the past 2 decades, various forms of treatment have been advocated but few with consistent effect. Recently vincristine, a commonly used chemotherapeutic agent with an anti-angiogenesis action, has demonstrated encouraging clinical effect in infants and young children with KM phenomenon with tolerable side effects. Recent data suggested that vincristine could control the vascular malformation in KM phenomenon if used early. However, its efficacy on patients with long-standing, refractory KM phenomenon remains unknown. We reported here a young adolescent girl with long and refractory KM syndrome who responded to weekly vincristine treatment. The thrombocytopenia resolved completely within 12 weeks of treatment and the size of the vascular malformation continued to shrink over a span of 1.5 years. Future study targeted at this group of patients will help to verify its efficacy in this clinical setting.


Liquefaction phenomena are of great importance to those concerned with the impounding of mining and quarrying wastes, especially when the waste materials themselves are used for embankment construction. In this respect the effect of particle shape reported by the Authors is of much interest. At Durham University we have been investigating the liquefaction potential of both fine and coarse colliery discards during the past three years, using controlled load and cyclic triaxial tests (Taylor et al. 1978a, b). The examples of stress paths shown in Fig. 1 relate to controlled load tests carried out on coarse discards and other weak-rock aggregates, together with a fine discard test result conducted in the same effective confining pressure range. Two different coarse discard types are represented: (a) strong, coal-rich, platey material from west Wales (path 1), and (b) much weaker material from Nottinghamshire with a high seatearth content (path 2). Non-slaked shale from above the Harvey seam in Co. Durham was made up to the same nominal grading as the west Wales discard; this rock aggregate is represented by stress paths 3 and 4. Stress path 5 is a seatearth specimen from below the Harvey Coal, its particle size distribution being similar to the Nottinghamshire discard. Also shown on Fig. 1 is a test result (path 6) for shaly (non-plastic) tailings from a lagoon at the same west Wales colliery location as material 1. For these tests the stress paths are drawn such that: P̄ =1/2(σ′1 + σ′3) and q =1/2(σ1-σ3); where σ1


An intelligent controller is applied to control the motion of an omni-directional robot in this paper. The controller is based on the brain-emotional-learning algorithm, which is inspired from a computational model of limbic system in the mammalian brain. The brain-emotional-learning-based intelligent controller (BELBIC) with quadratic reward, comparable to linear-quadratic-regulator (LQR) control, is used in an omni-directional robot. The contribution of BELBIC in improving the control system performance is shown via simulation and experimental implementation. The results show that this method can be used in more practical problems efficiently. Optimization of the control effort or other objectives like energy minimization, as additional concerns constitute other advantages of the proposed method.


The tobacco etch potyvirus (TEV) helper component-proteinase (HC-Pro, 460 amino acid residues) is a multifunctional protein involved in aphid-mediated transmission, genome amplification, polyprotein processing, and long-distance movement. To investigate the interrelationships between three of these functions, 25 alanine-scanning mutations affecting clusters of charged residues were introduced into the HC-Pro coding sequence. The resulting mutants were analyzed with respect to HC-Pro proteolytic activity in vitro, genome amplification in protoplasts, and long-distance movement in tobacco plants. Three classes of mutants were identified. Class I mutants (total of 17) were capable of genome amplification, long-distance movement, and HC-Pro proteolysis with efficiencies similar to parental virus. The class III mutant (total of 1) encoded a proteolytically debilitated HC-Pro and was replication-defective. Class II mutants (total of 7) encoded proteolytically active HC-Pro, but each exhibited a suppressed amplification phenotype that was characterized by a progressive shutoff during the course of infection in protoplasts. The class II mutants also exhibited defects in long-distance movement, accumulating to relative levels of 0 to 7.5% in noninoculated tissue. Wild-type HC-Pro supplied in trans was able to partially rescue the class II mutant amplification defects in protoplasts and long-distance movement defects in plants, although the extent of complementation of movement function varied for each mutant. Six of the seven class II mutations affected the central region of HC-Pro between residues 126 and 300, whereas only one affected the C-terminal proteolytic domain. These results indicate that the central region of HC-Pro is necessary for efficient genome amplification and long-distance movement, and that the one or more HC-Pro functions involved in these processes is at least partially trans-active. Additionally, the long-distance movement properties of a previously characterized HC-Pro-defective mutant (TEV-GUS/CCCE) were characterized further using grafted nontransgenic and HC-Pro-expressing transgenic plants. The results indicated that HC-Pro is required in both inoculated and noninoculated tissues to complement the TEV-GUS/CCCE movement defects.


Abstract We evaluated the evolving structure of radiation oncology in Japan in terms of equipment, personnel, patient load, and geographic distribution to identify and overcome any existing limitations. From March 2011 to June 2013, the Japanese Society for Radiation Oncology conducted a questionnaire based on the Japanese national structure survey of radiation oncology in 2010. Data were analyzed based on the institutional stratification by the annual number of new patients treated with radiotherapy per institution. The estimated annual numbers of new and total (new plus repeat) patients treated with radiation were 211 000 and 251 000, respectively. Additionally, the estimated cancer incidence was 805 236 cases, with ~26.2% of all newly diagnosed patients being treated with radiation. The types and numbers of treatment devices actually used included linear accelerator (LINAC; n = 829), telecobalt (n = 9), Gamma Knife (n = 46), 60Co remote afterloading system (RALS; n = 28), and 192Ir RALS (n = 131). The LINAC system used dual-energy functions in 586 units, three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy functions in 663, and intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) functions in 337. There were 564 JASTRO-certified radiation oncologists, 959.2 full-time equivalent (FTE) radiation oncologists, 1841.3 FTE radiotherapy technologists, 131.3 FTE medical physicists, 121.5 FTE radiotherapy quality managers, and 649.6 FTE nurses. The frequency of IMRT use significantly increased during this year. To conclude, although there was a shortage of personnel in 2010, the Japanese structure of radiation oncology has clearly improved in terms of equipment and utility.


The continuing prevalence of poverty and the existence of food insecurity are two of the major risk that threaten the development and stability of countries. Livestock has the possibility to contribute to the sustainable solution of both. In order to achieve this we must: a) Improve both the contribution of livestock to the national GDP and to individual family and producers incomes; b) Work to change the existing popular views around animal production and to reduce any possible impacts of animals to the environment and health; c) Improve the articulation and integration of value chains; d) Improve public policies in order to create an enabling environment for the activity and investment; and e) To bridge the distance between the agricultural innovation systems and the true needs of livestock and all the actors in the value chains. It is proposed that ALPA serves as articulator and coordinator of an inter-American effort to strengthen the contribution of livestock to food security and poverty reduction.


