My thesis addresses several issues of importance to probability education, presented in four separate studies. The first study attends to definitions and examples of probability offered through resources and produced by undergraduate students. The findings suggest that the everyday notion of probability predates and dominates students' conception of mathematical probability and point out the important role learner-generated examples play in identifying the scope of learners' understanding of probability. The second study examines the distinction between mathematical and everyday aspects of zero-probable and one-probable (extreme) events as featured in a variety of resources and as exemplified by prospective secondary school teachers. Moreover, different types of probability apparent from examples are identified and discussed. The results suggest that the participants use a range of subjective, theoretical, and logical approaches to construct probability examples in everyday and mathematical contexts. The results identified the need for a clear distinction between the notions of 'zero-probable' and 'impossible' in probability instruction and call for pedagogical attention to this issue. The third study provides an overview of some of the ways in which randomness is defined in mathematics. The study examines and interprets undergraduate students' examples, definitions, and ideas related to randomness by analyzing the participants' written responses, verbal communications, and gestures. The findings were strongly related to those of previous research. The gesture analysis further identified some aspects of randomness that were less apparent in participants' verbal responses. The fourth study examines undergraduate students' arguments concerning the probability of a fixed and unknown event. The goal of the study was to identify ambiguity caused by the interaction between everyday and mathematical probability in participants' responses. The findings suggest that reflective tasks in which students are asked to examine and reflect on opposing probability arguments may help learners to reconcile some conflicting probability ideas. Overall, my research provides enhanced understanding of how participants perceived probability related ideas, as evident in their examples, definitions and gestures. Based on the results of my research, I present ideas and tasks for instructional implementation aimed at provoking discussion about different interpretations of probability and strengthening student understanding.


The relationship between declining economic performance and the failures of our educational system has been apparent for over a hundred years. One key factor which determines a country′s standard of living is the skills and cumulative learning of its workforce. As a country, we need to improve the knowledge and skills of the average member of the workforce when they finish their education, and to raise the number of young people staying on at school until 18. We also need to redesign the A level system so that students study a wider range of subjects, and to increase over the next decade the number of students going to a university or polytechnic.


Time grating sensor transforms space domain information to time domain and measures spatial displacement with time. To develop high precision time grating CNC rotary table and reduce the dynamic position feedback error of the table, circular position predictive measurement method is proposed for transforming time domain information back to the space domain based on time-space transformation technology. Predicted values are obtained by modeling the measured values with time series theory, and the last prediction error is corrected in real time using the current measured values. Modeling method and parameter estimation algorithm are presented. To confirm the validity of the position prediction method, an experimental system is designed. The dynamic prediction error of the rotary table circular position is 2, and precise predicting is achieved.


Abstract Limiting factors affecting faunal distribution in the Ordovician rocks of the Precordillera basin, western Argentina, are analyzed and tentatively established. Eight biotic intervals ranging from the Tremadoc to the Ashgill are defined based upon the distribution in time and space of articulate brachiopod, trilobite, sponge, and bryozoan genera. High magnitudes of turnover are recognized on the basis of vertical ranges of taxa; this observation also is supported by low indices of carryover and holdover. Times of high faunal change define boundaries between the biotic intervals. Abiotic constraints largely prevail over ecological factors in controlling most substantial shifts in faunal composition and distribution at the interval boundaries. Taxonomic composition through different intervals is consistent with a change in paleobiogeographic affinities throughout the Ordovician, from markedly Laurentian affinities in the lowermost Ordovician to increasing Gondwanic affinities towards the Middle and Late Ordovician. At a smaller scale, the development of successive intervals is overprinted strongly by changes in facies and tectonic-induced setting. The composition and structure of assemblages were modified dramatically in the late Arenig-early Llanvirn with the changeover from sponge and brachiopod-dominated assemblages to brachiopod and trilobite-dominated assemblages with abundant bryozoans. This change occurs in consort with a shift from carbonate facies to mixed carbonate-siliciclastic and exclusively siliciclastic facies, and is considered to be the result of sea-level rise and the development of subsiding depocenters in the northern and southern parts of the Precordillera basin. On paleoecological grounds, this episode has allowed the biotic intervals to be grouped in two distinct stages. The lower stage includes intervals 1 to 3, whereas the upper stage includes intervals 6 to 8; intervals 4 and 5 represent the diachronous arrangement of both types of assemblages due to the gradual southward flooding of the basin. Abiotic factors acted at different temporal and spatial scales. Hence, their effect on faunal composition is explained best by distinguishing hierarchical levels of incidence. On this basis, three major hierarchical levels of factors are proposed. The general context in which faunas developed is provided by the shifting position of the Precordillera terrane throughout the Ordovician; accordingly, a first-order hierarchical level is represented by paleogeographic position. The second-order level is represented by the combined effects of rapid sea-level rise and basin deepening, with a high paleoecological impact on the fauna. The third-order level includes single factors producing minor changes in otherwise stable community structures (e.g., minor sea-level changes, fluctuations in water temperature, different facies types).


ABSTRACT Introduction: Friedreich ataxia (FRDA), a rare disease caused by the deficiency of the mitochondrial matrix protein frataxin, affects roughly 1 in 50,000 individuals worldwide. Current and emerging therapies focus on reversing the deleterious effects of such deficiency including mitochondrial augmentation and increasing frataxin levels, providing the possibility of treatment options for this physiologically complex, multisystem disorder. Areas covered: In this review article, the authors discuss the current and prior in vivo and in vitro research studies related to the treatment of FRDA, with a particular interest in future implications of each therapy. Expert opinion: Since the discovery of FXN in 1996, multiple clinical trials have occurred or are currently occurring; at a rapid pace for a rare disease. These trials have been directed at the augmentation of mitochondrial function and/or alleviation of symptoms and are not regarded as potential cures in FRDA. Either a combination of therapies or a drug that replaces or increases the pathologically low levels of frataxin better represent potential cures in FRDA.


In the late Trecento Fra Pietro da Pavia, a miniaturist in the court-city of the dukes of Milan, illuminated a copy of Pliny's Natural History for Pasquino Capelli, a famous bibliophile and one of the most powerful chancellors to Duke Giangaleazzo Visconti. In the illuminated letter M that begins book XXXV, which contains Pliny's discussion on ancient artists, Fra Pietro signs and dates the manuscript Frater Pietro da Papia me fecit, 1389. Within the framing curves of the letter the illuminator further commemorates his involvement in the manuscript's creation by means of a small but exquisitely detailed self-portrait in which Pietro shows himself industriously at work. Although created in an era in which art patrons possessed and sometimes exercised the right of refusal should a commissioned work of art not meet their standards, this self-portrait has hitherto not been interrogated for either the purpose behind its presence or how its original audience might have understood it. This essay attempts to shed light on both issues by examining the historical context surrounding the creation and format of Pietro's self-image, and by considering Pietro's signature inscription in relation to Pliny's discourse on the meaning behind the use of the word "fecit" in an artist's signature. It further considers the influence exerted by Francesco Petrarca [Petrarch] on the Milanese court in order to suggest that the presentation of Fra Pietro's self-image drew upon Petrarch's model of authorial identity in a way that the illuminator's important patron would have appreciated and perhaps encouraged.


ABSTRACT In many physiological studies, variables of interest are not directly accessible, requiring that they be estimated indirectly from noisy measured signals. Here, we introduce two empirical methods to estimate the true physiological signals from indirectly measured, noisy data. The first method is an extension of Tikhonov regularization to large-scale problems, using a sequential update approach. In the second method, we improve the conditioning of the problem by assuming that the input is uniform over a known time interval, and then use a least-squares method to estimate the input. These methods were validated computationally and experimentally by applying them to flow-through respirometry data. Specifically, we infused CO2 in a flow-through respirometry chamber in a known pattern, and used the methods to recover the known input from the recorded data. The results from these experiments indicate that these methods are capable of sub-second accuracy. We also applied the methods on respiratory data from a grasshopper to investigate the exact timing of abdominal pumping, spiracular opening, and CO2 emission. The methods can be used more generally for input estimation of any linear system. Summary: We introduce two methods to recover true physiological signals from indirectly measured data. As a demonstration, we show precise recovery of gas-exchange patterns from a grasshopper recorded in a flow-through respirometry system.


