OBJECTIVE
This study investigated the advantage of photoluminescent bioceramic (PLB) irradiation on meridian channels of abnormal meridian currents, as well as the normalization of meridian current levels that may represent the participants' physiologic conditions.

DESIGN
Statistical analysis of survey data.

PARTICIPANTS
Forty-six patients with abnormal meridian current in the gallbladder (GB).

INTERVENTIONS
The effects on the meridian currents were measured by an electrodermal instrument after PLB irradiation was applied to the GB and other specific acupuncture points. Each meridian was categorized into six physiologic levels to evaluate effectiveness after the PLB irradiation: 1, extremely low; 2, moderately low; 3, normally low; 4, normally high; 5, moderately high; and 6, extremely high level. The positive effect of PLB treatment for each meridian could be defined as the normalized ability of the meridian level from the extreme values (1, 2, 5, or 6) approaching the normal levels (3 or 4).

RESULTS
Participants with higher average meridian current (Amc >36 μA) calculated from the currents of 24 Ryodoraku points could be significantly normalized after the PLB treatment (p=0.0241). A significant positive effect was seen in comparison with the negative effect of PLB on the GB meridian (McNemar test, p=0.00004) (n=46×2 for left and right GB meridians). A patient with benign facial tremor was treated by PLB for 1 month; PLB improved the facial tremor and normalized effects on Amc and meridian current levels at the GB, lung, small intestine, bladder, and kidney.

CONCLUSION
A method was proposed to evaluate the normalization effect of a noninvasive PLB technique on the 12 meridians. PLB acupuncture on the specific meridian points could show the normalization ability of Amc and GB meridian for the participants.


Genetic information is transforming research paradigms and spawning new economic trends. Powerful technologies entering the research market have a potential impact upon many industrial segments, ultimately enabling consumers to use genetic information and the consequent understanding of human variation to enhance their quality of life. Societies must proactively address challenges such as privacy and nondiscrimination while ensuring that the Information Age's 'digital divide' is not reproduced as a 'genetic gap' in the Genetic Age.

Keywords:

genetic information;
human variation;
'genetic gap';
GeneChip probe arrays


This study makes use of qualitative and quantitative methods to explore how a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) can be supported in a Higher Education setting. Data analysis showed that holistic support strategies were capable of targeting larger groups of teachers effectively via staff development workshops and strategies. School-wide mechanisms were embedded establishing a 'standard' for the VLE. Once adoption of the VLE across the school had reached its peak, course teams required bespoke and specialised support. This required revisiting the (formative and summative) assessment techniques in module specifications to incorporate this use of the VLE. In conclusion, use of the VLE has levelled after the 'peak', individualised support is critical to maintain progression and benefit of the VLE which can be done through short-term strategies. The skill-set of those providing the support evolved from technical expertise to one that incorporates a good understanding of relative pedagogy.


Modeling of hydrogeological regimes associated with crustal extension indicate that flux values for deeply convected meteoric water are on the order of 10 −3 m 3 ċ m −2 ċ yr −1 . Calculated CO 2 fluxes produced by infiltration-driven, metamorphic decarbonation reactions along the circulation path are 2.4 × 10 −4 m 3 ċ m −2 ċ yr −1 . Appication of the model to Cenozoic extension in the North American Cordillera demonstrates that CO 2 generated in this manner may have been a major contributor to elevated CO 2 contents of Cenozoic atmospheres and the resulting global warming due to CO 2 greenhouse effect.


Besides the three main categories of bistable mechanisms such as latch-lock mechanisms, hinged multisegment mechanisms, and residual-compressive-stress buckled beams, a novel unsymmetrical bistable mechanism with a combined structure of permanent magnets and mechanical beams is proposed, and the bistability of such combined structure is analyzed based on the magnetic-charge model and material mechanics theory. The nonlinear combined force during snap-through procedure is calculated accurately, which is in accordance with that obtained by the experiments. The bistable characteristics such as the threshold snapping force, the traveling range, stable positions, and the elastic reaction force at the stable position can be adjusted freely by changing the magnet structure parameters and the relative distance among the three magnets. Finally, the dynamic response is analyzed theoretically and experimentally, which shows that the bistable structure has a good frequency distinguishing capacity for mechanical shock pulses.


We identify two families of canonical knowledge compilation languages. Both families augment ROBDD with conjunctive decomposition bounded by an integer i ranging from 0 to ∞. In the former, the decomposition is finest and the decision respects a chain C of variables, while both the decomposition and decision of the latter respect a tree T of variables. In particular, these two families cover the three existing languages ROBDD, ROBDD with as many implied literals as possible, and AND/OR BDD. We demonstrate that each language in the first family is complete, while each one in the second family is incomplete with expressivity that does not decrease with incremental i. We also demonstrate that the succinctness does not decrease from the i-th language in the second family to the i-th language in the first family, and then to the (i+1)-th language in the first family. For the operating efficiency, on the one hand, we show that the two families of languages support a rich class of tractable logical operations, and particularly the tractability of each language in the second family is not less than that of ROBDD; and on the other hand, we introduce a new time efficiency criterion called rapidity which reflects the idea that exponential operations may be preferable if the language can be exponentially more succinct, and we demonstrate that the rapidity of each operation does not decrease from the i-th language in the second family to the i-th language in the first family, and then to the (i+1)-th language in the first family. Furthermore, we develop a compiler for the last language in the first family (i = ∞). Empirical results show that the compiler significantly advances the compiling efficiency of canonical representations. In fact, its compiling efficiency is comparable with that of the state-of-the-art compilers of non-canonical representations. We also provide a compiler for the i-th language in the first family by translating the last language in the first family into the i-th language (i < ∞). Empirical results show that we can sometimes use the i-th language instead of the last language without any obvious loss of space efficiency.