The application of poly(acrylamide‐co‐sodium methacrylate) hydrogel for the removal of Cu2+ and Cd2+ ions from aqueous solutions has been investigated as a function of pH, adsorbent dose and temperature. FTIR spectra showed that –NH2 and –COOH groups are involved in both metal ions adsorption which followed pseudo‐first order kinetics. Non‐linear regression analysis of six isotherms, Langmuir, Freundlich, Redlich‐Peterson, Toth, Dubinin‐Radushkevich and Sips, have been applied to the sorption data, while the best interpretation was given by Redlich‐Peterson. Based on the separation factor, RL, the Cu2+ and Cd2+ ions adsorption is favorable. The maximum adsorption of 24.05 mg/g (48%) for Cu2+ ions and 32.99 mg/g (66%) for Cd2+ ions has been obtained at pH 5.0 and sorbent dosage of 300 mg. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 33: 824–834, 2014


The effect of glucocorticoid (GC) on the GC receptor in human peripheral lymphocytes was studies in vivo and in vitro. Excluding the effect of receptor occupancy, the GC receptor was measured by whole cell binding assay using [3H] dexamethasone as a ligand. The numbers of GC receptor in lymphocytes (whole cell, 8.42 +/- 1.88; nucleus, 3.56 +/- 1.38 fmoles/10(6) cells (M +/- SD) of patients treated with prednisolone (n = 26, mean: 33.7 mg/day) were significantly reduced when compared with those of normal subjects (n = 21; 10.48 +/- 2.40, 5.68 +/- 1.53) and those of patients without GC therapy (n = 9: 10.56 +/- 2.10, 5.26 +/- 1.07), respectively. The dissociation constants among these subjects were almost similar (5-7 nM). There were negative correlations between the receptor numbers (both whole cell and nucleus) of patients and daily dosage of prednisolone. The GC receptor numbers in both the whole cell and the nucleus were significantly decreased after 48 h in vitro preincubation with active GC. When new protein synthesis was blocked by cycloheximide (1 microgram/ml), GC did not reduce its own receptor number in vitro. Thus, the new protein synthesis may be required for this reduction in receptor number by GC. These results strongly suggest that GC down-regulates its own receptor in human peripheral lymphocytes.


This paper presents a discrete-time sliding mode control based on neural networks designed for robotic manipulators. Radial basis function neural networks are used to learn about uncertainties affecting the system. The online learning algorithm combines the growing criterion and the pruning strategy of the minimal resource allocating network technique with an adaptive extended Kalman filter to update all the parameters of the networks. A method to improve the run-time performance for the real-time implementation of the learning algorithm has been considered. The analysis of the control stability is given and the controller is evaluated on the ERICC robot arm. Experiments show that the proposed controller produces good trajectory tracking performance and it is robust in the presence of model inaccuracies, disturbances and payload perturbations.


We present a sentence compression system based on synchronous context-free grammars (SCFG), following the successful noisy-channel approach of (Knight and Marcu, 2000). We define a headdriven Markovization formulation of SCFG deletion rules, which allows us to lexicalize probabilities of constituent deletions. We also use a robust approach for tree-to-tree alignment between arbitrary document-abstract parallel corpora, which lets us train lexicalized models with much more data than previous approaches relying exclusively on scarcely available document-compression corpora. Finally, we evaluate different Markovized models, and find that our selected best model is one that exploits head-modifier bilexicalization to accurately distinguish adjuncts from complements, and that produces sentences that were judged more grammatical than those generated by previous work.


Research into climate change is very much on the worldwide agenda and Flanders and Belgium are no different. Climate discourse in recent decades has mainly focused on the issue of mitigation. Through a better understanding and assessment of climate challenges, adaptation arises as a complementary strategy to mitigation. It is widely recognized that deltas worldwide, where high population densities, rich agricultural resources, high-value infrastructure, and large freshwater flows that converge at the sea, are potentially highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Belgium and the Netherlands are the two most vulnerable countries in the Northern Central Europe, as both are part of the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt-delta (RMS-delta). In this paper the potential impacts for the structures of human activities (i.e. residential and economic) in relation to climate change are described for the Flanders region as part of the ongoing research project CcASPAR. This acronym stands for 'Climate change And Changes in SPAtial structures in Flanders–Research project' (2009–2012), funded by the Flanders Institute for Innovation through Science and Technology (IWT), the project is oriented towards preparing policy in the domain of adaptation possibilities in response to climate change. The aim of the research project is to formulate a spatial adaptation strategy for Flanders. The aim of this paper is to conclude on the one hand some of Flanders's sensitivities in relation to the expected primary effects of climate change. On the other hand a reflection is made on a methodology to formulate preconditions as a scientific basis for further research by design on integrated adaptation options for the future spatial developments in function to upgrade Flanders resilience in relation to climate change challenges.


In order to achieve vehicle information in area passageway, many police bureaus or traffic management bureaus had implemented intelligent monitoring and recording system of vehicle on road. It is very important to cross platform data exchange between different field data recorders and central system, at present, there are amount of different data produced by different secure access systems on road, various data formats are one of the main reason to share and full use those valuable data. To solve this problem, this paper provides a promising methodology by applying XML-based language and tested with system working in the real-world. We put forward XML-based message format for the intelligent monitoring and recording system of vehicle, named road secure-access data markup language (RSA-ML) ,which is the cross platform data exchange specification. The paper also gives the definition, data architecture and RSA-ML schema. At last, the paper applies the language in "one river and three circle" prevention and control system in Shandong province, China.


Diabetic rats were used as a source of brown-adipose-tissue mitochondria 2 days after a single subcutaneous injection of streptozotocin (100 mg/kg). Diabetes caused an 80% decrease in carnitine-dependent oxidation of palmitoyl-CoA and a 50-60% decrease in overt carnitine palmitoyltransferase activity. An additional lesion in brown-adipose-tissue mitochondrial oxidative capacity was also indicated, since diabetes increased by 30-50% the rate of oxidation under uncoupled conditions of several respiratory substrates (i.e. malate + palmitoylcarnitine, malate + pyruvate, succinate, NNN'N'-tetramethyl-p-phenylenediamine + ascorbate). This decrease in mitochondrial function was accompanied by an approx. 30% decrease in the abundance of cytochromes (a + a3) and total cytochromes b.


Yogic exercises showed a positive and significant impact on diabetic adults. In the case of systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure it was found that the reduction level was significant in post-test condition. Similar study is necessary to observe the efficacy Asanas and Pranayama on different age level and gender. Another suggestion may also be that these variables should be included with other variables and different time intervals with an organized manner. The observations suggest that the performance of Asanas led to increased sensitivity of the B cells of pancreas to the glucose signal. The increased sensitivity seems to be sustained for long time resulting in a progressive long term effect of Asanas. The study is significant because, it has for the first time attempted to probe the mechanism by which yogaAsanas reduce blood sugar. In the present study there was a significant fall in the fasting blood glucose levels in the yoga group. All the participants in the yoga group develop a sense of wellbeing without any side effect. So they are self-motivated to continue the yoga practice as a daily routine in their life.


Microaggressions are unintentional or thoughtless behaviors that convey negative messages to members of minority groups. Due to the attributional ambiguity of microaggressions, people often differ in their judgments about how morally bad acts of microaggression are. To account for this individual variation, we explored the potential influence of heavy social media use on individuals' moral judgments of microaggressive behaviors. We hypothesized that, because of the relative acceptance of strong blame expressions on social media, heavy Facebook users would endorse intense moral criticism of microaggressions. Participants read about several agents who committed microaggressions and judged the appropriateness of moral criticism (pretested to vary in degrees from "disapprove of," "chastise," "chew out," to "lash out at") that a friend directed towards the offender. Consistent with our hypothesis, we found a strong correlation (r = .47) between increasing degrees of Facebook use and increasing acceptance of harsher moral criticism for microaggressions.