Background: The prevalence of hypertension is increasing in rural populations of India, but the contribution of diet and socio-economic position (SEP) to hypertension in these regions is not well understood. Moreover, there are limited data on the assessment of diet in rural populations of India using culturally specific dietary tools. Aims: To (1) validate a culturally modified 24 hour dietary recall questionnaire for use in rural Indian populations; (2) determine the prevalence of malnutrition in a disadvantaged population; (3) assess the proportion of households consuming non-iodised salt; (4) investigate the association between dietary factors and hypertension; and (5) investigate the relationship between SEP and hypertension. Methods: This study was conducted in a rural farming population in the Rishi Valley, Andhra Pradesh. Data were collected from a case-control study of hypertension, on 300 age-, sex-, and, where possible, village- matched pairs of adults. Blood pressure and anthropometry was assessed by trained field workers. Blood and urine samples were collected for 229 individuals. Socio-demographic and lifestyle information were obtained using questionnaires. Data on daily intake of energy and nutrients were calculated from a culturally modified 24 hour recall questionnaire. Conditional logistic regression models were used to assess the associations between dietary and socio-economic variables, with the outcome of hypertension. Results: There was strong agreement between the amount of food reported to be consumed from 24 hour recall interviews and those weighed (n = 45). Individuals were severely deficient in energy and all macro- and micro- nutrients, with women being significantly more deficient than men in iron (n = 600, P < 0.001). Additionally, 82% of households (n = 37) were not receiving adequate iodine from salt. In a sub sample of the population (total n = 215), serum potassium (odds ratio (OR) 0.40 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.20−0.84, P = 0.01) and magnesium (OR 0.23 95% CI 0.06– 0.90, P = 0.03) were inversely associated with hypertension. We did not detect a statistical association between intake of salt and hypertension, despite salt intake being high (7.3 g/day). Physical inactivity (OR 3.0, 95% CI 2.0−4.6, P < 0.001) and belonging to an advantaged social class (OR 3.2, 95% CI 1.4−7.7, P = 0.008) were positively associated with hypertension. In men alone, polygamy, consuming alcohol and consumption of at least one egg a week were positively associated with hypertension. In women, body mass index (BMI) was associated with hypertension. Conclusion: Traditional risk factors for hypertension such as alcohol consumption, sedentary lifestyle and obesity, exist in the setting of poverty in this rural Indian community. These risk factors co-exist with population specific risk factors such as social class and polygamy. Failure to detect an association between fruit and vegetable intake with hypertension could relate to the homogeneity of inadequate intake of food exhibited by the entire population. We found that intake of micronutrients, other than salt, were inversely associated with hypertension. Therefore, interventions should be developed to encourage the consumption of foods rich in magnesium and potassium in this population to help reduce hypertension.


The development of a safe and efficient bioreactor design has remained a challenge for the clinical application of immobilized enzymes. Specifically, the use of immobilized heparinase I has been the target of many studies to make heparin anticoagulation therapy safer for the critically ill patient with kidney failure or heart disease. We have investigated the use of Taylor-Couette flow for a novel type of bioreactor. In a previous study, we showed that the fluidization of agarose immobilized heparinase within Taylor vortices in whole blood can lead to extensive blood damage in the form of cell depletion and hemolysis. Based on these findings, we designed and developed a reactor, referred to as vortex-flow plasmapheretic reactor (VFPR), that incorporated plasmapheresis and fluidization of the agarose in the reactive compartment, separate from the whole-blood path. In the present study, immobilized heparinase I was tested as a means of achieving regional heparinization of a closed circuit. This is a method in which heparin is infused into the extracorporeal circuit predialyzer and neutralized postdialyzer. Saline studies were performed with an immobilized heparinase I-packed bed and with the VFPR. An in vitro feasibility study was performed with the VFPR using human blood. The VFPR achieved heparin conversions of 44 +/- 0.5% and 34 +/- 2% in saline and blood, respectively. In addition, the VFPR caused no blood damage. We report a novel method to achieve fluidization which depended on secondary, circumferencial flow, and was independent of the primary flow through the device.


Autophagy is a cellular catabolic process in which various cytosolic components are degraded. For example, autophagy can mediate lipolysis of neutral lipid droplets. In contrast, we here report that autophagy is required to facilitate normal levels of neutral lipids in C. elegans. Specifically, by using multiple methods to detect lipid droplets including CARS microscopy, we observed that mutants in the gene bec-1 (VPS30/ATG6/BECN1), a key regulator of autophagy, failed to store substantial neutral lipids in their intestines during development. Moreover, loss of bec-1 resulted in a decline in lipid levels in daf-2 [insulin/IGF-1 receptor (IIR) ortholog] mutants and in germline-less glp-1/Notch animals, both previously recognized to accumulate neutral lipids and have increased autophagy levels. Similarly, inhibition of additional autophagy genes, including unc-51/ULK1/ATG1 and lgg-1/ATG8/MAP1LC3A/LC3 during development, led to a reduction in lipid content. Importantly, the decrease in fat accumulation observed in animals with reduced autophagy did not appear to be due to a change in food uptake or defecation. Taken together, these observations suggest a broader role for autophagy in lipid remodeling in C. elegans.


In this paper, we report on the realization of a capillary discharge soft x‐ray laser operating at 46.9 nm pumped by a 30 kA peak value, 150 ns half cycle duration current pulse (corresponding to a mean current slope of about 5 1011 A/s). The slope of the pumping current is sufficiently high to produce the plasma compression and laser amplification on the 3p‐3s, J=0–1 transition of Ne‐like Ar, in 2.4–4 mm in diameter alumina capillary channels. We have analyzed the output pulse characteristics of the produced laser beam, such as the lasing time and the pulse duration, the saturation and the output pulse energy, the near field image as a function of different experimental parameters. Using the same current pulse, the lasing effect has not been observed in polyacetal capillaries, demonstrating the damning role of the wall capillary ablation in the heating and in the stability of the plasma column during the z‐pinch compression.


Abstract Perhaps more than any other US composer, Aaron Copland is associated with Pan Americanism, a contradictory and often unbalanced set of practices promoting North-South economic and affective ties since the nineteenth century. Copland visited Latin America on behalf of the US government four times over the course of his career. He also befriended and taught Latin American composers, wrote about Latin American music, and composed several Latin-American—themed works, including the well-known El salon Mexico . Focusing on one such encounter—Copland9s three visits to Argentina (1941, 1947, 1963)—this article examines in detail Latin American opinion on Copland9s cultural diplomacy, thus challenging the prevalent one-sided and largely US perspective. My analysis of these Spanish-language sources yields new biographical data on Copland while questioning recent assessments of his Latin American experience. I also illuminate the composer9s conflicted approach to modernism, intimately connected to his desire to communicate with a broad public and to assert national identity. The crisis of modernism not only played itself out in some surprising ways in Argentina but also informed Copland9s profoundly anti modernist vision of Latin American music, one rooted in essentialism and folkloric nationalism and which ultimately prevailed in the United States throughout the late twentieth century.


This integrative literature review aimed to identify nursing actions for stimulating child development in national and international journals, between 2000 and 2009. Medline and Lilacs were examined, with analysis of fifteen articles. Results point out ludic elements as essential for child development and state that it should be explored by nursing professionals through art, music, toys and theatre. Soften the stress of hospitalization through environmental adjustments reduces its impact on child development. Guiding and intervening in the inter-relationships are nursing actions for the social and behavioral development of children. The themes addressed in literature are essential to the nursing practice in comprehensive child care.


Written by some of the most distinguished literary translators working in English today, these essays offer new and uncommon insights into the understanding and craft of translation. The contributors not only describe the complexity of translating literature but also suggest the implications of the act of translation for critics, scholars, teachers, and students. The demands of translation, according to these writers, require both comprehensive scholarship in preparing to translate a text and broad creativity in recreating the text in a new language. Translation, thus, becomes a model for the most exacting reading and the most serious scholarship. Some of the contributors lay bare the rigorous methods of literary translation in comparisons of various translations of the same piece; some discuss the problems of translating a specific passage; others speak about the lessons learned over the course of a career in translation. As these essays make clear, translators work in the space between languages and, in so doing, provide insights into the ways in which a culture makes the world verbal. Exemplary readers both of authors and of their individual works, the translators represented in this collection demonstrate that the methodologies derived from the art and craft of translation can serve as a model to revitalize the interpretation and understanding of literary works. Readers will find the opportunity to look over the shoulders of the translators gathered together in this volume an exciting and surprising experience. The act of translation emerges both as a powerful integration of linguistic, semantic, cultural, and historical thinking and as a valuable commentary on how we communicate both within a culture and from one culture to another.


Temporal hypergraphs provide a powerful paradigm for modeling time-dependent, higher-order interactions in complex systems. Representation learning for hypergraphs is essential for extracting patterns of the higher-order interactions that are critically important in real-world problems in social network analysis, neuroscience, finance, etc. However, existing methods are typically designed only for specific tasks or static hypergraphs. We present CAT-Walk, an inductive method that learns the underlying dynamic laws that govern the temporal and structural processes underlying a temporal hypergraph. CAT-Walk introduces a temporal, higher-order walk on hypergraphs, SetWalk, that extracts higher-order causal patterns. CAT-Walk uses a novel adaptive and permutation invariant pooling strategy, SetMixer, along with a set-based anonymization process that hides the identity of hyperedges. Finally, we present a simple yet effective neural network model to encode hyperedges. Our evaluation on 10 hypergraph benchmark datasets shows that CAT-Walk attains outstanding performance on temporal hyperedge prediction benchmarks in both inductive and transductive settings. It also shows competitive performance with state-of-the-art methods for node classification.


Consumers increasingly relied on Word-of-Mouth (WOM) and Electronic-Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) to make purchase decisions and share consumption experiences. However, the inconclusive views about the differences between WOM and eWOM, along with their associated issues suggested that studies in this domain are still underdeveloped. Particularly, the common understanding of these phenomena largely relied on the unsuitable process model of communication (i.e., Shannon and Weaver). This study showed the differences between WOM and eWOM along with their characteristics across different product types by using a well-established theory from linguistic domain, SFL. The researcher took a mixed methods embedded design (Statistical and Linguistic) by conducting a 2x2 experiment and recruiting 40 participants. The results from the statistic stream showed that consumers' WOM was not linguistically equivalent to eWOM. Furthermore, the results indicated that hedonic products were highly loaded with information and lexis in comparison to utilitarian products. The results from linguistic stream indicated that the differences in the peer-to-peer communication's characteristics (e.g., tie-strength, valence) were likely to be an artefact of other factors like communication mediums (i.e., WOM and eWOM) or the service types (i.e., Hedonic and Utilitarian) being considered, not differences in the actual characteristics of message. Together, this research has made wide ranges of contributions. As such, this thesis: exposed the inappropriateness (appropriateness) of process model (SFL) for studying peer-to-peer communication (Theoretical), and assisted marketers (consumers) to know what criteria they needed to focus on when promoting (searching for) different products (Practical).