Audio description is a discipline within Translation Studies aimed at making audio visual products and events accessible to blind and visually impaired audiences. Works of art, TV programs, films and stage arts are audio described in order to guarantee that anyone, regardless of his/her visual capacity, can enjoy them. In the case of films, it consists of a verbal description of visual details such as settings and characters (what they look like, what they do and how they do it) provided to the audience in those parts of the movie where no relevant sounds or dialogues are heard. The nature of audio description, in which all the information is presented auditorily and at the fast pace usually imposed by films, might pose some challenges on users' memory. This paper is an attempt to explore this issue empirically by focusing on audio described characters. It presents a reception study designed to explore how the amount of information included in the audio description of characters and its presentation have an effect on users' recall. Results showed that limiting the information in the descriptions and dividing it into short units delivered at different stages of the AD favored users' memory.


This thesis examines the crenobiology of part of English Peak District known as the
White Peak. The study is centred on the biodiversity of Chironomidae larvae and the
physical and chemical characteristics that influence their distribution. Fifteen limestone
springs were examined encompassing three spatial scales over a 12-month period. At
the macro-scale, springs were examined in relation to the dominant abiotic
characteristics (e.g. thermal vs coldwater, perennial vs intermittent springs). Most
springs had relatively similar physical and ionic compositions and appeared to have
relatively stable characteristics through time (meso-scale level). Thermal springs were
characterised by low dissolved oxygen concentrations and high water temperature,
conductivity, sulphate and calcium concentration compared to the coldwater springs.
Perennial coldwater springs only differed from intermittent springs on the basis of
physical characteristics dissolved oxygen concentration and conductivity. At the scale
of single springbrook (micro-scale level), water characteristics were relatively stable
with little variation longitudinally. Chironomidae biodiversity within the White Peak
was relatively high with a total of 79 taxa being recorded from 15 springs. The most
common subfamily was Orthocladiinae, which represented 83.1% of the total
chironomid larvae recorded. Examination of individual springs indicated that faunal
communities were dominated by a variety of taxa. However a small number of
ubiquitous taxa were dominant at most springs. Analyses indicated that the
Chironomidae community within the springs was primarily controlled by physical
habitat characteristics (mineral substrates, submerged vegetation and mean flow
velocity) rather than chemical characteristics. Thermal springs supported lower larval
Chironomidae abundance and diversity compared to coldwater springs. Perennial
springs supported higher Chironomidae abundances and diversities compared to
intermittent springs. Chironomidae larval were more diverse and abundant in perennial
springs with coarse substrates. Alga supported more greater diversities and abundances
than mosses or macrophytes. Examination of heavy metal contamination at a single
spring source (Tricket Sough) indicated that elevated zinc concentrations in water,
sediments and chironomid larval resulted in increased rates of mentum deformities (e.g.
missing median teeth, extra lateral teeth, asymmetrical teeth structure) compared to the
reference site (Otter Hole).


A metal-templated, stepwise approach toward fully nonsymmetrical bis-metallosalphen complexes is described. The synthesis comprises the selective monometalation of diimine precursors and subsequent introduction of the second metal ion by using various salicylaldehyde reagents. In the case of a bis-Zn(salen) derivative, the presence of different peripheral substituents on the two metallosalen units gave rise to a large difference in kinetic stability, which was used to selectively demetalate the more labile site. This result shows promise for the preparation of heterobimetallic structures. The first X-ray molecular structure of a completely nonsymmetrical bis-salphen complex is also reported. (© Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2009)


SINCE 1927, Flaceliere has been engaged on the Pythian dialogues of Plutarch, and this book completes the series. Its general form is the same as that of its companions, the editions of the De Pythiae oraculis and De E apud Delphos; an introduction, a French translation facing the text, and notes critical and exegetical, the latter at the end of the book. In this case the introduction deals interestingly with the main problems of the work, its date (earlier, the editor plausibly holds, than the De Pythiae oraculis, see pp. 17, 50 ff., 100), its sources (Plutarch is credited, I think justly, with a wide first-hand knowledge of Greek philosophical literature), the persons of the dialogue, and the author's own rank as a philosopher, which is put higher than some would be disposed to allow, but perhaps not too high. The text rests on a reconsideration of critical material already familiar, nothing new being offered in the way of manuscripts or testimonial indeed, supposing any fresh evidence to exist, this is not a good ^me to look for it. Conjecture is used more freely than in the Teubner text (PatonPohlenz), especially to fill lacunae. The supplements are not always happy; for example, at 412A the editor adopts from Babbitt, and at 414A proposes on his own account, readings containing ugly hiatuses. New proposals are few and generally very slight; a good one is at 425A, where for rod y.h> yap euros, out of which it is hard to make satisfactory sense, the editor prints TO /lev yap e/cros, a very plausible restoration. The commentary is the weakest part of the work. It consists almost entirely of explanatory notes based on the translation, legitimate enough as helps to readers who know little of classical antiquity, but riper scholars look vainly for discussions of the many difficulties of style, grammar, and phraseology which the dialogue contains.