The effect of treatment at up to 1400 K (HT) under enhanced hydrostatic pressure (HP, up to 1.2 GPa) on helium implanted single crystalline silicon (Si:He, He ion dose up to 6x1017cm-2, energy up to 300 keV) has been investigated by transmission electron microscopy, secondary ion mass spectrometry, photoluminescence and X-Ray methods. The treatment of Si:He at ≤ 920 K - HP results in a formation of buried nano-structured layers containing helium filled cavities/bubbles and numerous extended defects; many less dislocations are created at ≥ 1270 K in Si:He treated under HP. HP affects the recrystallization of amorphous Si, diffusivity of implanted He and of implantation-induced defects and thus promotes the creation of more but smaller He-filled cavities/bubbles as well as other defects near the range of implanted He+.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the effect of iodine containing antiseptics on thyroid function for the first 3 weeks in non-very-low-birth weight preterm and term babies, and to evaluate their thyroid function and behavioral status 7 years later.

METHODS
Cohort I (between the years 1997-1998) was studied in 57 preterm (30-35 weeks) and 29 term newborns, 7 years later cohort II (in the year 2005) was created from same 28 preterm and 18 term infants at Behcet Uz Children's Hospital, Izmir, Turkey. Serum thyrotropin, triiodothyronine, total and free thyroxine were measured on the first, seventh, and twenty-first days (cohort I), and at the age of 7 (cohort II). In respect of used antiseptics, the patients were divided into 2 groups. The evaluation of patients was performed according to the Turgay Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Psychiatric Disorders, 4th edition based child and adolescent behavior disorders screening and rating scale.

RESULTS
On the seventh day of life, iodine-exposed newborns had significantly higher mean thyrotropin levels and lower free thyroxine, total thyroxine, and triiodothyronine levels. On the twenty-first day, thyrotropin levels of iodine-exposed newborns were similar to controls. The cohort II results showed normal thyroid function in all patents with increased hyperactivity among children born prematurely, and particularly experienced exposure to iodine.

CONCLUSION
Iodine excess may cause transient hypothyroxinemia in preterm babies (>30 weeks gestational age, >1.5 kg) and this may be one of the reasons for behavior problems observed later in these children.


Bacterial nucleoid-associated proteins, such as H-NS-like proteins in Enterobacteriaceae, are abundant DNA-binding proteins that function in chromosomal DNA organization and gene transcription regulation. The Mycobacterium tuberculosis Lsr2 protein has been proposed to be the first identified H-NS analogue in Gram-positive bacteria based on its capability to complement numerous in vivo functions of H-NS. Here, we report that Lsr2 cooperatively binds to DNA forming a rigid Lsr2 nucleoprotein complex that restricts DNA accessibility, similar to H-NS. On large DNA, the rigid Lsr2 nucleoprotein complexes can mediate DNA condensation into highly compact DNA conformations. In addition, the responses of Lsr2 nucleoprotein complex to environmental factors (salt concentration, temperature and pH) were studied over physiological ranges. These results provide mechanistic insights into how Lsr2 may mediate its gene silencing, genomic DNA protection and organization functions in vivo. Finally, our results strongly support that Lsr2 is an H-NS-like protein in Gram-positive bacteria from a structural perspective.


A scholarly edition of works by John Donne. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.


Abstract. Hexagon satellite data acquired as a part of USA Corona program has been declassified and is accessible to general public. This image data was acquired in high resolution much before the launch of civilian satellites. However the non availability of interior and exterior orientation parameters is the main bottle neck in photogrammetric processing of this data. In the present study, an attempt was made to orient and adjust Hexagon stereo pair through Rigorous Sensor Model (RSM) and Rational Function Models (RFM). The study area is part of Western Ghats in India. For rigorous sensor modelling an arbitrary camera file is generated based on the information available in the literature and few assumptions. A terrain dependent RFM was generated for the stereo data using Cartosat-1 reference data. The model accuracy achieved for both RSM and RFM was better than one pixel. DEM and orthoimage were generated with a spacing of 50 m and Ground Sampling Distance (GSD) of 6 m to carry out the change detection with a special emphasis on water bodies with reference to recent Cartosat-1 data. About 72 new water bodies covering an area of 2300 hectares (23 sq. km) were identified in Cartosat-1 orthoimage that were not present in Hexagon data. The image data from various Corona programs like Hexagon provide a rich source of information for temporal studies. However photogrammetric processing of the data is a bit tedious due to lack of information about internal sensor geometry.


This paper describes the state-of-the-art of micromachined gyroscopes based on a spinning, electrostatically suspended rotor as proof mass. This approach has numerous advantages over the prevailing approach for MEMS gyroscopes relying on a two degree of freedom vibrating structure and Coriolis force coupling between two modes. The key benefits of a gyroscope with a suspended rotor are its higher scale factor, the absence of mode coupling issues such as quadrature error and that there is no need to tune modal resonant frequencies. The paper reviews the literature on gyroscopes with a spinning, mechanically unconstrained rotor and then reports on the authors' effort to develop such a gyroscope.


Hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated (HCN) channels are members of the voltage-gated channel superfamily and play a critical role in cellular pacemaking. Overall sequence conservation is high throughout the family and channel functions are similar but not identical. Phylogenetic analyses are imperative to understand how these genes have evolved and to make informed comparisons of HCN structure and function. These have been previously limited, however, by the small number of available sequences, from a minimal number of species unevenly distributed over evolutionary time. We have now identified and annotated thirty-one novel genes from invertebrates, urochordates, fish, amphibians, birds and mammals. With increased numbers and a broader representation, a more precise sequence comparison was performed and an evolutionary history for these genes was constructed. Our data confirm the existence of at least four vertebrate paralogs and suggest that these arose via three duplication and diversification events from a single ancestral gene. Additional lineage specific duplications appear to have occurred in urochordate and fish genomes. Based on exon boundary conservation and phylogenetic analyses, we hypothesize that mammalian gene structure was established, and duplication events occurred, after the divergence of urochordates and before the divergence of fish from the tetrapod lineage. In addition, we identified highly conserved sequence regions that are likely important for general HCN functions, as well as regions with differences conserved among each of the individual paralogs. The latter may underlie more subtle isoform-specific properties that were otherwise masked by the high identity among mammalian orthologs and/or inaccurate alignments between paralogs. Page 2 of 58


The aim of this project is the definition of a methodology, designed to create socionatural models able to improve our understanding of ancient populations dynamics and settlement patterns. We propose the integration of Geographic Information Systems exploiting the advantages of free software combined with traditional archaeological techniques (field walking and survey). This work shows the application of this approach in a particular case study of the NE Iberian Peninsula, the middle basin of Ripoll river (Catalonia, Spain) as well as the theoretical and methodological discussions about the use of spatial analysis in archaeology. Also, we used the Libre Office suite for the creation of the database, and Quantum GIS and GRASS for geographical modeling and spatial analysis. The latest rescue excavations in this area has generated a huge volume of information about prehistoric sites. Nevertheless, it is not being used by common research due to the fragmentation and heterogeneity of data. There is some evidence that these prehistoric settlements have been closely related to the location of various water bodies and fertile soil areas. In particular, the Ripoll river are home to the first human groups established within this region. The river and its basin offered Paleolithic groups and early farmers a wide range of animal resources, plants and materials. This landscape was formed by rolling hills and meadows, forests, natural water springs and streams. Moreover, the river can be understood as a place of passage, a real path of cultural transmission and economic and social communication. We suggest spatial analysis and geostatistics as a basic research tool to explore these questions in relation to our area of study. This type of techniques are able to combine geographical, ecological and cultural variables. For this reason we suggest that they could be used to validate or refuse old hypotheses. Moreover, GIS can also integrate data coming from different paleoenviromental analysis, as well as radiocarbon dates. The main aim of this work is to present a useful methodology to integrate data from areas where a high number of rescue excavations were developed. In this sense, spatial analysis and predictive models are excellent tools devised to improve the planning of new excavations and support better management systems.