The Mayo Clinic is the world's oldest and largest integrated multispe cialty group medical practice, combining clinical practice, education, and research at the regional, national, and international levels for the benefit of individuals with routine as well as complex health care needs. Mayo's model of integrated care is one of multi disciplinary practice with salarybased compensation that fosters teamoriented patient care and peer accountability, a supportive infrastructure allowing physicians and other caregivers to excel at clinical work, and a physicianled governance structure promoting a patientcentered culture. Full integration of the hospital and clinic and the use of a shared electronic medical record across inpatient and outpatient settings also have been critical to realizing efficiencies and promoting clinical excellence. Mayo fosters a learning environ ment in which teams of medical professionals use information technology and systems engineering to learn from each other and improve care in tandem with clinical practice.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to advance the research on the relationship between developmental human resource management (HRM) practices and voluntary intention to leave among information technology (IT) professionals from the Indian IT sector by investigating the mediating role of affective commitment.

Design/methodology/approach
This study adopted a cross-sectional design at the individual-level of analysis. Data on the study constructs (i.e. developmental HRM practices, affective commitment, and voluntary intention to leave) were collected from 752 IT professionals from 17 Indian IT organizations from the city of Bengaluru through a web-based survey between February 2016 and March 2017. Further, this study used the confirmatory factor analysis technique to establish reliability and construct validity for the study constructs. Furthermore, this study tested the research hypotheses empirically through mediated multiple-regression analysis using the bootstrap procedure.

Findings
Empirical results of the present study suggest that espousal of robust developmental HRM interventions enhances affective commitment and significantly attenuates the voluntary intention to leave among employees. Further, the results of this study have indicated that the relationship between developmental HRM practices and voluntary intention to leave was partially mediated by affective commitment.

Originality/value
Past empirical studies on HRM – turnover discourse, in the IT sector, have predominantly examined the direct influence of HRM systems and/or internal labor market strategies on turnover intentions and actual turnover behavior. Rarely have the past studies in the IT domain attempted to examine the intervening role of employee attitudes in the relationship between HRM practices and employee-level outcomes. Addressing this gap, the present study enunciates the critical role of affective commitment and situates it as an important variable that mediates the relationship between developmental HRM practices and voluntary intention to leave among IT professionals in India.


We consider approximate dynamic programming in $\gamma$-discounted Markov decision processes and apply it to approximate planning with linear value-function approximation. Our first contribution is a new variant of Approximate Policy Iteration (API), called Confident Approximate Policy Iteration (CAPI), which computes a deterministic stationary policy with an optimal error bound scaling linearly with the product of the effective horizon $H$ and the worst-case approximation error $\epsilon$ of the action-value functions of stationary policies. This improvement over API (whose error scales with $H^2$) comes at the price of an $H$-fold increase in memory cost. Unlike Scherrer and Lesner [2012], who recommended computing a non-stationary policy to achieve a similar improvement (with the same memory overhead), we are able to stick to stationary policies. This allows for our second contribution, the application of CAPI to planning with local access to a simulator and $d$-dimensional linear function approximation. As such, we design a planning algorithm that applies CAPI to obtain a sequence of policies with successively refined accuracies on a dynamically evolving set of states. The algorithm outputs an $\tilde O(\sqrt{d}H\epsilon)$-optimal policy after issuing $\tilde O(dH^4/\epsilon^2)$ queries to the simulator, simultaneously achieving the optimal accuracy bound and the best known query complexity bound, while earlier algorithms in the literature achieve only one of them. This query complexity is shown to be tight in all parameters except $H$. These improvements come at the expense of a mild (polynomial) increase in memory and computational costs of both the algorithm and its output policy.


The nocturnally foraging cardinalfishes are known to exhibit a high degree of fidelity to their daytime resting sites. However, the microhabitats chosen as resting sites, the degree of specialisation on live coral substrata and the degree of overlap among apogonid species have not been described. These patterns potentially affect how declining coral availability will impact the diversity and abundance of apogonid assemblages. Here, microhabitat use, abundances and patterns of co-occurrence are examined for 10 common reef-dwelling apogonids in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea. Nine of the 10 species were strongly associated with live scleractinian corals, with more than 80% of the individuals resting in branching forms. The exception was Apogon nigrofasciatus, a specialist on cave or crevice habitats. Among the available coral species, the vast majority of cardinalfishes were associated with a single coral species (Porites cylindrica), although the degree of specialisation varied among species. Apogon leptacanthus and Sphaeramia nematoptera were almost always only found on P. cylindrica, while Apogon bandanensis, Apogon compressus, Apogon fragilis, Archamia fucata, Archamia zosterophora, Cheilodipterus artus and C. quinquelineatus also used a range of other corals. There was a positive relationship between the range of substratum types used and the number of groups of each species observed. The 9 coral-dwelling apogonids exhibited a high degree of overlap in depth range and in the use of coral microhabitats. Over 75% of aggregations were made up of more than one fish species. The high level of both specialisation and overlap in habitat use suggests that the future biodiversity of cardinalfishes in Kimbe Bay could be linked to the fate of a single coral species.


Ionospheric state parameters including plasma number density and vector drift profiles were measured at the Jicamarca Radio Observatory during campaigns throughout 2013. Neutral winds were measured by the redline Fabry Perot interferometer at Jicamarca. Coherent radar backscatter from plasma irregularities associated with equatorial spread F (ESF) was also recorded. Radar imagery of the morphology of the large-scale ESF irregularities is also available from simultaneous measurements. A 3D numerical simulation of ionospheric irregularities, initialized and forced using parametrizations derived from a combination of measurements and empirical models, has been used to reproduce the ESF activity that occurred on a number of different, representative campaign nights. The simulations were able to recover many of the most salient features of the irregularities that formed in each case. The campaign data, numerical simulations, and protocols used to associate them are presented.


A general configuration suitable for realizing low-pass and high-pass ladder filters and transformer simulator, depending on the passive element selection is proposed. The proposed network employs only grounded passive components without requiring matching conditions. The values of the synthetic inductances of the transformer and low-pass ladder filter can be changed independently. SPICE simulation results confirming the theoretical analysis are included.


To the Editor.— Seventeen patients with chronic psoriasis have responded favorably to abrasive treatment. Fine sandpaper was used for a few days; then, a medium grade was substituted. Some oozing usually occurs for a few days. The 3M and Armour brands of sandpaper are acceptable. Various ointments are applied after the scales are removed by the sandpaper. These include: fluocinolone acetonide; anthralin; ammoniated mercury; coal tar-water miscible; and combinations of salicylic acid and coal tar. The oldest patient was 70 years old, who had diffuse chronic psoriasis for 30 years (author). The hands were severely involved, causing considerable embarrassment. Some of the patients had received potassium arsenite (Fowler's solution); aminopterin sodium; methotrexate, and cortisone orally with temporary relief. One 40-year-old patient had severe psoriasis limited to the palms. She had been treated by x-ray, along with topical applications by two different dermatologists with no significant response. She had relatively deep fissures with severe itching. She treated herself several times a day. The photos indicate her progress (Fig 1 through 3). She has continued to improve.


We investigated the role of androgens in premenopausal breast cancer by comparing serum testosterone, dihydrotestosterone, androstenedione, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate, progesterone, sex-hormone-binding globulin-binding capacity, and urinary testosterone and androstanediol in 63 women with breast adenocarcinoma and 70 healthy controls of similar age. With variables dichotomized at the 75th percentile, the age-adjusted relative risk was 3.4 (95% confidence interval, 1.6-7.3) for high versus low levels of serum testosterone, 2.1 (0.9-4.8) for urinary testosterone, and 2.5 (1.1-5.9) for serum dihydrotestosterone. We observed no differ ences in other hormones. The strength of the associations changed markedly with increasing time to the onset of the next menses. The risk for testosterone and dihydrotestosterone, which was negligible in women with onset within 5 days of sampling, increased progressively to nearly 10-fold higher than in unstratified data in women with onset 10 days or more after sampling. This study provides arguments in favor of a role for increased androgenic activity in premenopausal breast cancer. It also suggests that unknown factors related to cycle length may be important in modulating the strength of the association with testosterone. The results are discussed also in reference to possible biases and inadequacies in study design.


Theory argues that both soil conditions and aboveground trophic interactions are equally important for determining plant species diversity. However, it remains unexplored how they modify the niche differences that stabilise species coexistence and the average fitness differences driving competitive dominance. We conducted a field study in Mediterranean annual grasslands to parameterise population models of six competing plant species. Spatially explicit floral visitor assemblages and soil salinity variation were characterized for each species. Both floral visitors and soil salinity modified species population dynamics via direct changes in seed production and indirect changes in competitive responses. Although the magnitude and sign of these changes were species specific, floral visitors promoted coexistence at neighbourhood scales while soil salinity did so over larger scales by changing the superior competitor's identity. Our results show how below and aboveground interactions maintain diversity in heterogeneous landscapes through their opposing effects on the determinants of competitive outcomes.


this paper describe the design and performance of all-fiber video distribution (AFVD) systems based on AM/FM FDM subcarrier multiplexing (SCM) and erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs). The impact of applying EDFAs to SCM analog video distribution systems is investigated. AM/FM hybrid systems, which can simultaneously distribute 11 AM TV channels and 50 FM TV channels are proposed and discussed. Four-stage amplifier-branch transmission experiments are introduced. The construction and performance of a newly designed 50-channel FM tuner are also presented.