Age and growth of the fish Fundulus lima (Cyprinodontiformes: Fundulidae) in La Purísima River, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Introduction: The study of age and growth in fishes is a basic prerequiste to generate information on longevity, growth rates, population structure, among other attributes, all of them for the application of policies focused on the population management and conservation. We evaluated these attributes in the endangered Baja California killifish (Fundulus lima) that inhabits the oases of Baja California Sur, Mexico, with the perspective of generating base information for the conservation of this endemic fish. Objective: To determine the age, somatic growth and population structure of F. lima in one of the most important hydrological basins of its distribution range. Methods: From October 2002 to July 2004 we sampled for F. lima in 3 sites of La Purisima river by using passive and active collection methods. Individuals were measured and weighed in the field, where subsamples were selected for analysis of age based on scales. All of the individuals were released alive to its original sites of capture. We assessed the age, length-weight and length-length relationships and population structure on the basis of 802 individuals examined by non-invasive techniques. Results: The somatic growth of F. lima was of positive allometric type (b > 3.0) in all the populations studied, with values of "b" ranging from 3.126 (Ojo de Agua) to 3.420 (El Pilón). Three age class (0, 1 and 2 years old) were recognized, of which the age 1 year was the most frequent (49 %). The polimodal method based on length-frequency data also identified three age classes. Back-calculated total lengths at previous ages based in increments of growth in scales were 38.61 and 68.81 mm for individuals of 1 and 2 years, respectively. Conclusions: Three age classes (0, 1 and 2 years old) were determined for the populations of F. lima in La Purisima river, based on the interpretation of annual growth rings in scales and in the modal distribution of observed length frequencies. All the populations examined showed a positive allometric growth (b > 3.0).


Irmen and Thisse (1998) demonstrate that two firms competing with multicharacteristic products differentiate them in one characteristic completely, while keeping them identical in all others. This paper shows that their min- … -min-max differentiation result is not robust with respect to the number of firms. A market setting that replicates their result in a duopoly, but fails to do so in a three firm oligopoly is identified. Symmetric pure strategy equilibrium with three firms differentiating their products in two dimensions, but not completely in either of them, is a novel medium-medium differentiation result.


Engine oil condition monitoring has attracted considerable interests from industries and general public over the years due to its critical role in maintaining the performance and longevity of cars and industrial engines. Lubricants degrade during the course of operation and can be costly or detrimental to the engine if oil change intervals are not optimised. However, on-line robust monitoring for oils has been very challenging since oil degradation process is often complicated and influenced by a number of parameters, such as the operating temperature and contamination. Due to the complexity of the oil chemistry and their degradation processes, there have not been any commercially available on-line sensors for oil chemical property monitoring reported. Oil acidity is traditionally measured through potentiometric or photometric/colorimetric titration methods. Recent attempts at miniaturising infrared (IR) and chronopotentiometric (CP) sensors based on solid-state devices for acidity/alkalinity determination of oil have not been very successful since the CP technology suffers from sensitivity and stability issues and IR sensors are still bulky and adversely susceptible to the engine?s harsh environment. This project, sponsored by Shell Global Solutions, aims to develop robust chemical sensors that can detect oil acidity due to oil degradation. The initial comprehensive literature review has identified that thick film (TF) sensor technology offers compact and low cost mass production solutions and have been proved to be robust with good reproducibility for aqueous solutions acidity measurements. Their feasibility in detecting oil acidity was thus investigated in this study and experimental work has been carried out to fabricate TF electrodes and evaluate them in a range of oils to explain their performance in detecting acid content. Based on their performance in aqueous solutions in previous studies, this study has investigated the performance of one type of TF working electrode (Ruthenium Oxide (RuO2)) combined with various TF reference electrodes in order to develop the most suitable electrodes for oils. To simulate oil ageing, a fully formulated engine oil and a base oil were oxidised under controlled conditions. Also, different amount of nitric acid was added to a fully formulated oil to simulate the oil acidity changes. Acid number (AN) of the oil samples was obtained using conventional titration methods and viscosity and conductivity of the oil samples were measured using laboratory-based equipment in order to validate TF sensor measurements and establish a relationship between different properties of oil samples during their degradation process. Temperature effects on thick film electrodes as well as their long-term stability and repeatability were also investigated. The results show that, for the first time, TF sensors respond to the acidity changes in all oil types tested and linear correlation between the TF responses and the AN was found in the oxidised oils within certain ranges at the tested temperatures (50 °C and 80 °C). TF sensors can detect oil acidity up to AN of 28 mgKOH/g. Although oil conductivity and viscosity were affected by the oil oxidation process, but no direct relationship was found between them and the TF responses. Based on the experimental results, sensing mechanisms of the TF electrodes in oils are proposed.