Glioma stem cells (GSCs) have higher self-renewal capacity than neural stem cells (NSCs). However it is still not clear how GSCs maintain their self-renewal outside their niches and whether or not enhanced self-renewal alone without affecting cell proliferation can promote gliomagenesis. Here we report the generation of a novel conditional KO allele of QKI, a tumor suppressor in GBM with RNA binding motif. When QKI was deleted in NSCs isolated from subventricular zone of Nestin-CreERT2 QKI L/L mice, multiple NSC markers were dramatically increased, including Notch1, Sox2,beta-catenin, ID1 and BLBP. When QKI was deleted in adult Nestin-CreERT2 QKI L/L mice, the NSC population, which is characterized by long-term BrdU retention and GFAP+/Nestin+ double positive staining, was greatly increased, indicating that deletion of QKI enhances NSC self-renewal. Surprisingly, we found that deletion of QKI also decreases cell proliferation rate of NSCs/GSCs, suggesting that QKI deletion makes NSCs/GSCs more quiescent. When QKI −/− NSCs were cultured in differentiation medium, they were not able to differentiate like QKI +/+ NSCs, indicating that QKI is required for NSC lineage determination. To determine whether QKI KO promotes gliomagenesis, we generated a Nestin-CreERT2 QKI L/L Pten L/L P53 L/L cohort, in which 92% of the mice developed glioblastoma starting at 2 months. However, the Nestin-CreERT2 Pten L/L P53 L/L cohort did not develop any glioma up to a year; therefore QKI deletion greatly promotes gliomagenesis. Transcriptomic and proteomic profiling coupled with PAR-CLIP (Photoactivatable-Ribonucleoside-Enhanced Crosslinking and Immunoprecipitation) analyses revealed that genes involved in receptor trafficking were greatly enriched by QKI deletion. Specifically, 34% of the genes up-regulated by QKI deletion are involved in receptor delivery, and 39% of the genes down-regulated by QKI deletion are subunits of receptor degradation machineries such as endosomes and lysosomes. High level of receptor delivery and low level of receptor degradation concomitantly enrich receptors on the membrane and enhance the activity of the receptors that are involved in maintaining stemness, including RTK, Notch1 and Frizzled. Inhibition of the activity of receptors such as EGFR can diminish the enhanced self-renewal and decreased differentiation caused by QKI deletion. Taken together, our data suggest that QKI deletion increases receptor delivery and decreases endocytosis-mediated degradation, consequently enhancing the receptor activity and self-renewal capacity. Therapeutically, because QKI deletion greatly reduces lysosome level and protein degradation capacity, QKI-low cells are under much higher ER-stress compared with QKI-high cells; hence high level of ER-stress may provide an Achilles' heel for QKI-low glioblastoma, and pharmacologically inducing more ER-stress could render cytotoxicity to QKI-low glioma cells while keep normal cells intact. Citation Format: Jian Hu, Takashi Shingu, Liang Yuan. How glioma stem cells maintain stemness outside their niche. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 909.


Italian immigration to South Western France, which started in the early 1920s, presents a particular modality of migrants' integration, as the settlement of Italian newcomers had a major impact on the countryside and on local communities. The aim of the paper is to underline the specific characteristics of this massive immigration,1 especially its rural dimension, and to think through the implications of this specific case for our general insights in the integration process.
The general image of this Italian migration has long been that of a successful and swift assimilation, that is the complete disappearance of the migrant group into French society. It is commonly assumed that the Italians became integrated without any tensions. Interpreting the settlement process of these Italians as a 'miracle' of integration, however, ignores the many difficulties and conflicts, especially during the first decades of their stay.2 These representations overshadow the harshness of the migrants' working and living conditions, while, on the other hand, individual success stories are glorified. In a way such a reading of the past can be seen as the price migrants have to pay for their integration; the price one has to pay in order to lose one's status as a foreigner.3 Thus, it is a manner of imposing invisibility, of tolerating nothing but accepted differences.
To understand better the relations between the Italians and the indigenous French population in the South West, it is necessary to assess the reactions of public opinion at the time. Hence the presentation will emphasise a plural approach combining an analysis of both the sociological dimension and the social discourse it generated. To do so it is also essential to take into account the various systems of representations at work in southern French society.


The coupling mechanism of magnetic molecules to ferromagnetic surfaces is of scientific interest to design and tune molecular spintronic interfaces utilizing their molecular and surface architecture. Indirect magnetic coupling has been proposed earlier on the basis of density functional theory +U (DFT+U) calculations, for the magnetic coupling of manganese(II) porphyrin (MnP) molecules to thin Co films. Here we provide an experimental X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) spectroscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) study of manganese(III) tetraphenylporphyrin chloride (MnTPPCl) on rough (exhibiting a high density of monatomic steps) and smooth (exhibiting a low density of monatomic steps) thin Co films grown on a Cu(001) single crystal toward the assessment of the magnetic coupling mechanism. After deposition onto the surface, MnTPPCl molecules were found to couple ferromagnetically to both rough and smooth Co substrates. For high molecular coverage, we observed higher XMCD signals at the Mn L-edges on the smooth Co substrate than on the rough Co substrate, as expected for the proposed indirect magnetic coupling mechanism on the basis of its predominance on the flat surface areas. In particular, DFT+U calculations predict a weak ferromagnetic molecule-substrate coupling only if the chloride ion of the MnTPPCl molecule orients away (Co-Mn-Cl) from the Co surface.


Durable and easy to clean, tile has been a popular practical material for thousands of years, but its allure extends far beyond its ability to withstand wear and tear. Tile is a medium for bringing light and beauty into a space. Now, with more choices than ever before, tile has become an incredibly popular way to add personalized character to a home. In "The Art of the Tile", tile enthusiast and design writer Jen Renzi walks readers through the basics, from incorporating certain materials in certain areas to installation considerations, from aesthetic aspects to pairing tiles with different patterns or materials in the same area. Focusing on choice and usability, this book is both accessible and inspiring, and will be of immense practical appeal to designers or anyone in search of ideas for their home.


The Thesis describes a new method of duplicating X-ray negatives. It was prompted by the need to acquire for teaching purposes, radiographs of oral and facial conditions which are rarely seen in a purely dental school. The duplication of radiographs had always been a tedious and unsatisfactory procedure generally involving the photographic department and necessitating a series of processes which invariably produced a copy inferior to the original. Confronted by the shortcomings and difficulties of former techniques for radiographic duplication, it seemed desirable to find a simple and efficient method of producing a duplicate radiograph comparable with the original and one which would require no photographic equipment for its production. It was considered necessary to have the process completed entirely within the Radiology Department by the radiographers, using a standardised technique and one which would give uniform results with as little disturbance as possible to the normal routine of the department. The Thesis describes an original and simple method of duplicating radiographs within the confines of the radiographic department, with no disturbance to the normal routine of the radiographers, and without the aid of photographic equipment. The various stages in the evolvement of the new technique are described with the final achievement of producing an enhanced duplicate radiograph from an original X-ray negative. The improvement in both the subjective and objective quality of the duplicate negative was confirmed by Dr. Lenihan, Consultant Physicist to the Western Regional Hospital Board, by a series of densitometer tests. Throughout the Thesis, the results of each experiment were determined by densitometer tests which are presented in graph form and record a gradual improvement in the method of duplication. A description is given of the applications of duplication and a method explained for duplicating a composite series of radiographs upon one sheet of film which can also be made into a photographic slide for teaching purposes. An investigation into the duplication of chest radiographs was carried out at the request of the Mass Radiography Centre, Glasgow. A report on the duplication is included in the Thesis. A chapter describes the application of the technique to diagnostic evaluation of positive and negative duplicates of the original, and deals with such difficult conditions as fractures of the scaphoid bone. A report from the Orthopaedic Department of the Western Infirmary, Glasgow, is included. Finally a description is given of a method of duplication of X-ray negatives by an electronic photographic printer. An appendix accompanies the Thesis and contains the full series of X-rays and duplicates which were used throughout the investigation. They are not necessary for the Thesis proper, which contains sufficient illustrations, but they are included in an appendix for their technical value to radiologists.