The Korean War is multiple wars. Not only is it a war that began on 25 June 1950, it is also a conflict that is rooted in Korea's colonial experiences, postcolonial desires and frustrations, and interventions and partitions imposed by outside forces. In South Korea, the war is a site of contestation: Which war should be remembered and how should it be remembered? The site has been overwhelmed by Manichean official discourse that pits evil communists against innocent Koreans and that seeks to silence other memories that do not conform. But the hegemonic project remains unfinished in the face of the resiliency embodied in the survivors who have withstood "triple killings" by the state. The historical significance of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Republic of Korea (TRCK), lies in its success in bringing back to life the voices of the silenced that complicate the hegemonic memory of the war as yugio, the "June 25th war." At the same time, the Commission embodies the structural dilemma that the effort to give voice to the silenced has turned to the state to redress the state's wrongdoings. The TRCK as such stands on the problematic boundary between violence and post-violence, insecurity and security, exception and normalcy. Truth and reconciliation, and human security, are perhaps located in a process of defining and redefining the boundary. The historical contention over the Korean War constitutes such a political struggle for the future.


In the VET field the challenges for didactic are various and complex considering that learning is organized and takes place in very different contexts, that is, classroom and workshop. Research questions adressed at the round table are: How does context of learning influences the didactical organization of the learning process? What didactical specificities are associated to the role of the teacher and instructor respectively?Significant challenges are also posed by the aims of the learning process; whether it concerns understanding whole production process or specific technological devices and operations. Equally, questions for didacticians in the VET field emerge from the form of the learning process, whether it will be tutoring/mentoring or group teaching. Are we then in need to develop a specific didactics to deal with challenges of vocational knowing?; if so, what should be its main features?Example Denmark: Students at Danish VET are diverse, many are challenged academically and socially. In terms of resolving high drop-out rates, problems with students' academic progress and reducing negative effects of social background in general, teachers' pedagogic competencies and didactical skills are important, specifically their competencies in differentiated teaching. That is emphasised in recent reforms concerning the national educational programme for new teachers at VET in 2010, describing that teachers must acquire skills in "planning, organising, implementing and evaluating" "differentiated teaching" (National Study Programme 2011, 2015). Drawing on Bernstein´s theory about framing and recontextualisation (1996, 1997, 2003), the contribution analyses how these demands are interpreted and practiced at the VET teacher program, and with which consequences. The analysis is based on results from an ethnographic inspired research project including fieldwork, interviews and different kinds of documentary in four different educational contexts.Example Germany: During the 1980s, school-based education within the german dual system of vocational education and training saw heavy criticisms. The industry's representatives particularly criticised that the school-based education was far from reality, not contributing towards tackling the challenges of working life in the companies. In other words: the schools were not oriented towards the customer. In response to this critique the concept areas of learning (German = Lernfeld-Konzept) was introduced in 1996 as a structural principle for the framework curricula. The reform had wide-ranging consequences not only on the course and lesson design, but also on the organisational framework conditions of the schools, the cooperation between schools and companies and the required qualification profile of the teachers. The classic distinctions of "theory equals school-based learning" and "practical experience equals work-based learning in companies" are to be removed through the orientation of school-based content to the practical requirements of the vocational and professional work. In this framework a new diadctic approach was needed: The school-based curriculum is no longer structured in subjects, but constructed into work-oriented and process-related areas of learning. Areas of learnings are didactically-founded equivalents of vocational spheres of activity that are handled at school. They are made up of complex tasks, which are then handled pedagogically using action-oriented learning situations. The strengths, weaknesses and pitfalls of the didactics occured in the last 10 years will be focused.Two more perspective will be present: Norway and Sweden. In Norway the dual principle is sequentialized: Two years theory are followed by two years practice. This system division is followed by a segmentation of didactics and a fraction in teaching and learning. In Sweden the system is homogenous but the school-based system is widely self-referential and the linkage to the adjacent systems (higher education and labour market) opens two differnt options of orientation with consequences to the didactics.The common question of the presented cases is "Didactics: Breakup or Awakening?"


"Atlas of Cardiovascular MR", by Christopher M. Kramer, MD and W. Gregory Hundley, MD, provides the rich visual guidance you need to effectively diagnose cardiovascular problems using the latest cardiac magnetic resonance imaging approaches. Using a case-based approach, this new clinical reference explains how to select and implement the best imaging options for every type of cardiovascular disease and shows you how to interpret your findings. An Expert Consult site, included with the book, provides additional images and videos that provide further clarity on cardiovascular applications of MR imaging.


In the last decade, large database of images have grown rapidly. This trend is expected to continue in to the future. Retrieval and querying of these image in efficient way is a challenge in order to access the visual content from large database. Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) provides the solution for efficient retrieval of image from these huge image database. Many research efforts have been directed to this area with color feature being the mostly used feature because of its ease of extraction. Although many research efforts have been directed to this area, precision  of majority of the developed models  are still at less than 80%. This is a challenge as it leads to unsatisfying search results. This paper proposes a Content Based Image Retrieval model for E-Commerce.


There are few Americans who would not recognize Charles Moore's most famous photographs. His images of the civil rights movement have become, and remain today, internationally known icons - vivid, scaring portraits of pivotal moments in the struggle for racial equality in the American South. This chronological collection of Moore's most compelling and dramatic images, taken as the movement progressed through Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Georgia, highlights activity from 1958 to 1965. Included are the iconic scenes of black protestors huddled in a doorway to escape the crippling blasts of fire hoses in Birmingham; a white bigot swinging a baseball bat seconds before cracking it on the head of a black woman during the desegregation of the Capitol Cafeteria in Montgomery; a young and stunned Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. pinned to the counter of a police precinct, his arm twisted behind his back; the devastating aftermath of "Bloody Sunday" on the Edmund Pertus Bridge in Selma; and Bull Connor's police dogs tearing mercilessly at the legs of a protestor in downtown Birmingham. Celebrity protestors - comedian Dick Gregory, poet Galway Kinnell, singers Joan Baez, Mary Travers, Pete Seeger, and Harry Bellafonte, actor Pernell Roberts, and writer James Baldwin - are featured alongside the many nameless but committed participants and the recognized major leaders of the movement. Powerful Days was first published in hardcover in 1991. This new paperback edition will make these famous images, so etched in the memory of those who lived through the social changes of the 1960s, available again to enlighten a younger generation eager to know more about the national struggle that overthrew Jim Crow.


Background: In 2010, the Swedish Stroke Register (Riksstroke; RS) established a module for transient ischemic attacks (RS-TIA). We report a diagnostic validation study of patients included in RS-TIA. Methods: During the first year, 7,825 patients were registered at 59 out of 74 Swedish hospitals. A time-based TIA definition was applied. A sample of 180 patients (30 patients each from 6 hospitals), with a similar distribution of age and sex as in RS-TIA, was prepared. Two independent observers assessed medical records for quality of documentation and assigned a diagnosis of likely, possible, unlikely TIA or ischemic stroke, according to prespecified criteria. Results: The 2 observers agreed in 77% of cases that the event was a likely or possible TIA, in 3% that the event was an ischemic stroke, and in 2% that the event was an unlikely TIA. The observers disagreed in 8% of patients on TIA vs. ischemic stroke, and in 11% on a vascular vs. non-vascular cause. Quality of documentation was fair. Conclusions: There was interobserver agreement on diagnosis of TIA in the majority of patients included in RS-TIA. Diagnostic accuracy may be further improved by more systematic documentation of symptoms and signs.


— Hydrogels are three-dimensional, hydrophilic, polymeric networks composed of homopolymers or copolymers and are insoluble in water due to the presence of chemical or physical cross-links. When hydrogels come in contact with aqueous solutions, they can effectively sorb and retain the dissolved substances, depending on the nature of the monomeric units comprising the hydrogel. For this reason, hydrogels have been proposed in several studies as water purification agents. At the present work anionic hydrogels bearing negatively charged –COO - groups were prepared and investigated. These gels are based on sodium acrylate (ANa), either homopolymerized (poly(sodiumacrylate), PANa) or copolymerized (P(DMAM-co-ANa)) with N,N Dimethylacrylamide (DMAM). The hydrogels were used to extract some model organic dyes from water. It is found that cationic dyes are strongly sorbed and retained by the hydrogels, while sorption of anionic dyes was negligible. In all cases it was found that both maximum sorption capacity and equilibrium binding constant varied from one dye to the other depending on the chemical structure of the dye, the presence of functional chemical groups and the hydrophobic-hydrophilic balance. Finally, the nonionic hydrogel of the homopolymer poly(N,N-dimethylacrylamide), PDMAM, was also used for reasons of comparison.


Anaerobic treatment systems have been successfully applied over the last decade for combating wastewater pollution loads in the forest industry. However, anaerobic treatment of certain paper mill waste streams is limited by the presence of toxic and recalcitrant organic compounds, high concentrations of sulfur and in some cases high wastewater temperatures. Nonetheless, the future perspectives for the anaerobic treatment of difficult forest industry wastewaters are encouraging. This paper discusses a variety of measures available to anaerobic treatment technologies for dealing with the aforementioned limitations.