The Greenland Caledonides (GC) formed in the overriding Laurentian plate during the closure of the Iapetus Ocean and the subduction of Baltica, and offer a unique opportunity to study metamorphic patterns, regional structures and the kinematic evolution of the overriding plate of a continental collision. We present new metamorphic petrology and coupled zircon geochronology and geochemistry data from the Jættedal complex in southern Liverpool Land to document the thermal evolution of the orogenic core of the southern GC. Pelitic migmatite gneisses from the Jættedal complex document metamorphic conditions of 850–730 °C at pressures of 11–9.5 kbar. Zircon from these samples yields Archean–Mesoproterozoic detrital cores with positive heavy rare earth element (HREE) slopes, and 440–425 Ma rims with flat HREE slopes are interpreted to date the timing of prograde pelite anatexis. Intercalated mafic assemblages record metamorphic conditions of 860–820 °C at 12–10 kbar. Zircon from mafic gneisses contains cores with ages of c. 458 Ma with positive HREE slopes and 413–411 Ma rims with flat HREE slopes that are interpreted to record the timing of original mafic dyke intrusion and subsequent partial melting respectively. When placed in the context of correlative rocks from the southern GC, these results suggest the development of a thermally weakened lower to middle crust in the Caledonian overriding plate that spanned >200 km perpendicular to orogenic strike during the Silurian. The existing data further suggest Silurian syn‐orogenic channel flow and exhumation occurred at the thrust front, while protracted high‐T metamorphism continued in the orogenic core. These patterns highlight variations in the thermal and rheologic structure of the Caledonian overriding plate along orogenic strike, and have implications for the development and exhumation of high‐ and ultrahigh‐pressure terranes.


Protein phosphorylation acts as an essential on/off switch in many cellular signalling pathways, regulating protein function. This has led to ongoing interest in targeting kinases for therapeutic intervention. Computer-aided drug discovery has been proven a useful and cost-effective approach for facilitating prioritisation and enrichment of screening libraries. Limited effort, however, has been devoted to developing and tailoring in silico tools to assist the development of kinase inhibitors and providing relevant insights on what makes potent inhibitors. To fill this gap, here we developed kinCSM, an integrative computational tool capable of accurately identifying potent cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2) inhibitors, quantitatively predicting CDK2 ligand-kinase inhibition constants (pKi) and classify inhibition modes without kinase information. kinCSM predictive models were built using supervised learning and leveraged the concept of graph-based signatures to capture both physicochemical properties and geometry properties of small molecules. CDK2 inhibitors were accurately identified with Matthew's Correlation Coefficients of up to 0.74, and inhibition constants predicted with Pearson's correlation of up to 0.76, both with consistent performances of 0.66 and 0.68 on non-redundant blind tests, respectively. kinCSM was also able to identify the potential type of inhibition for a given molecule, achieving Matthew's Correlation Coefficient of up to 0.80 on cross-validation and 0.73 on blind test. Analysing the molecular composition of kinase inhibitors revealed enriched chemical fragments in potent CDK2 inhibitors and different types of inhibitors, which provides insights into the molecular mechanisms behind ligand-kinase interactions. We believe kinCSM will be an invaluable tool to guide future kinase drug discovery. To aid the fast and accurate screening of potent CDK2 kinase inhibitors, we made kinCSM freely available online at http://biosig.unimelb.edu.au/kin_csm/.


Author(s): Hu, Yilei; Skyrms, Brian; Tarres, Pierre | Abstract: We consider a signaling game originally introduced by Skyrms, which models how two interacting players learn to signal each other and thus create a common language. The first rigorous analysis was done by Argiento, Pemantle, Skyrms and Volkov (2009) with 2 states, 2 signals and 2 acts. We study the case of M_1 states, M_2 signals and M_1 acts for general M_1, M_2. We prove that the expected payoff increases in average and thus converges a.s., and that a limit bipartite graph emerges, such that no signal-state correspondence is associated to both a synonym and an informational bottleneck. Finally, we show that any graph correspondence with the above property is a limit configuration with positive probability.


This thesis investigates how digital wireframing tools can be included into codesign with children for creating high-tech/low-fidelity prototypes, and how the wireframing activity influences the design process as a whole. An interdisciplinary observation team observed nine 12-year old children in a co-design workshop including paper prototyping and wireframing activities, followed by the children sharing their experiences through questionnaires and a group interview. Both the observed, and self-reported, data indicate that 12-year olds have no problems mastering wireframing tools designed for adults and they are able to continue the creative process while wireframing. Moreover, the children are motivated by creating digital wireframes and most would choose to present their ideas through this medium over paper prototypes, while at the same time acknowledging the benefit of creating paper prototypes first. The real-looking aspect of the wireframes was particularly motivating for the participants. Rather than choosing between digital and paper-based approaches to prototyping, digital wireframing can be successfully included as an additional activity to paper prototyping in co-design workshops. Regarding the value of the produced artefacts, they are of less value to the further design process compared to the conversations they stimulate through their creation. The most valuable aspect of including wireframing in co-design is the space it creates for designers and end users to discuss design solutions. The success of including wireframing further raises the question of how young the participants can be. This thesis is relevant to researchers of child computer interaction and planners of co-design workshops with children.