The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of DON and T-2 toxin levels on the malt amylase activity. The malt was contaminated in accordance with central composite design experiment with DON and T-2 toxin levels until 1000 ng/g. The activities of the enzymes were evaluated by Bernfeld method. The increase in T-2 toxin concentration inhibited the α-amylase activity. However, the increase of both toxins concentration caused inverse effect. The interaction between toxins indicated synergetic effect on the β-amylase activity. An increased activity occurred when the toxins contamination levels in malt were higher (1000ng/g malt). The trichothecenes interfered with the performance of aminolitic enzymes in the stage of malting, resulting in a significant model for enzymatic activity of β-amylase.


Brain ischemia followed by reperfusion causes neuronal death related to oxidative damage. Furthermore, it has been reported that subjects suffering from ischemic cerebrovascular disorders exhibit changes in circulating platelet aggregation, a characteristic that might be important for their clinical outcome. In the present investigation we studied tert-butyl hydroperoxide-initiated plasma chemiluminescence and thiol content as measures of peripheral oxidative damage in naive and preconditioned rats submitted to forebrain ischemia produced by the 4-vessel occlusion method. Rats were submitted to 2 or 10 min of global transient forebrain ischemia followed by 60 min or 1, 2, 5, 10 or 30 days of reperfusion. Preconditioned rats were submitted to a 10-min ischemic episode 1 day after a 2-min ischemic event (2 + 10 min), followed by 60 min or 1 or 2 days of reperfusion. It has been demonstrated that such preconditioning protects against neuronal death in rats and gerbils submitted to a lethal (10 min) ischemic episode. The results show that both 2 and 10 min of ischemia cause an increase of plasma chemiluminescence when compared to control and sham rats. In the 2-min ischemic group, the effect was not present after reperfusion. In the 10-min ischemic group, the increase was present up to 1 day after recirculation and values returned to control levels after 2 days. However, rats preconditioned to ischemia (2 + 10 min) and reperfusion showed no differences in plasma chemiluminescence when compared to controls. We also analyzed plasma thiol content since it has been described that sulfhydryl (SH) groups significantly contribute to the antioxidant capacity of plasma. There was a significant decrease of plasma thiol content after 2, 10 and 2 + 10 min of ischemia followed by reperfusion when compared to controls. We conclude that ischemia may cause, along with brain oxidative damage and cell death, a peripheral oxidative damage that is reduced by the preconditioning phenomenon.


In order to provide a more complete understanding of physiological impacts of IAA on insects, we investigated the cytotoxic effects of variable doses of IAA on hemocytes of Achoria grisella Fabr. (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) larvae. The results revealed that addition of IAA (2 to 1,000 ppm) in diet of A. grisella larvae resulted in an increase in the total hemocyte counts at all doses tested. The percentage of plasmatocytes decreased but granulocytes increased at 2, 5, 100, 200 and 1,000 ppm. Nevertheless, the application of IAA did not alter mitotic indices, the percentage of spherulocytes, prohemocytes and oenocytoids. The percentage of living cells decreased at all treated doses compared to control interrelated with the elevated ratio of early apoptotic hemocytes at 5, 10, 50, 100 and 200 ppm. Significant reductions were observed at 2, 10, 50 and 100 ppm in the ratio of necrotic hemocytes, and at 10,100 and 200 ppm in the late apoptotic cells in IAA-treated A. grisella larvae. Our findings demonstrate that IAA exhibits detrimental effects on the hemocytes of A. grisella larvae that are the main components of insect immunity.


In this study, a Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) system has been utilized for the regulation of polymerization of a DNA origami structure at the air-water interface as a two-dimensionally confined medium, which enables dynamic condensation of DNA origami units through variation of the film area at the macroscopic level (ca. 10-100 cm(2)). DNA origami sheets were conjugated with a cationic lipid (dioctadecyldimethylammonium bromide, 2C18N(+)) by electrostatic interaction and the corresponding LB-film was prepared. By applying dynamic pressure variation through compression-expansion processes, the lipid-modified DNA origami sheets underwent anisotropic polymerization forming a one-dimensionally assembled belt-shaped structure of a high aspect ratio although the thickness of the polymerized DNA origami was maintained at the unimolecular level. This approach opens up a new field of mechanical induction of the self-assembly of DNA origami structures.


Heterotopic rat heart transplants from Ag-B compatible Fischer strain donors to Lewis recipients were monitored by daily ECG. The median survival time (MST) of control grafts was 12.8 days. Pretreatment of donors with whole-body radiation, cyclophosphamide, or antilymphocyte serum resulted in MST of 19.7, 18.0, and 17.8 days, respectively. Local irradiation of the heart alone did not prolong survival beyond control values, whereas whole-body irradiation with the heart shielded did, indicating that the prolongation achieved by donor pretreatment with radiation, at least, was a systemic rather than local effect. Only slight prolongation was achieved by donor radiation in the Ag-B incompatible BN to Lewis strain combination, demonstrating the importance of histocompatibility matching for the effectiveness of donor pretreatment.


The Copenhagen longitudinal high-risk study of offspring of 129 schizophrenic mothers commenced in 1962. At that time, the mothers were diagnosed according to contemporary Danish criteria. We have re-examined all of the hospital records of these mothers: 108 (84%) fulfil present-day DSM-III criteria for schizophrenia and 95 (74%) were diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic according to ICD-8 criteria. In a follow-up at mean age 24, the offspring of the paranoid schizophrenic mothers were themselves found to be less frequently schizophrenic (5%) than were the offspring of non-paranoid schizophrenic mothers (29%).


Purpose: To describe a patient with mutations in KCNJ13 presenting particular clinical features. Methods: Standard ophthalmic examination, fundus autofluorescence, spectral domain optical coherence tomography, full-field electroretinography. The 3 exons of KCNJ13 were polymerase chain reaction amplified and Sanger sequenced. Patients: A 31-year-old man with Leber congenital amaurosis. Results: Patient had nystagmus since childhood, best-corrected visual acuity limited to 20/400 OD and 20/200 OS, and had cataracts extracted in both eyes. There were clumpy pigment deposits mostly in macular area, causing an uneven line of retinal pigment epithelium on spectral domain optical coherence tomography. In retinal parts devoid of pigment deposits around the optic disk and in periphery, retinal thickness was increased and hyperreflective formations were present either in the inner nuclear layer or in the outer nuclear layer. The patient was compound heterozygous for new mutations in KCNJ13 which encodes the Kir 7.1 potassium channel, c.314G>T (p.Ser105Ile) in exon 2 and c.655C>T (p.Gln219*) in exon 3. Both mutations were absent from databases. Conclusion: KCNJ13 mutations are responsible for early-onset retinal dystrophy, featuring remarkable clumpy pigment deposits at the level of the retinal pigment epithelium, suggesting dysfunction and disorganization of this tissue. Parts of the retina remain relatively preserved anatomically but are increased in thickness. This distinct fundus appearance should help in identifying the "KCNJ13 retinal dystrophy" to orient the molecular diagnosis.