LiMn2O4 were prepared by pulsed laser deposition technique. Two important deposition parameters such as substrate temperature and oxygen partial pressure during the thin film deposition were controlled. Systematic characterizations like RBS, SEM, TEM and electrochemical studies were performed on to the prepared samples. The SEM data demonstrated that the films exhibited a smooth surface roughness with spherical droplets. The grain size increased with the increase of substrate temperature. The electrochemical measurements were carried out on Li//LiMn2O4 cells with a lithium metal foil as anode and LiMn2O4 film as cathode of 1.5 cm2 active area. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurements have been carried out at sweep rate α = 1 mVs-1. Specific capacity of133 mC/cm2 μm was measured for the film grown at 700 oC.


The history of humanity has registered conventions about illness and treatment, in a dialectics that is mediated by material and objective conditions, where health practices can be identified. In the field of mental health, conceptions of psychic sickening and therapeutics can be identified in different periods of political and economic development and in the organization of human society, since the origin of times to the contemporary period. This article proposes a connection between health/mental illness process comprehension and treatments, referring to the historical contexts in which they were/are registered and searches for the meaning of practices and their current social meaning.


By cyclic torsion tests on thin walled tubular specimens the influence of a resulting strain increment per cycle on the plastic flow behaviour of Al99,5 and normalised QT-steel 42CrMo4 has been investigated. Thereby large shear amplitudes were chosen and the amount of forward and backward shear was varied. In both materials with increasing portion of backward shear a transition from cyclic hardening to cyclic softening was observed. It has been demonstrated that a certain ratio of forward and backward shear can cause a rise of the forming limit, which can exceed by far the value for monotonic deformation. The mechanical behaviour under cyclic incremental deformation is associated with certain substructure evolution. In dependency on deformation parameters especially the formation of dislocation cells and subgrains has been observed.


Urban stormwater has recently been considered a potential water resource to augment urban water supplies; however, the existence of emerging contaminants limits urban stormwater utilization. This study aims to use woodchip bioreactors, which are natural and inexpensive, to remove emerging contaminants from artificial stormwater, with a focus on the contaminant removal processes in the woodchip bioreactor and on the effects of operational parameters on the system performance. Seven commonly detected emerging contaminants - acetaminophen (ACE), caffeine (CAFF), carbamazepine (CBZ), ibuprofen (IBU), sulfathiazole (SFZ), benzotriazole (BT) and 5-methyl-1H-benzotriazole (5-MeBT) - were studied. The results showed that the removal efficiency and removal processes are heavily dependent on the compound. ACE and CAFF have the highest removal efficiencies (≥80%), and sorption and biodegradation are both crucial for their removal. However, IBU exhibits very limited sorption and biodegradation and hence has the worst removal (≤15%). The removal efficiencies of the other compounds (SFZ, CBZ, BT and 5-MeBT) range from ∼30 to 60%, and sorption is likely the main removal process. The effects of several operational parameters, including woodchip type, operation time, season and flow rate, on the removal rate of emerging contaminants were also explored. The results of this study showed that the woodchip column system, which is capable of sorption and biodegradation, represents a promising treatment process for removing emerging contaminants from urban stormwater.


Significance Wetland environments are increasingly threatened by climate change, population expansion, resource extraction, forest clearance, and pollution. The Ramsar Convention aims to monitor internationally important wetlands to ensure their ongoing maintenance and survival through wise use and management. However, many wetlands have undergone substantial human-induced changes prior to being listed with Ramsar. In the case of Lake Kutubu, a Ramsar wetland situated in the tropical rainforests of Papua New Guinea, paleoecological indicators preserved in lake sediments have been used to identify baseline conditions and to track anthropogenic impacts over time. This methodology can be applied to wetlands around the world to determine baseline environmental conditions and to track historic ecological changes in areas where constant monitoring has not been possible. The impacts of human-induced environmental change that characterize the Anthropocene are not felt equally across the globe. In the tropics, the potential for the sudden collapse of ecosystems in response to multiple interacting pressures has been of increasing concern in ecological and conservation research. The tropical ecosystems of Papua New Guinea are areas of diverse rainforest flora and fauna, inhabited by human populations that are equally diverse, both culturally and linguistically. These people and the ecosystems they rely on are being put under increasing pressure from mineral resource extraction, population growth, land clearing, invasive species, and novel pollutants. This study details the last ∼90 y of impacts on ecosystem dynamics in one of the most biologically diverse, yet poorly understood, tropical wetland ecosystems of the region. The lake is listed as a Ramsar wetland of international importance, yet, since initial European contact in the 1930s and the opening of mineral resource extraction facilities in the 1990s, there has been a dramatic increase in deforestation and an influx of people to the area. Using multiproxy paleoenvironmental records from lake sediments, we show how these anthropogenic impacts have transformed Lake Kutubu. The recent collapse of algal communities represents an ecological tipping point that is likely to have ongoing repercussions for this important wetland's ecosystems. We argue that the incorporation of an adequate historical perspective into models for wetland management and conservation is critical in understanding how to mitigate the impacts of ecological catastrophes such as biodiversity loss.


The modifying potential of butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) administration on pancreatic carcinogenesis was evaluated in 70 female Syrian golden hamsters. Groups of animals received saline, 70 mg/kg body weight of N-nitrosobis(2-oxopropyl)amine (BOP) or 70 mg/kg plus 20 mg/kg body weight of BOP followed by basal diet or diet containing 2% BHA from week 3. Although the body weights of hamsters receiving the 2% BHA supplement decreased, caloric restriction was not observed. All hamsters were killed at week 18 and histopathologically examined for lesion development. The incidences of pancreatic carcinomas in hamsters receiving 70 mg/kg plus 20 mg/kg body weight of carcinogen followed by 2% BHA was 7.1%, significantly lower than the 64.3% evident in hamsters given the same doses of BOP followed by basal diet. The total numbers of pancreatic lesions including carcinomas, atypical ductal hyperplasias and ductal hyperplasias and ductular proliferations in the liver were also significantly decreased in animals receiving BOP followed by 2% BHA. The results thus indicate that both pancreatic and cholangiocellular carcinogenesis initiated by BOP in Syrian hamsters can be inhibited by 2% BHA treatment for a relatively short experimental period.


Original scientific paper Abstract: This paper presents the results of a case study to investigate different alternatives for the energy supply to a municipality on the western coast of Norway. The following alternatives for energy supply are modelled and analysed: i) a district heating system with three different heat centrals, ii) a natural gas distribution system and iii) a low temperature distribution system. The case study is performed with the optimization model "eTransport" developed for the planning of local energy systems where several alternative energy carriers and technologies are considered simultaneously. The model minimizes the total energy system cost of meeting the demands of electricity, heating, cooling and gas within a geographical area over a given planning horizon. The model uses a detailed network representation of infrastructures to consider investments in distributed central stations, components, cables and pipelines. The object function includes investments, operating and environmental costs.


The preparation of CsPbX3 nanoplatelets and the investigation of their optical properties have been rarely reported. Herein, the successful development of all-inorganic CsPbX3 (X = Cl, Br, or I) perovskite quantum dots has been achieved and their unique optical and electrical properties are discussed. apre-dissolution assisted solvothermal reaction was developed to synthesize ultrathin (∼3 nm) CsPbBr3 nanoplatelets with strong exciton absorption, with a 0.41 eV blue-shifted emission relative to that of CsPbBr3 nanocrystals and a high quantum yield of 28%. Anion exchange allowed the variation of the halogen content of the nanoplatelets and allowed them to retain their shape and size and achieve multi-color emission.


A radio-on-fiber (ROF) based road-vehicle communication system is described in which several radio base stations (RBSs) communicate with a control station (CS) over ROF connections. The RBSs use the same millimeter-wave frequency band to communicate with mobile stations (MSs). The result is one large virtual cellular zone encompassing several RBSs controlled by one CS. However, in one virtual cellular zone, interference arises at the bound between adjacent cellular zones because the RBSs in each zone transmit their signals using the same frequency band. To minimize this interference, code division multiplexing is used to modulate the signals sent between the MSs and RBSs. Testing using an experimental course demonstrated that by using this system, we can achieve an error-free continuous communication system with a maximum transmission rate of 4.608 Mbps.


Introduction of acetoxy groups to organic
molecules is important for the preparation of many active ingredients and
synthetic intermediates. A commonly used and attractive strategy is the oxidative decarboxylation of aliphatic
carboxylic acids, which entails the generation of a new C(sp3)-O bond. This reaction has been traditionally
carried out using excess amounts of harmful lead(IV) acetate. A sustainable
alternative to stoichiometric oxidants is the Hofer-Moest reaction, which
relies in the 2-electron anodic oxidation of the carboxylic acid. However,
examples showing electrochemical acetoxylation of amino acids are scarce.
Herein we present a general and scalable procedure for the anodic
decarboxylative acetoxylation of amino acids in batch and continuous flow mode.
The procedure has been applied to the derivatization of several natural and
synthetic amino acids, including key intermediates for the synthesis of active
pharmaceutical ingredients. Good to excellent yields were obtained in all
cases. Transfer of the process from batch to a continuous flow cell
signficantly increased reaction throughput and space-time yield, with
excellent product yields obtained even in
a single-pass. The sustainability of the electrochemical protocol has been
examined by evaluating its green metrics. Comparison with the conventional
method demonstrates that an electrochemical approach has a significant positive
effect on the greenness of the process


Early action prediction (EAP) aims to recognize human actions from a part of action execution in ongoing videos, which is an important task for many practical applications. Most prior works treat partial or full videos as a whole, ignoring rich action knowledge hidden in videos, i.e., semantic consistencies among different partial videos. In contrast, we partition original partial or full videos to form a new series of partial videos and mine the Action Semantic Consistent Knowledge (ASCK) among these new partial videos evolving in arbitrary progress levels. Moreover, a novel Rich Action-semantic Consistent Knowledge network (RACK) under the teacher-student framework is proposed for EAP. Firstly, we use a two-stream pre-trained model to extract features of videos. Secondly, we treat the RGB or flow features of the partial videos as nodes and their action semantic consistencies as edges. Next, we build a bi-directional semantic graph for the teacher network and a single-directional semantic graph for the student network to model rich ASCK among partial videos. The MSE and MMD losses are incorporated as our distillation loss to enrich the ASCK of partial videos from the teacher to the student network. Finally, we obtain the final prediction by summering the logits of different sub-networks and applying a softmax layer. Extensive experiments and ablative studies have been conducted, demonstrating the effectiveness of modeling rich ASCK for EAP. With the proposed RACK, we have achieved state-of-the-art performance on three benchmarks. The code will be released if the paper is accepted.