This article explores both the historical entrenchment of the Higher Education Act ("HEA" or "the Act") and ongoing attempts to retrench it. In it, I argue that Congress should return the HEA to its historical roots and enact reauthorizing legislation that will set the course for re-entrenching the Act and its historical policy. This re-entrenching will properly set the focus of the Act on providing widespread higher education access by creating and implementing new pathways (funding and otherwise) to that access. In the article, I discuss the entrenchment of the HEA into American culture in an effort to understand the historical view of United States' society toward government funded higher education. I also discuss the ongoing retrenchment of the HEA by exploring, in the context of all HEA reauthorizations, presidential and congressional fiscal policies regarding post-secondary education. Discussing this history simultaneously proves the retrenchment of the HEA's historical access policy and the importance of preserving a definition of access that balances maintenance of existing pathways to post-secondary education with the necessity for creating new ones. I discuss the changing higher education landscape (focusing on for-profit post-secondary institutions) to validate the need for protecting federal funds, but to also demonstrate how that need for protection has overshadowed the historical policy of widespread post-secondary access. Finally, in anticipation of the next HEA reauthorization, I urge Congress to begin re-entrenching the Act by returning its primary focus to creation and implementation of new access programming and suggest methods by which it might accomplish this goal.


Purpose To evaluate in a large patient cohort the 6-F Perclose ProGlide in conjunction with the preclose technique to seal puncture sites after percutaneous endovascular aortic repairs. Methods The medical records were reviewed of 367 patients (303 men; mean age 68.5±10.8 years) having 599 access site closures with the 6-F Perclose ProGlide performed in conjunction with percutaneous endovascular aortic repairs. Procedure success was defined as hemostasis with the preclose technique without the need for any ancillary procedure. Access-related major adverse events included infection, bleeding, lower leg ischemia, hematoma, pseudoaneurysm, arteriovenous fistula, embolization, laceration, femoral artery thrombosis, nerve injury, or death owing to an access site injury. Results Procedure success was achieved in 359 (97.8%) of 367 patients and in 591 (98.7%) of 599 femoral sites. Access-related major adverse events developed in 25 (6.8%) of 367 patients [26/599 (4.3%) sites]. The most frequent adverse event was a hematoma [16/367 (4.4%) patients; 17/599 (2.8%) sites], followed by pseudoaneurysm [7/367 (1.9%) patients; 7/599 (1.2%) sites]. Bleeding occurred in 6 (1.6%) of 367 patients [6/599 (1.0%) sites]. There were 2 infections, 2 distal embolizations, 1 acute femoral thrombosis, and 1 laceration at the puncture site. Conclusion The preclose technique can be used to achieve hemostasis with remarkable success and low rates of adverse events.


Objective This study evaluated the surface hardness of a resin cement (RelyX ARC) photoactivated through indirect composite resin (Cristobal) disks of different thicknesses using either a light-emitting diode (LED) or quartz tungsten halogen (QTH) light source. Material and Methods Eighteen resin cement specimens were prepared and divided into 6 groups according to the type of curing unit and the thickness of resin disks interposed between the cement surface and light source. Three indentations (50 g for 15 s) were performed on the top and bottom surface of each specimen and a mean Vickers hardness number (VHN) was calculated for each specimen. The data were analyzed using two-way ANOVA and Tukey-Kramer test was used for post-hoc pairwise comparisons. Results Increased indirect resin disk thickness resulted in decreased mean VHN values. Mean VHN values for the top surfaces of the resin cement specimens ranged from 23.2 to 46.1 (QTH) and 32.3 to 41.7 (LED). The LED curing light source produced higher hardness values compared to the QTH light source for 2- and 3-mm-thick indirect resin disks. The differences were clinically, but not statistically significant. Increased indirect resin disk thickness also resulted in decreased mean VHN values for the bottom surfaces of the resin cement: 5.8 to 19.1 (QTH) and 7.5 to 32.0 (LED). For the bottom surfaces, a statistically significant interaction was also found between the type of curing light source and the indirect resin disk thickness. Conclusions Mean surface hardness values of resin cement specimens decreased with the increase of indirect resin disk thickness. The LED curing light source generally produced higher surface hardness values.


The resurgence of farmers' markets in New Jersey has been welcomed by farmers, consumers and municipalities alike. This form of direct marketing has the potential to benefit all three sectors simultaneously. Farmers' markets allow growers to capture a greater share of the consumer's food expenditure thus increasing their profitability. Similarly, consumers' need for fresh, high quality commodities as well as for farm-based recreational experiences are met. Also, drawing customers to downtown areas can contribute to the revitalization of these areas by boosting the business of local retailers. However, despite their rapid spread throughout the state, no study has been conducted on the efficiency of the farmers' markets in terms of management and organization. This study provides an overview of various characteristics of managers as well as of the factors that have an effect on the organization and well functioning of these direct marketing outlets. Besides demographics, some of the managers' characteristics analyzed are: source of employment, years of experience, farming expertise, their presence in the facility during selling hours and methods used to recruit producers. With regard to market organization, some factors explored are: location, market layout, criteria for market's site, methods of promotion and advertisement (including special events), days of operation and fees charged to vendors. In addition, rivalry among farmers and between farmers and local retailers is considered as well. The results show that farmers' markets managers are employed by several different entities. These are cities, townships, counties, downtown revitalization and special improvement district organizations, farmers' markets and business associations among others. The majority of the managers supervise the market's operations during selling hours, have no farming experience and have been working as managers for less than 2 years. Managers recruit farmers either personally, by contacting Ag Extension offices and/or through the North Jersey Farmers' Markets Council. The average age of the respondents was 45 and the majority were Caucasian, had at least graduated from college and had an annual household income of $70,000 or over.