ABSTRACT This article reports a mixed-methods study of Music Therapy (MT) with preterm infants and their parents in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in Colombia. The aim was to find out whether live MT during kangaroo care had an effect on the physiological outcomes of the neonates and would help parents to decrease their anxiety levels and improve parent–infant bonding. The participants were 36 medically stable neonates born between the 28th and 34th week of gestation and their parents. The quantitative data collection included heart rate, oxygen saturation, weight gain, length of hospitalization and re-hospitalization rate. The assessment measures for anxiety and bonding were the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and the Mother-to-Infant-Bonding Scale (MIBS). Thematic analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data collected with semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. The quantitative results showed statistically significant improvements in maternal state-anxiety (p = .007) and in the babies weight gain per day during the intervention period (p = .036). Positive trends were found regarding the babies' length of hospitalization and re-hospitalization rate. Both parents improved their scores with the MIBS, but this was not statistically significant. The qualitative analysis showed that MT was important for parental well-being, for bonding and for fostering the development of the neonates. Interacting musically with their babies helped parents to experience feelings of connectedness and to distract themselves from their difficulties and from the noisy hospital environment.


Fire accidents and evacuation experiments have revealed that people often use familiar exits in fire emergencies. However, the design of emergency exits has also been shown to impact people's choice of exit. In the present research, the use of flashing lights to direct people to emergency exits is explored in a series of experiments in both buildings and road tunnels. Recommendations concerning how the system should be designed are developed based on the results. In addition, a framework (Theory of Affordances) is used to explain and interpret the empirical findings and a research strategy for testing and developing evacuation systems is proposed.


Previous work in our laboratory has shown that fetal protection from maternal transmission of the murine lactate dehydrogenase-elevating virus (LDV) infection is mediated by adoptive transfer of maternal anti-viral immunity. In the present report, we have characterized reconstitution of immunity in immunodeficient SCID mice following transplantation with BALB/c spleen cells, and studied the fate and distribution of maternally-derived antibodies after passage to neonatal SCID mice by nursing. Immune-reconstituted SCID mice maintained stable immunity for up to 7 months post-transplantation, during which time they produced nonneutralizing IgG anti-LDV antibodies and protected their offspring from maternally-derived LDV infection. Using IgG isotype and allotype assays, it was found that maternal IgG antibodies transferred from breast milk to nursing neonatal mice and appeared in their circulation. Weaning of SCID mice from immunocompetent mothers permitted the determination of blood immunoglobulin isotype half-lives (3.6-10.6 days) in the absence of endogenous antibody production. LDV infection was transferred to nursing mice by nonimmune LDV-infected mothers, but protection from nursing-acquired LDV infection was associated with maternal viral immunity, breast milk transfer of IgG anti-LDV to nursing mice, and reduced breast milk virus titers. These findings show a nursing pathway for LDV infection, and demonstrate the potential of immune protection from this infection pathway.


The electrochemical behavior of oxygen (O2) in blood was studied using boron-doped diamond (BDD) electrodes. Cyclic voltammogram of O2 in a 0.1 M phosphate buffer solution solution containing 1 × 10-6 M of bovine hemoglobin exhibits a reduction peak at -1.4 V (vs Ag/AgCl). Moreover, the scan rate dependence was investigated to study the reduction reaction mechanism, which was attributable to the reduction of O2 to H2O2 via two electrons. A linear calibration curve was observed in the concentration range of 86.88-314.63 mg L-1 (R2 = 0.99) with a detection limit of 1.0 mg L-1 (S/B = 3). The analytical performance was better than those with glassy carbon or platinum electrodes as the working electrode. In addition, an application to bovine blood was performed. The O2 concentration in the blood measured on the BDD electrodes was compared to that measured using an OxyLite Pro fiber-optic oxygen sensor device. Both methods gave similar values of the O2 concentration in the range of ∼40 to 150 mmHg. This result confirms that BDD electrodes could potentially be used to detect the O2 concentration in blood.


A description and analysis of concurrent systems, such as communication systems, whose behavior is dependent on explicit values of time is presented. An enumerative method is proposed in order to exhaustively validate the behavior of P. Merlin's time Petri net model, (1974). This method allows formal verification of time-dependent systems. It is applied to the specification and verification of the alternating bit protocol as a simple illustrative example. >


A fluorine-silicon polymer (PFAMS) with pendant perfluoroalkyl and reactive epoxy groups was firstly synthesized by bulk polymerization (Si-H additional reaction) of polymethyltrifluoropropylsiloxane (PFHMS), allylpolyoxyethylene ether (AGE) and perfluorooctyl ethylene (PFOE). Then amino-functionalized nano silica (KH550-SiO2) was prepared via sol-gel method by 3-aminopropyltriethoxylsilane (KH550) and tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS). Finally novel fluorosiloxane polymer/silica hybrid nanocomposites (PFAMS-SiO2) were fabricated through graft copolymerization method by the above two chemicals, PFAMS and KH550-SiO2 and super-hydrophobic cotton fabric was also constructed with contact angle of water on its surface 160.91° through immersing-padding-baking processes. Chemical structure, thermal performance, micro-morphology and hydrophobic property of the hybrid materials and film were investigated by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrum (FT-IR), Thermogravimetric Analyzer (TGA), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Static contact angle analyzer, respectively. Results show that a hydrophobic film and many lotus-leaf-like micro-nano scale tubercles are coated on the surface of cotton fabrics.


This paper constructs a two-country (Home and Foreign) general equilibrium model of Schumpeterian growth without scale effects. The scale effects property is removed by introducing two distinct specifications in the knowledge production function: the permanent effect on growth (PEG) specification, which allows policy effects on long-run growth; and the temporary effects on growth (TEG) specification, which generates semi-endogenous long-run economic growth. In the present model, the direction of the effect of the size of innovations on the pattern of trade and Home's relative wage depends on the way in which the scale effects property is removed. Under the PEG specification, changes in the size of innovations increase Home's comparative advantage and its relative wage, while under the TEG specification, an increase in the size of innovations increases Home's relative wage but with an ambiguous effect on its comparative advantage.


We investigate the interaction between optical parabolic pulses in a Raman fiber amplifier. Self-similar amplification of two identical time-delayed pulses creates an oscillation which further evolves into a train of dark solitons through the combined effects of non-linearity, normal dispersion and adiabatic Raman gain. Theoretical predictions are in good agreement with experimental results.


OF THESIS DESIGN OF A LORENTZ, SLOTLESS SELF-BEARING MOTOR FOR SPACE APPLICATIONS The harsh conditions of space, the stringent requirements for orbiting devices, and the increasing precision pointing requirements of many space applications demand an actuator that can provide necessary force while using less space and power than its predecessors. Ideally, this actuator would be able to isolate vibrations and never fail due to mechanical wear, while pointing with unprecedented accuracy. This actuator has many space applications from satellite optical communications and satellite appendage positioning to orbiting telescopes. This thesis presents the method of design of such an actuator – a self-bearing motor. The actuator uses Lorentz forces to generate both torque and bearing forces. It has a slotless winding configuration with four sets of three-phase currents. A stand-alone software application, LFMD, was written to automatically optimize and configure such a motor according to a designer's application requirements. The optimization is done on the bases of minimum powerloss, minimum motor outer diameter, minimum motor mass, and minimum length. Using that program, two sample space applications are analyzed and applicable motor configurations are presented.