The general aim of the present thesis is to investigate needs of support and service in clients with long-term mental disabilities living in the community. A further aim is to study changes in these client needs during a 3.5-year follow-up. A questionnaire, The Need of Support and Service Questionnaire (NSSQ), was developed to provide staffs in psychiatric care and social services with a brief instrument to assess how their clients live in the community and to identify their needs. The results are based on 1,759 clients. The prevalence of clients in urban and rural areas was 6.4/1,000 and 4.5/1,000 inhabitants, respectively. The clients living in the urban setting were more frequently male, older, with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and needed more support in activities of daily living than rural clients. Clients identified by staff in psychiatric care only were more often living with a partner, with children living at home and more often had a rehabilitation allowance than clients identified by social services staff. In clients assessed by both organizations similar needs at a group level were identified. However, agreements were lower at the individual level. Although clients reported fewer needs than staff in psychiatric care, the reported needs were in the same areas.A majority of the clients with unmet needs of service at baseline had their needs met at the 3.5-year follow-up. New unmet needs were also identified at the follow-up, however. The results demonstrate less improvement in clients with schizophrenia as compared with non-schizophrenic clients.In conclusion, needs of support and service present a dynamic process and both psychiatric care and social services should critically evaluate assessments of these needs.


Results of two doctoral theses, one using a model-based approach and the other using model-free methods, are summarized. Both included case studies of full-scale bridges. While model-based approaches are appropriate for individual infrastructure-management cases where the cost of modeling can be justified, model-free methods provide inexpensive anomaly detection for long-term monitoring of many structures. Both are compatible with civil-engineering contexts of modeling simplifications, incomplete knowledge, noise, outliers and missing data. They provide useful additions to an engineer's data-interpretation toolbox. © 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.


Leigh syndrome is a mitochondrial encephalomyopathy that occurs due to "cytochrome c oxidase deficiency". Few psychiatric disorders have been defined that are associated with Leigh syndrome. The objective of this work is to study relations between mitochondrial dysfunction and psychiatric disorders. It was a 20 year old male patient, who received Modopar, for severe extra pyramidal symptoms caused by Leigh syndrome. He developed, four months ago, acute psychotic symptoms such as audio-visual hallucinations, persecution and mystic delirium. The cerebral MRI has shown signal abnormalities in central grey nucleus. The EEG recording and blood test were normal. The hypothesis of drug induced psychiatric disorders (Modopar) was possible. The evolution under atypical antipsychotic was only partial. In this case, the cerebrospinal fluid and lactate levels mean that mitochondria were not an overall explanation for these psychiatric disorders but may at least play a partial role. Psychiatric disorders may just be acomorbidity. Key words : Leigh syndrome, psychiatric disorders, schizophrenia


We provide an empirical analysis of regional risk sharing in Norway over the period 1977-90. The approach of Asdrubali, Sorensen and Yosha (1996) is extended to take public employment into account as a possible shock absorber. The other channels of risk sharing are capital markets and commuting, taxes and transfers, and credit markets. The estimated degree of regional consumption insurance is very high. We cannot reject the hypothesis that there is full interregional risk sharing in the short term. Public employment absorbs up to 25 percent of private sector output shocks in our analyses. Generally, central government insurance against regional shocks is relatively more important, the more permanent the shocks are, and vice versa for market-based risk-sharing channels.


An investigation was made to determine the spinning characteristics of Clark Y monoplane wings with different plan forms. A rectangular wing and a wing tapered 5:2, both with rounded tips, were tested on the N.A.C.A. spinning balance in the 5-foot vertical wind tunnel. The aerodynamic characteristics of the models and a prediction of the angles of sideslip for steady spins are given. Also included is an estimate of the yawning moment that must be furnished by the parts of the airplane to balance the inertia couples and wing yawing moment for spinning equilibrium. The effects on the spin of changes in plan form and of variations of some of the important parameters are discussed and the results are compared with those for a rectangular wing with square tips. It is concluded that for a conventional monoplane using Clark Y wing the sideslip will be algebraically larger for the wing with the rounded tip than for the wing with the square tip and will be largest for the tapered wing. The effect of plan form on the spin will vary with the type of airplane; and the provision of a yawing-moment coefficient of -0.025 (i.e., opposing the spin) by the tail, fuselage, and interference effects will insure against the attainment of equilibrium on a steady spin for any of the plan forms tested and for any of the parameters used in the analysis.


Influence of different medium gelling agents (Agar-Agar Sigma, Lab-AgarTM Biocorp, Bacto-Agar Difco, Gelrite) and two types of medium (solidified by Agar-Agar and double-phase medium) on branching and growth of Cosmos atrosanguineus shoots was investigated. Shoot tips obtained from aseptical tissue cultures were grown for 6 weeks on Murashige and Skoog medium containing BA in concentration of 1 mg ∙ dm-3. It was found that induction of axillary shoots was the best on double-phase medium (addition of liquid medium after 4 weeks of shoot cultures in vitro). No significant differences were found in regeneration potential and elongation of shoots depending of the media solidified by studied agars or Gelrite.


Use of CT coronary angiography (CTCA) to evaluate chest pain has rapidly increased over the recent years. While its utility in the diagnosis of coronary artery disease in stable chest pain syndromes is clear and is strongly endorsed by international guidelines, the role of CTCA in the acute setting is less certain. In the low-risk setting, CTCA has been shown to be accurate, safe and efficient but inherent low rates of adverse events in this population and the advent of high-sensitivity troponin testing have left little room for CTCA to show any short-term clinical benefit. In higher-risk populations, CTCA has potential to fulfil a gatekeeper role to invasive angiography. The high negative predictive value of CTCA is maintained while also identifying non-obstructive coronary disease and alternative diagnoses in the substantial group of patients presenting with chest pain who do not have type 1 myocardial infarction. For those with obstructive coronary disease, CTCA provides accurate assessment of stenosis severity, characterisation of high-risk plaque and findings associated with perivascular inflammation. This may allow more appropriate selection of patients to proceed to invasive management with no disadvantage in outcomes and can provide a more comprehensive risk stratification to guide both acute and long-term management than routine invasive angiography.


This mixed-methods study examines the perceptions and opinions of United Kingdom FTSE 350, and US Fortune 500 board of director members regarding the significance of gender and racial diversity on board governance. Perceptions were gathered from eighty-two directors using self-reported surveys and semi-structured interviews. This thesis provides: (1) an opportunity to investigate the perceptions (opinions) of directors regarding the effects of board gender and racial diversity on new board appointments and on the dynamics of board decision making (2) an opportunity to investigate the perception (opinions) of directors regarding the effects of social capital, new board appointments and the dynamics of board decision making, and (3) an opportunity to investigate comparatively the differences between UK and US director perceptions regarding the effects of board gender and racial diversity on new board appointments and board decision making. My findings indicate that directors believe that expertise and experience are by far the most important attributes when decisions on the selection of new directors are being considered. While US directors report observing tangible benefits to gender and racial diversity, for their firms, as well as a willingness to consider diversity as an attribute in the selection process; most UK directors were strongly opposed to positive discrimination measures.1 A majority of directors do not believe that their own demographic characteristics, such as race or gender were attributes to their being selected to a board position; however white males perceive that these attributes were considered attributes to the appointment of diverse directors. Moreover, in the United Kingdom, male directors reported that they may be at a disadvantage for board selection when compared to their female counterparts, hence advocating for a selection process with minimal considerations of the demographic characteristics of new directors. Directors do not seem to consider diverse social capital of directors when making board appointments. Instead, US directors were more likely to be assisted in board appointments by their having similar social capital, and UK directors indicated that they only consider director expertise, and that expertise is considered to ensure a broad mix of skills and professional experience on the board.


Drop box is a cloud based file storage service used by more than 200 million users. Its ability to seamlessly provide cloud storage with minimal user complexity is the key for its wide spread popularity. Despite of its high usability, Drop box has been recently criticized for loose ends in security. Security and usability is not always mutually exclusive, and we believe there is still a lot of room to improve Drop box's security without affecting the unique user experience. In this paper, we present a RAM analysis based method to extract the key security token for account access. In addition, we describe a new technique to bypass authentication and gain unauthorized access to Drop box accounts by using the new tray login feature on the most current Drop box client (v2.4.x). Through these exploits, we demonstrate that most of these security issues are at the level of implementation, rather than design. Finally, we describe potential resolutions that can improve Drop box's security without affecting its high usability.