This study was conducted to investigate compositional changes and antioxidant capacities of pomegranate fruit ('Bhagwa' and 'Ruby') at five distinct stages of maturity over two growing seasons. Total soluble solids (TSS), pH, titratable acidity (TA), phenolic concentrations, antioxidant capacity and aroma volatile constituents were investigated. Principal component analysis (PCA) and Pearson correlation were used to visualize the changes in major chemical indices and the relationship among them. Results show that major compositional changes in fruit are developmentally regulated. Significant increases in total soluble solids (TSS), coupled with significant decline in titratable acidity (TA) and total phenolics (TP) occurred with advancing maturity. Fruit at advanced maturity stages were characterized by intense pigmentation of peel and aril, which coincided with maximum accumulation of anthocyanins. TSS and TA showed strong relationships with most of the chemical indices, each showing significantly (p < 0.05) strong correlations with phenolic components as well as with the antioxidant capacity (FRAP and DPPH) measured. There were no significant (p < 0.05) seasonal effects on juice absorbance (colouration) and TA for 'Bhagwa' as well as juice absorbance, TSS, TSS/TA and BrimA for 'Ruby'. In combination, the identified maturity indices (absorbance, TSS, TSS:TA and BrimA level) would account for the evolution of juice colour, flavour and taste. The identified maturity indices for each cultivar could aid the search for reliable maturity markers to determine fruit readiness for harvest. Keywords: Antioxidant capacity, BrimA, ripeness, seasonality, pomegranate, South Africa. African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(25), pp. 4006-4019


High data rate wireless communications, nearing 1 Gb/s transmission rates, is of interest in emerging wireless local area networks and home audio/visual networks. Designing very high speed wireless links that offer good quality-of-service and range capability in non-line-of-sight (NLOS) environments constitutes a significant research and engineering challenge. Ignoring fading in NLOS environments, we can, in principle, meet the 1 Gb/s data rate requirement with a single-transmit single-receive antenna wireless system if the product of bandwidth (measured in hertz) and spectral efficiency (measured in bits per second per hertz) is equal to 10/sup 9/. A variety of cost, technology and regulatory constraints make such a brute force solution unattractive, if not impossible. The use of multiple antennas at transmitter and receiver, popularly known as multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless, is an emerging cost-effective technology that offers substantial leverages in making 1 Gb/s wireless links a reality. The paper provides an overview of MIMO wireless technology covering channel models, performance limits, coding, and transceiver design.


This Article has the aim to show how crucial civil society proactive role is to achieve 2030 Agenda. It focusses especially in South regions' rural areas where communities have never had the opportunity to design and lead their own development. SDGs motto states "leaving no one behind". However, we still find that one of the great problems regarding 2030 Agenda achievement is the generalized ignorance of what "S-D-G" mean. To tackling these issues, it is essential to provide the necessary tools to population (especially in rural areas) to let them know how they can really be actors of an inclusive sustainable global development and to make them aware that development is a human right recognized to all individuals. This Article it's about the international partnership for the 17 goals that reunites more than 150 proactive children and young people from San Marcos (Guatemala), Poroma (Bolivia), Yamoussoukro (Ivory Coast) and Navarre (Spain). A Non-governmental organization initiative supported by public authorities and based on a PhD research that defends why small local projects promoted by children and youth people are essential to achieve SDGs. There are currently 25 local projects running as a result of this Education for Development program that boosts North-South and South-South cooperation. Keywords: Education for Development, proactivity, Agenda 2030, society empowerment, South-South cooperation, right to development.


This paper proposes a speech enhancement algorithm based on wavelet packet transform and adaptive noise estimation. The wavelet threshold in this algorithm is temporally adapted to SNR variations which can be calculated by adaptive noise estimation. Adaptive noise estimation can be computationally simple and reliable to estimate the noise levels from noisy signal itself without complicated speech pause detection. Thus the proposed algorithm can efficiently suppress the noise while reducing speech distortion. A speech signal corrupted by nonstationary noises is used for the performance evaluation of the proposed algorithm. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the conventional spectral subtraction and other wavelet based denoising approaches for speech enhancement.


The 3-D inverse synthetic aperture radar imaging fast maneuvering targets is an active research area in the past decades. Planar antenna arrays are used to avoid the motion compensation algorithms but at the cost of increasing the hardware complexity. In this letter, to reduce the hardware complexity of the imaging system, a wideband multiple-input multiple-output system with two perpendicular linear arrays is suggested. In contrast to the existing 3-D imaging methods with planar antenna arrays, with the proposed method, the lower hardware complexity is achieved by many additive virtual array elements. Simulations based on synthetic data are provided for testing the proposed method.