In animals promazine is less sedative, less toxic, and causes the following effects in the body less strongly than chlorpromazine: hypotension, anti-emesis, potentiation of narcotics, mydriasis, reduction of temperature, and blocking of conditioned reflexes. It has a greater antihistamine action than chlorpromazine and greatly reduces aggressiveness in animals. Clinical Effects.-Promazine gives powerful sedation without causing unconsciousness, so that the subject can be roused to eat and to co-operate. This is useful when treating patients in such states of excitement and inanition as acute alcoholic intoxication or delirium tremens, and the withdrawal stage in treatment of drug addiction. 100-400 mg. daily, divided in three or four doses, is the usual dosage required, starting low and increasing until the required calming is produced. The lack of irritation after intramuscular injection is an advantage. Promazine has also been found helpful in treating restless old people. Daily doses 'of 400-1,000 mg. have been given over periods of several months to chronic schizophrenics, with a considerable reduction in dose when an improvement has been obtained; but these patients usually do distinctly better on chlorpromazine. There is no evidence that it is of benefit in depression or neurosis. Contraindications.-Promazine should not be given to patients under the influence of narcotics or when the leucocyte count is low. Side-effects.-These have been fewer than with chlorpromazine. In particular jaundice has not been reported and laboratory tests show no evidence of liver damage. Drowsiness and dizziness occur frequently, postural hypotensive effects and Parkinsonism infrequently. Epileptic fits are provoked more often than with any other phenothiazine. Fatal agranulocytosis has been reported. N.H.S. Basic Price.-250 tabs. of 25 mg., 27s. 9d.; of 50 mg., 52s. 4d.; of 100 mg., 102s. 6d.; amps., 10 x 2 ml.,


This article explores different interpretations of the Mexican Revolution (1910–1917) in Vicente Blasco Ibáñez's El militarismo mejicano (1920) and Ramón María del Valle Inclán's Tirano Banderas (1926). Spain's colonial legacies and neocolonial practices in the Americas were mobilized by Spanish writers to discuss not only the revolutionary processes experienced in Mexico, but also to argue about Spanish internal politics and to define the meaning and import of the emerging concept of Hispanidad. This mode of writing can be best understood through the concept of postcolonial stereography: descriptions and discussions of the former colonial possessions by metropolitan writers are not only postcolonial ethnographies; they also contain a wealth of commentaries on social and political customs and events in the former metropolis. It is consequently a writing in two directions that uses the postcolonial country, in this case Mexico, as a site to discuss side by side two societies that share many political trends and social habits but are also distinctly separate. Blasco Ibáñez's description of the protofascist military dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923–1929) as a "mejicanización" of Spanish politics, exemplifies this mode of writing as he spuriously detects unwarranted influences of the former colony on the metropolis. Blasco Ibáñez's earlier series of newspaper articles on the Mexican Revolution evidence an ethnocentric, occidentalist rejection of the social emancipatory promises of the Revolution. In contrast, Valle-Inclán's fictional approach to the Revolution reveals an orientalized representation of the corrupt Hispanic elite as the source of postcolonial social unrest.


Angiostrongylus vasorum is a metastrongyloid parasite that infects the pulmonary arteries and respiratory tract of wild and domestic canids. Foxes serve as a disease reservoir and gastropod intermediate hosts and vertebrate paratenic hosts transmit infection between canids. A. vasorum infection is currently considered enzootic in areas of Europe, South America, Africa, and North America, and has become more common in eastern coastal Canada over the past decade. The only reported cases of A. vasorum infection in the United States were in a greyhound imported from Ireland and in a dog abandoned in Long Island. Since there is concern that A. vasorum may have spread to the United States from Canada, this project aimed to initiate a survey of the northeastern United States for the presence of A. vasorum. The heart and lung tissues of 14 foxes from northeastern New Hampshire were examined, but no A. vasorum worms were recovered. As a model for A. vasorum infection in gastropods, snails were infected with first-stage larvae of Aelurostrongylus abstrusus or Didelphostrongylus sp, two metastrongyles that also use snails as intermediate hosts. Third-stage A. abstrusus larvae were recovered from one successfully infected snail after snail tissue digestion in a pepsin/HCl solution. This project established a working PCR detection methodology, snail infection and digestions protocols, and a library of metastrongyle DNA to be used in testing methods for A. vasorum detection.


The balanced scorecard is a framework that organizations follow in aligning the organization strategy, communicate organization's mission, prioritize projects, services and products as well as monitoring and measuring the advancement towards attaining the strategic objectives or targets. The overall organizational performance of Kenyatta National Hospital is still not up to standard even though it is anticipated to established high health-care standards offered to the public so that private and public hospitals can follow. Reports have revealed that cancer, heart, and kidney patients receive delayed treatment. In addition, the hospital is said to lack enough functional specialized medical equipment as well as inadequate financial support, industrial unrests, patients overcrowding, claims of medical negligence and poor service delivery. Therefore, it a major concern to the government and other stakeholders. Based on these challenges, Kenyatta National Hospital introduced a five-year strategic plan 2013 to 2018 centred on the Balanced Scorecard approach. It was within this context that the study sought to establish the influence of balanced scorecard perspectives on organizational performance of Kenyatta national hospital. The study was guided by the following specific objectives; to find out whether focus on customer perspective, financial perspective, internal business processes perspective, learning and growth perspective influence the performance of KNH Kenya. The study was also guided by Stakeholder theory, Resource based view theory and institutional theory. The study adopted a descriptive research design with quantitative techniques. The target population for the study were 80 management staff of KNH. The sample size for the study was calculated to be 67. The study used stratified random sampling procedure and simple random sampling to recruit a sample that represented the target population. Data was collected using a pre-tested structured questionnaire to capture participants insight on balanced scorecard perspectives and the overall organizational performance. Their responses on several items were scored and the scores were used in bivariate analysis and Multiple regression analysis. Descriptive statistics like measures of central tendency were used for continuous data while frequencies were used for categorical data. The data analysis was done using SPSS version 23. These results show that financial perspective and customer perspectives focus were statistically significant predictor of organizational performance at (p<0.05) while internal business process and learning and growth were not statistically significant when regressed together. An R squared of 0.593 which implied that focusing on all of the balanced scorecard perspectives contributed up to 59.3% of organizational performance. The study concludes that focus on balanced scorecard perspectives have a positive influence on organizational performance. However, there are variation on the magnitude of influence among the perspective. Therefore, the balanced scorecard can be used as a strategic management tool in public facilities and not only as a measurement tool. The study recommends that KNH should continue using the balanced scorecard and other public hospitals or institutions should also adopt it. The continuous usage and new adoption of the balanced scorecard would ensure better organizational performance.