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The notion of wheel spinning, students getting stuck in the mastery learning cycle of an ITS without mastering the skill, is an emerging issue. Although wheel spinning has been analyzed, there has been little work in understanding what factors underlie it, and whether it occurs in cultural contexts outside that of the United States. This work analyzes data from 116 students in an urban setting in the Philippines. We found that Filipino students using the Scatterplot Tutor exhibited wheel spinning behaviors. We explore the impact of an intervention, Scooter the Tutor, on wheel spinning behavior and did not find that it had any effect. We also analyzed data from quantitative field observations, and found that wheel spinning is negatively correlated with flow, positively correlated with confusion, but not correlated with boredom. This result suggests that the problem of wheel spinning is primarily cognitive in nature, .and not related to student motivation. However, wheel spinning is positively correlated with gaming the system, so those constructs seem to be related.


Article history: Received October 29, 2014 Received in revised format: March 2, 2015 Accepted April 22, 2015 Available online April 25 2015 Reliability is one of the most important characteristics of the electrical and mechanical systems with applications in the space communication industries, internet networks, telecommunication systems, power generation systems, and productive facilities. What adds to the importance of reliability in these systems are system complications, nature of competitive markets, and increasing production costs due to failures. This paper investigates availability optimization of a system using both repairable and non-repairable components, simultaneously. The availability-redundancy allocation problems involve the determination of component availability (i.e., life time and repair time of the components) and the redundancy levels that produce maximum system availability. These problems are often subject to some constraints on their components such as cost, weight, and volume. To maximize the availability and to minimize the total cost of the system, a new Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) model is presented. To solve the proposed model, an improved version of the genetic algorithm is designed as an efficient meta-heuristic algorithm. Finally, in order to verify the efficiency of the proposed algorithm, a numerical example of a system is presented that consists of both repairable and non-repairable components. Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved. 5 © 201


Alcoholism is a chronic relapsing and remitting disorder, where relapse to drinking is often triggered by an intense desire for alcohol (craving) and the consequent motiva‐ tion to obtain alcohol (seeking). Environmental stimuli (cues) associated with past alcohol use are believed to strongly contribute to relapse, as exposure to these cues can trigger intense feelings of craving and drive alcohol seeking. Over the past several decades, much progress has been made in identifying the neurobiological correlates of alcohol seeking and relapse. Much of this progress is owed to the development of animal models and advanced techniques to manipulate neural activity. In this chapter, we describe some of the most commonly used rodent models of alcohol intake and seeking as well as the methods used to identify the neural structures and circuits involved in alcohol-mediat‐ ed behavior. Several of the most routinely identified brain structures in alcohol seeking are also described.


Bitcoin is a protocol promoted as the first peer-to-peer institution, an alternative to a central bank. The decisions made through this protocol, however, involve no judgment. Could a peer-to-peer protocol underpin an institution that makes normative decisions? Indeed, an extension to the Bitcoin protocol could allow a cryptocurrency to make law. Tacit coordination games, in which players compete to identify consensus issue resolutions, would determine currency ownership. For example, an issue might be whether a cryptocurrency-based trust should disburse funds to a putative beneficiary, and the game's outcome would resolve the question and result in gains or losses for coordination game participants. A cryptocurrency can also be used to generate rules or other written codes. Peer-to-peer law might be useful when official decisionmakers are corrupt or when agency or transactions costs are high. A modest starting point for cryptocurrency-based governance would be as a replacement for Bitcoin's centralized system for changing its source code. A cryptocurrency incorporating tacit coordination games could serve as a foundation for other projects requiring peer-to-peer governance, ranging from arbitration to business associations, which would enjoy inherent limited liability and would lack designated management.


Eighty-four infants with esophageal atresia and/or tracheosophageal (TE) fistula were treated from 1972 to 1977. Twenty-eight percent were premature and 24% weighed less than 2.0 kg. Major symptoms included excess salivation (56 patients), respiratory distress (28 patients), cyanosis (26 patients), and choking (nine patients). Pneumonia and or atelectasis occurred in 58% and associated anomalies in 68%. Seventy-three of 84 patients (87%) had proximal esophageal atresia and distal TE fistula (type C defect). Operation was carried out in 79 patients. Gastrostomy was performed in 75 patients, often under local anesthesia with subsequent delayed extrapleural thoractomy (mean, 3.9 days), when the infant's pulmonary condition was improved. Primary anastomosis was performed in 55 patients, division TE fistula and esophagostomy in ten, staged anastomosis in seven, cervical esophagostomy alone in three, division H fistual in two, ligation TE fistula alone in one, and gastrostomy alone in one. Complications were frequent, including need for ventilator support in 28 patients, atelectasis in 28, pneumonia in 18, jaundice in 13, heart failure in 11, anastomotic leak in 10, and stricture in four. Operative mortality was 5% (four of 79). Two deaths followed immediate thoracotomy and two were premature with anomalies. There were eight late deaths 4 to 39 months after operation. Seven had multiple anomalies. The overall mortality was 15%. Management of high-risk cases by preliminary gastrostomy and delayed extrapleural thoracotomy is associated with improved survival (67 to 79) (85%). Neonatal intensive care, detection of associated anomalies, and long-term follow-up are essential factors in reducing mortality.


ABSTRACT The relation between bottom shear stress and the distribution of bottom sediments on the Amazon continental shelf has been studied using a three-dimensional, primitive-equation computer model that incorporates the turbulence-closure scheme of Melior and Yamada (1982) for calculating eddy diffusivity and a simple algorithm for computing nonlinear wave-current influences on bottom shear stress. Model results compare reasonably well with salinity data sets for the Amazon plume. Model results on distribution of bottom currents and bottom shear stresses help explain some of the observed sedimentological features of the Amazon continental shelf. High concentrations of suspended sediment in the Amazon River are transported outward over the continental shelf and northward by the North Brazil oastal Current As this sediment settles out of the water column, it forms the prograding, subaqueous delta described by Nittrouer et al. (1986). Accumulation rates are greatest shoreward of the 40-m isobath due to a zone of convergent, cross-shelf residual tidal velocities. Little sediment is deposited in the shallow parts of the shelf, where bottom shear stress exceeds 10 dynes/cm2 over a diurnal tidal cycle. Zones of laminated sand and mud on the Amazon continental shelf coincide with areas of high interseasonal differences in bottom shear stress. Our results suggest that our model may be useful in interpreting sedimentation in ancient sedimentary basins as well.


Serine proteases in the adult CNS contribute both to activity-dependent structural changes accompanying learning and to the regulation of excitotoxic cell death. Brain serine protease 1 (BSP1)/neuropsin is a trypsin-like serine protease exclusively expressed, within the CNS, in the hippocampus and associated limbic structures. To explore the role of this enzyme, we have used gene targeting to disrupt this gene in mice. Mutant mice were viable and overtly normal; they displayed normal hippocampal long-term synaptic potentiation (LTP) and exhibited no deficits in spatial navigation (water maze). Nevertheless, electrophysiological studies revealed that the hippocampus of mice lacking this specifically expressed protease possessed an increased susceptibility for hyperexcitability (polyspiking) in response to repetitive afferent stimulation. Furthermore, seizure activity on kainic acid administration was markedly increased in mutant mice and was accompanied by heightened immediate early gene (c-fos) expression throughout the brain. In view of the regional selectivity of BSP1/neuropsin brain expression, the observed phenotype may selectively reflect limbic function, further implicating the hippocampus and amygdala in controlling cortical activation. Within the hippocampus, our data suggest that BSP1/neuropsin, unlike other serine proteases, has little effect on physiological synaptic remodeling and instead plays a role in limiting neuronal hyperexcitability induced by epileptogenic insult.


This paper presents a new adaptive controller for image-based tracking of a robot manipulator without using visual velocity when the intrinsic and extrinsic parameters of the camera are not calibrated. Most of existing controllers require the measurement of the visual velocity, which is subject to big noises in general due to low sampling rates of the vision loop. To avoid performance decaying caused by measurement errors of the visual velocity we propose a new image-based tracking controller based on the proposal of an estimator of visual velocity. With a full consideration of dynamic responses of the robot manipulator, we proved the convergence of the image errors of the trajectory to zero and the convergence of the estimated parameters to the real values up to a scale by the Lyapunov method. Experiments have been conducted to demonstrate good convergence of the trajectory errors under the control of the proposed method.


This thesis explores doctors' and medical students' attitudes toward older patients in UK hospital settings. There have been regular and strong assertions in the grey literature and the news media that negative attitudes toward older patients may contribute to the inequality of healthcare service provision and treatment for older patients, compared to younger patients (those aged under 65 years), in UK hospital settings. However, much of the evidence does not investigate or explore these attitudes using a theoretical framework of attitudes outlined in the scientific research literature. This thesis comprises three studies. Firstly, a systematic search and review (Study 1) was undertaken in order to determine how attitudes toward older patients had been explored to date in the English-language, scientific research literature. Results demonstrated that previous studies had focused on attitude measurement rather than exploring the content of attitudes toward older patients. In fact, there was little evidence that previous research had ever explored these attitudes, despite the number of studies attempting to measure them. Furthermore, the review indicated the lack of research emanating from UK settings. In Study 2, attitudes toward older patients and their care were explored in twenty-five in-depth interviews with medical students and doctors in a UK NHS Hospital trust. Data were thematically analysed and findings indicated that attitudes toward older patients and their care could be conceptualised as: (1) attitudes toward older patients and their healthcare needs, and (2) attitudes toward providing care for older patients (e.g. the social and organisational barriers and facilitators). Within these two domains, the themes, subthemes and nodes, which represent attitude content with increasing levels of specificity, are presented. The findings from Study 2 mark one of the first attempts in this research area to explore and describe the content of attitudes in line with a theoretical framework of attitudes. The final study, Study 3, explored the devaluation and unpopularity of the specialty of geriatric medicine as a future career choice in a sample of junior doctors. Having identified, in Study 2, that geriatric medicine was not highly regarded in a range of doctors and medical students, Study 3 aimed to ascertain whether this was due to the organisational and working environment or due to older patient-related factors in a recently-qualified sample of doctors. The findings indicated that organisational and work-related factors serve to discourage junior doctors from pursuing geriatric medicine, rather than factors related to the older patients treated on geriatric wards.