This study is intended to unpack the current and potential future commuter transport requirements in Kagiso Township within the context of transport planning and the ongoing transformation of the transport sector in South Africa. In order to meet the above challenges, it was felt that an investigation of the socio-economic profile of transport users in Kagiso Township was required, which would be indicative of potential needs and requirements in terms of current and future travel infrastructure. This study is significant, as it considers the impact of socio-economic factors and transport interactions by fully examining the impact of accessibility, urban development patterns, local mobility and planning. Mogale City's Kagiso Township was selected for in-depth study because it has seen one of the highest urbanization rates in Gauteng Province, with people from all over Gauteng relocating to this suburb, either buying relatively moderately priced housing via mortgaging or, alternatively, trying to gain access to government low-cost housing. The study investigates the connection between socio-economic characteristics of a local population (inter alia, age, gender, household size, and vehicles per household, employment status and income) and their transport requirements (travel demand forecasting), within an urban transport context. Socio-economic characteristics of a population are important in transport demand forecasting because there is a general belief in transport planning that the predisposition to travel and trip generation vary with the characteristics of the traveller. A travel demand forecasting model by Bussière and Rice (1999) is used for the purposes of simulating existing and future travel patterns. The forecasted household mobility and needs of commuters in Kagiso Township are compared with current municipal plans to see whether such plans are realistic and can address existing needs. The evaluation of the current municipal plans is included to test the responsiveness of public policy and practice towards the needs of the affected local community. This evaluation extracted information on whether the relevant municipality has identified the problems and issues affecting the local community of Kagiso Township. In addition, it assessed whether the municipality has identified possible solutions to these problems and issues and whether it has prioritised any projects to improve transportation in Kagiso Township.


Aims The aim of this study was to determine prevalence of oral manifestations related to COVID-19 infection among a sample of recovered patients in the Basrah province of Iraq. Methodology. This cross-sectional study included a total of 574 individuals from Basrah city, Iraq (196 males and 378 females), who had been previously infected with COVID-19. A questionnaire was developed and used to record the demographic data, medical history, severity of respiratory infection followed by hospitalization along with oral signs and symptoms that occurred during the COVID-19 infection and their persistence after recovery. Results Oral manifestations were reported in 88.3% of the studied sample. The most common oral manifestation was ageusia (66.8%), followed by dry mouth (59%), gustatory changes (46%), dysphagia (40.5%), burning sensation (20.8%), oral ulceration (14.5%), and gingival bleeding (3.3%). The findings suggested that ageusia was the only symptom that persisted following recovery from the COVID-19 infection. The results showed a significant statistical correlation between the incidence of oral manifestations and the severity of COVID-19 infection followed by hospitalization. A significant correlation was also found between the age groups and COVID-19 oral manifestations, whereas no significant statistical relationship was observed between gender, smoking, and systemic diseases. Conclusions COVID-19 infection has considerable impacts on the oral cavity and salivary glands and after recovery from the infection, some patients continue to complain of ageusia for several months. There is a positive correlation between the incidence of oral signs and symptoms associated with COVID-19 infection and the severity of the infection.


Background and purpose We designed an 8-week caregiver-mediated exercise program with e-health support after stroke (CARE4STROKE) in addition to usual care with the aim to improve functional outcome and to facilitate early supported discharge by increasing the intensity of task specific training. Methods An observer-blinded randomized controlled trial in which 66 stroke patient-caregiver couples were included during inpatient rehabilitation. Patients allocated to the CARE4STROKE program trained an additional amount of 150 minutes a week with a caregiver and were compared to a control group that received usual care alone. Primary outcomes: self-reported mobility domain of the Stroke Impact Scale 3.0 (SIS) and length of stay (LOS). Secondary outcomes: motor impairment, strength, walking ability, balance, mobility and (Extended) Activities of Daily Living of patients, caregiver strain of caregivers, and mood, self-efficacy, fatigue and quality of life of both patients and caregivers. Outcomes were assessed at baseline, 8 and 12 weeks after randomization. Results No significant between-group differences were found regarding SIS-mobility after 8 (β 6.21, SD 5.16; P = 0.229) and 12 weeks (β 0.14, SD 2.87; P = 0.961), and LOS (P = 0.818). Significant effects in favor of the intervention group were found for patient's anxiety (β 2.01, SD 0.88; P = 0.023) and caregiver's depression (β 2.33, SD 0.77; P = 0.003) post intervention. Decreased anxiety in patients remained significant at the 12-week follow-up (β 1.01, SD 0.40; P = 0.009). Conclusions This proof-of concept trial did not find significant effects on both primary outcomes mobility and LOS as well as the secondary functional outcomes. Treatment contrast in terms of total exercise time may have been insufficient to achieve these effects. However, caregiver-mediated exercises showed a favorable impact on secondary outcome measures of mood for both patient and caregiver. Clinical trial registration NTR4300, URL– http://www.trialregister.nl/trialreg/admin/rctview.asp?TC=4300.