Aim: The general objective of the present research was to study the association between type 1 diabetes and celiac disease, and the effects of dietary gluten on the risk of developing type 1 diabetes. More specific aims were as follows: to estimate the prevalence of celiac-disease-associated autoantibodies in children with type 1 diabetes; to study the connection between non-HLA genetic risk markers and autoantibodies associated with type 1 diabetes and celiac disease during the first year after diagnosis of type 1 diabetes; to investigate the effect of gluten on the risk of developing type 1 diabetes; to evaluate the impact of perinatal factors on the risk of developing both type 1 diabetes and celiac disease.
Methods: Serum samples from children with (Studies I and II) or without (Study I) type 1 diabetes were analyzed using a combined deamidated gliadin peptide and tissue transglutaminase antibody assay, and also a tissue transglutaminase autoantibody radioligand binding assay. BALB/c mice and NOD mice were used in Study III, and FACS, qPCR, and immunohistology were performed to assess the effects of a gluten-free diet versus a standard diet on expression of the NK cell receptor NKG2D and its ligands. In Study IV, the Medical Birth Register was used to identify all singletons born in Sweden between 1987 and 1993, and the Swedish National Inpatient Register was used to identify cases of type 1 diabetes and celiac disease. Thereafter, multinomial logistic regression models were employed to estimate odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals for having type 1 diabetes, celiac disease, or both these disorders in relation to factors known to be associated with celiac disease.
Results and conclusions: There was a discrepancy in levels of the celiac-related antibodies between children with type 1 diabetes in Denmark and those in Sweden, independent of HLA genotype, which suggests a difference in exposure to environmental factors between these two neighboring countries. Approximately 5% of children with type 1 diabetes developed celiac disease autoimmunity (CDA) during the first year of type 1 diabetes. Furthermore, a subpopulation was homozygous for IL18RAP, which may modulate the risk of developing CDA in type 1 diabetes. In animal experiments, dietary gluten seemed to affect the immune system of both immune-competent BALB/c mice and diabetes-prone NOD mice, and a gluten-free diet lowered expression of NKG2D and its ligands. Comorbidity of type 1 diabetes and celiac disease was associated with several perinatal risk factors, including Caesarean section, birth during summer, female gender, and being born to mother born in Sweden.


Zinc selenide and zinc sulphide are wide band-gap II-VI compound semiconductors which are capable of emitting visible luminescence. These two compounds form a series of solid solutions throughout the whole range of composition, with band-gaps ranging from 2.7 eV in ZnSe to 3.6 eV in ZnS at 300 K. The main purpose of the research reported in this thesis was to study the luminescence of Zn(S,Se) crystals grown in the department, with the eventual aim of producing light-emitting diodes capable of covering a colour range from the red to the blue. The undoped mixed crystals show two emission bands, whereas ZnSe and ZnS emit single self-activated bands. These emission bands are interpreted as being due to the presence of two distinct self-activated centres in the mixed crystals. It is concluded that the self-activated centre in ZnSe is not directly comparable to the centre in ZnS. Several samples were doped with copper during the growth. These crystals showed two separate emission bands throughout the range of composition which shift from the red (6450 Ǻ) and the green (5350 Ǻ) in ZnSe through to the green (5320 Ǻ) and the blue (4400 Ǻ) in ZnS. There is a continuous shift in the position of the peaks with varying composition; this contrasts with other reports for the copper emission. Samples were doped with manganese since this produces an efficient luminescence centre in ZnSe and ZnS. The Mn(^2+) emission occurs near 5860 Ǻ with a half-width of 0.15 eV at 85 K throughout the range of composition of the mixed alloys. This has been established by using 5300 Ǻ radiation in the lowest energy excitation band to stimulate the luminescence. The Mn(^2+) emission is quenched in ZnSe following treatment in zinc/copper and the red copper emission predominates. The copper emission in such a sample is excited by characteristic manganese excitation radiation, and it is suggested that the Mn(^2+) emission may be quenched by a de-excitation to a copper centre.


Endophytic bacteria is a group of microorganisms that have an important role in secondary metabolite income. Leaf sampling from mangrove plants was done purposive random sampling. Isolation of endophytic bacteria with spread plate method. Screening of endophytics for antibactrial producing is done by paper disc method. Five antibacterial bacterial isolates were obtained on mangrove leaf, three isolates had inhibition zone against Escherchia coli bacteria, four isolates had inhibition zone against Staphylococcus aureus bacteria and two bacterial isolates against both test bacteria. Physiological characterization and biochemical test were obtained for four suspected species, Enterobacter sp., Bacillus sp.1, Klebsiella sp. and Bacillus sp.2.


The method of extracting protein from wool was studied for the purpose of reusing the waste wool. The aqueous solution of wool keratin was prepared with Sodium Shlfide as reductive agent. In this paper, PVA was used to mix with keratin in different proportions. Both solutions were cast to obtain blended films. Scanning electron microscopy investigation showed that the surface of blended films was rough and uneven and the surface of the pure keratin film had small peridiole. FTIR analysis indicated that the secondary structure of the keratin was influenced by the blending ratios. Compared with wool fiber, the keratin film cast from aqueous solution showed a decrease in the amount of α-helix structure, while β-sheet and random coil conformations increased. When the keratin solution and PVA solution were blended in the ratios of 40:60, the film was flexible and rigid, and had good mechanical properties. This study encourages the further investigation of the applications of wool keratin films in the biomedical field, which could provide a new way to reuse various waste feathers.


We modeled an optical system for estimation of the fractal dimension to provide a measure of surface roughness for an entire image and for image segmentation. Although the simulated optical result was similar to that calculated by digital techniques, both suffered from problems known to occur with estimating fractal dimension. Furthermore, the optical estimation did not have as good a resolution as that obtained with digital estimates due primarily to the limited dynamic range of the detector.


The purpose of this paper is to present a detailed description of model based programming (MBP) approach for addressing problems associated with designing complex control systems. Text-based programming tools are pooled with lengthy paths in designing the complex system. With this view in consideration, the concept of graphical programming language is evolved. The graphical languages provide simplicity which can be easily manipulated by the user in an interactive way. These languages use specific spatial grammar for program construction. Lab VIEW being a graphical programming language supports system design platform. Such a platform provides engineers with the tools needed to create and put forth measurements and control system. With its built-in engineering- specific libraries of software functions and hardware interfaces, one can program mathematical model instead of writing text codes. The above said lesson is illustrated by considering a case study i.e., design of Automatic Gain Controller system (AGC) using MBP approach. Automatic Gain Control is used in electronic devices where maintaining a constant signal level at the output in-spite of the variation in the input level. The case study demonstrates that Model based approach helps one in programming complex systems without much knowledge of conventional programming languages.


ABSTRACT This study attempts to evaluate the possibility of power cooperation through the simulation analysis of electricity markets in Northeast Asian regions using the Generation-Transmission Maximization (GTMax) modeling. GTMax is a useful tool for analyzing power interconnection among countries and a software to maximize net revenues when an equilibrium for power trade and operation of power system is reached under the physical and institutional constraints. And it also contributed to building strategies based on hourly trade volumes, costs, and revenues by players participating in competitive electricity market. From the simulation results, this study indicates that the effect from interconnection with North Korea or Russia to domestic Korea electricity market is not so big. However, direct connection of transmission network from Korea to Russia has a clearly positive effect on power cooperation. Moreover, it is expected that power cooperation will be done in a way South Korea mainly imports. To maximize the effect of power transfer, it is absolutely necessary to expand the transfer capability of transmission line. Nonetheless, in CASE 5 (interconnecting South Korea with North Korea, Russia and China) scenario, positive effect in average LMP in South Korea is not likely to happen compared with CASE 2 (interconnecting South Korea with North Korea) scenario. And positive effect in average LMP in South Korea has been appeared in CASE 6 (interconnecting South Korea with North Korea, Russia, China and Direct transfer from Russia to Korea though power network) scenario.