This thesis contributes to the research literature in two main ways. Firstly, this thesis outlines the research gaps in the worldwide English-language scientific research. Secondly, this thesis presents a conceptualisation of doctors' and medical students' attitudes toward older patients in a UK hospital setting. Importantly, this conceptualisation provides research that is relevant to UK settings and is in line with a theoretical framework of attitudes that has been identified from the scientific research literature. The strengths and limitations of this work are discussed.


The consumption of poultry products in Senegal and other West-African countries is subject to various psychological and social 'food bans' or 'taboos'. These taboos are mostly based on the local customs and natural religions. They prohibit the consumption of poultry products for certain social groups either temporarily or totally. The bans mainly concern women and children which have the highest demand of amino acids, minerals and vitamins. Hence they can prevent adequate supply of essential nutrients to the most vulnerable groups of the rural population. Since the taboos are rooted in the local traditions it cannot be expected that their influence in rural areas in West Africa will disappear within the near  future. Therefore it is essential that these taboos are recognised and considered in  planning of poultry development projects.


Pixel-level annotations are expensive and timeconsuming to obtain. Hence, weak supervision using only image tags could have a significant impact in semantic segmentation. Recent years have seen great progress in weakly-supervised semantic segmentation, whether from a single image or from videos. However, most existing methods are designed to handle a single background class. In practical applications, such as autonomous navigation, it is often crucial to reason about multiple background classes. In this paper, we introduce an approach to doing so by making use of classifier heatmaps. We then develop a two-stream deep architecture that jointly leverages appearance and motion, and design a loss based on our heatmaps to train it. Our experiments demonstrate the benefits of our classifier heatmaps and of our two-stream architecture on challenging urban scene datasets and on the YouTube-Objects benchmark, where we obtain state-of-the-art results.


Structural damage is often a spatially sparse phenomenon, i.e. it occurs only in a small part of the structure. This property of damage has not been utilized in the field of structural damage identification until quite recently, when the sparsity-based regularization developed in compressed sensing problems found its application in this field.In this paper we consider classical sensitivity-based finite element model updating combined with a regularization technique appropriate for the expected type of sparse damage. Traditionally, (I), 𝑙2- norm regularization was used to solve the ill-posed inverse problems, such as damage identification. However, using already well established, (II), 𝑙l-norm regularization or our proposed, (III), 𝑙l-norm total variation regularization and, (IV), general dictionary-based regularization allows us to find damages with special spatial properties quite precisely using much fewer measurement locations than the number of possibly damaged elements of the structure. The validity of the proposed methods is demonstrated using simulations on a Kirchhoff plate model. The pros and cons of these methods are discussed.


A generalized numerical semigroup is a submonoid $S$ of $\mathbb{N}^d$ for which the complement $\mathbb{N}^d\setminus S$ is finite. The points in the complement $\mathbb{N}^d\setminus S$ are called gaps. A gap $F$ is considered Frobenius allowable if there is some relaxed monomial ordering on $\mathbb{N}^d$ with respect to which $F$ is the largest gap. We characterize the Frobenius allowable gaps of a generalized numerical semigroup. A generalized numerical semigroup that has only one maximal gap under the natural partial ordering of $\mathbb{N}^d$ is called a Frobenius generalized numerical semigroup. We show that Frobenius generalized numerical semigroups are precisely those whose Frobenius gap does not depend on the relaxed monomial ordering. We estimate the number of Frobenius generalized numerical semigroup with a given Frobenius gap $F=(F^{(1)},\dots,F^{(d)})\in\mathbb{N}^d$ and show that it is close to $\sqrt{3}^{(F^{(1)}+1)\cdots (F^{(d)}+1)}$ for large $d$. We define notions of quasi-irreducibility and quasi-symmetry for generalized numerical semigroups. While in the case of $d=1$ these notions coincide with irreducibility and symmetry, they are distinct in higher dimensions.


Laboratory friction experiments are important for understanding fault restrengthening (healing) between failure events. To date, studies have focused mainly on time and velocity dependence of friction for small perturbations about conditions for steady state sliding. To investigate healing under a wider range of conditions, as appropriate for the interseismic period and dynamic rupture on seismogenic faults, we vary shear load for holds τhold, hold time th, load point velocity V, and initial gouge layer thickness T0. We shear layers of granular quartz in a biaxial testing apparatus at room temperature and humidity. In addition to conventional slide-hold-slide (CSHS) healing tests, we perform tests in which shear stress is rapidly reduced prior to each hold. Identical slip histories are used in all experiments. Our CSHS tests show time-dependent healing, where Δμ is the difference between peak static friction and prehold sliding friction, consistent with previous work. For a given th we find a systematic increase in peak static strength and Δμ with decreasing τhold (for th = 100 s, Δμ = 0.007 for CSHS tests and 0.05 for τhold = 0 tests). Significantly, healing tests at zero shear stress show decreasing static frictional yield strength with increasing th; thus we observe time-dependent weakening in this case. We vary initial layer thickness (0.5–3 mm) and find greater healing for thicker layers. Numerical simulations using rate and state friction laws show that neither the Dieterich nor Ruina evolution laws predict our experimentally observed healing rates for the full range of conditions studied. Our results have significant implications for the mechanics of deformation within granular media. We present a micromechanical model based on stress chains, jamming, and time-dependent unjamming of sheared granular layers. As applied to earthquakes, our data indicate that coseismic stress drop is expected to have an important effect on fault healing rates and static yield strength.


Abstract An asymptomatic hypercalcemic IgG-Kappa myeloma patient is presented. A calcium-IgG complex was isolated and purified from the serum by column chromatography. Following further purification on a Sepharose protein A column, the IgG-Kappa molecule did not contain any detectable amount of calcium, indicating that calcium is loosely bound to IgG. The monoclonal IgG demonstrated a strong calcium binding capacity in vitro. The calcium-IgG complex in the serum was shown not to be saturated and thus could absorb more ionized calcium. In view of the presence of an abnormal monoclonal IgG capable of binding excess calcium, and the fact that the asymptomatic patient did not respond to the anti-hypercalcemic drugs, the treatment was stopped.


The re-invention of the U.S. power industry in presenting financiers and investors with apparently contradictory and unpredictable asset valuation factors. The authors explore the issues underlying valuations and conclude that three fundamental factors-structural change in the marketplace, the new tactics employed by a great number of market players and innovative transaction structuring-are critical to formulating reliable valuations. In a discussion that links player behavior and transaction analysis with sophisticated additions to financial modeling such as gaming theory, they present the four principles that drive power asset value in today's power environment within their updated valuation process.


Background:The incidence of incisional hernias after abdominal aortic aneurysm repair is high. Prophylactic mesh-augmented reinforcement during laparotomy closure has been proposed in patients at high risk of incisional hernia. Methods:A multicenter randomized trial was conducted on patients undergoing elective abdominal aortic aneurysm repair through a midline laparotomy (Clinical.Trials.gov: NCT00757133). In the study group, retromuscular mesh-augmented reinforcement was performed with a large-pore polypropylene mesh (Ultrapro, width 7.5 cm). The primary endpoint was the incidence of incisional hernias at 2-year follow-up. Results:Between February 2009 and January 2013, 120 patients were recruited at 8 Belgian centers. Patients' characteristics at baseline were similar between groups. Operative and postoperative characteristics showed no difference in morbidity or mortality. The cumulative incidence of incisional hernias at 2-year follow-up after conventional closure was 28% (95% confidence interval [CI], 17%–41%) versus 0% (95% CI, 0%–6%) after mesh-augmented reinforcement (P < 0.0001; Fisher exact test). The estimated "freedom of incisional hernia" curves (Kaplan-Meier estimate) were significantly different across study arms (&khgr;2 = 19.5, P < 0.0001; Mantel-Cox test). No adverse effect related to mesh-augmented reinforcement was observed, apart from an increased mean time to close the abdominal wall for mesh-augmented reinforcement compared with the control group: 46 minutes (SD, 18.6) versus 30 minutes (SD, 18.5), respectively (P < 0.001; Mann-Whitney U test). Conclusions:Prophylactic retromuscular mesh-augmented reinforcement of a midline laparotomy in patients with abdominal aortic aneurysm is safe and effectively prevents the development of incisional hernia during 2 years, with an additional mean operative time of 16 minutes.


The symposium "Putting the Whole Grain Puzzle Together: Health Benefits Associated with Whole Grains" sponsored by the ASN brought together researchers to review the evidence regarding the health benefits associated with whole grains. Current scientific evidence indicates that whole grains play an important role in lowering the risk of chronic diseases, such as coronary heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, and also contribute to body weight management and gastrointestinal health. The essential macro- and micronutrients, along with the phytonutrients present in whole grains, synergistically contribute to their beneficial effects. Current evidence lends credence to the recommendations to incorporate whole grain foods into a healthy diet and lifestyle program. The symposium also highlighted the need for further research to examine the role of whole grain foods in disease prevention and management to gain a better understanding of their mechanisms of action.