Burn-In (BI) test is usually applied in manufacturing process to screen out chip early life failures, especially for safety critical applications. Unfortunately, this test method has elevated costs for companies. In recent days, Faster-than-at-Speed-Test (FAST) has become a useful technique to discover small delay defects. At the same time, overclocking methods to enhance system performances have been studied, which focus on temperature management to preserve system functionalities. In this paper, a FAST technique is approached with the aim of intentionally provoking a thermal overheating in the microprocessor by mean of the execution of functional test programs, partly regardless of system behavior preservation. The goal is to introduce an internal stress stronger than current procedures used during BI in order to speed up early detection of latent faults. The method illustrates how to avoid blocking configurations due to timing constraints violation and leads to a significant increase of the switching activity. Experimental results on a MIPS architecture show that, by using the described technique, the processor is not falling into an unpredictable state even at frequencies up to about 20 times higher than the nominal one and the switching activity is increasing up to 300% per nanoseconds.


Ti-Nb alloys were prepared by powder metallurgy. Their microstructures are detected by the XRD diffraction and are observed using an optical microscope. The mechanical properties are tested using a dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) Q800 from TA Instruments in single cantilever mode and using a 100 KN MTS testing machine with control software. It has been found that the sintered Ti-Nb alloys possess the stable α and β phases and the amount in β phase increases with increasing Nb content. The water quenched Ti-35.4Nb alloy contains α,, and βM. The as-sintered alloy has higher yield stress and storage modulus than the water quenched Ti-35.4Nb alloy, which is resulted from the α phase with high modulus in the as-sintered alloy. The ω phase can be precipitated from βM when the water quenched Ti-35.4Nb alloy is aged at 300 °C, causing the modulus to increase since ω phase has large modulus.


We consider stable modified theories of gravity that reproduce galactic rotation curves and the observed amount of weak lensing without dark matter. In any such model gravity waves follow a different geodesic from that of other massless particles. For a specific class of models which we call 'dark matter emulators', over cosmological distances this results in an easily detectable difference between the arrival times of the pulse of gravity waves from some cosmic event and those of photons or neutrinos. For a repeat of SN 1987a (which took place in the large magellanic cloud) the time lag is in the range of days. For the recent gamma ray burst, GRB 070201 (which seems to have taken place on the edge of the Andromeda galaxy) the time lag would be in the range of about 2 years.


Recently several investigators reported on various devices of generating cold plasma jets at atmospheric pressure. A pulsed plasma source developed and reported, the plasma pencil, is one of them. This device is capable of generating a cold plasma plume several centimeters in length using a DC pulsed high voltage source. In this study, kHz alternative current voltage (18 kV-15 kHz) was applied to the electrodes similar to the electrode system of the plasma pencil instead of direct current pulse voltage and a 2-3 cm long plasma jet was produced in an air using the helium gas. This new plasma jet device named as the kHz plasma pencil. The jets produced by the kHz plasma pencil are as cold as room temperature. The optical emission spectrum of the jet of the kHz plasma pencil and the change of the jet length with the gas flow rate have been investigated. Unlike the plasma pencil, the kHz plasma pencil produces jet in two different regimes as filamentary and diffusive and it emits more radiation in the UV range. Preliminary results show that the dynamics of the kHz plasma pencil are also different from the plasma pencil. Keywords: atmospheric pressure cold plasma jet, kHz, plasma pencil, Emission spectrum.


This book "Agrarian Structure, Economic Policies and Sustainable Development" according to Prof. M.S. Swaminathan "bears testimony to Prof. V.S. Vyas' approach to the major national and global challenges facing Indian agriculture." Prof. Vyas has tried to probe how the policy interventions, technological changes and institutional developments are impacting the economy of those directly dependent on it for their livelihood. The book covers all major developments in the evolution of agricultural technologies and policies since independence (1947). The essays in the book, divided in five sections, deals with topics which are mutually inter-related and reinforcing. The first section focuses on the relationship between poverty and sustainable development; the second outlines the main features of Indian agriculture, its sources of growth, the changes taking place within the sector and the problems; the third section discusses the issues of poverty and food security not only in India but also in other developing countries of the South-East Asian region; the fourth section analyses economic reforms in India and possible directions for these reforms; and the last section speculates about the future of Indian agriculture and outlines policy initiatives which can help to improve the productivity, profitability, and sustainability of our major farming systems.


Instability rutting generally occurs within the top 5 cm (2 in.) of the asphalt layer when the structural properties of the asphalt concrete are inadequate to resist the stresses imposed on it. It is generally believed that near-surface transverse shear stresses perpetuate instability rutting. Field observations of heavy-vehicle simulator testing noted greater rutting in one-way directional loading than with two-way directional loading, even at lower temperatures and with longer rest periods between load applications. An analysis of stress states in the asphalt pavement layer using the three-dimensional finite element commercial code ADINA showed that longitudinal stress path patterns varied between the different directional loadings. A hypothesis was developed that the differences in longitudinal plane stress path patterns between one-way and two-way directional loading could be attributed to the different levels of rutting. A viscoelastic model with load applications simulating the different directional loadings was constructed and used to test this hypothesis. The viscoelastic model results indicated qualitatively that even with greater relaxation times, one-way directional loading produces greater strains.


Cycloalkanes are abundant and toxic compounds in subsurface petroleum reservoirs and their fate is important to ecosystems impacted by natural oil seeps and spills. This study focuses on the microbial metabolism of methylcyclohexane (MCH) and methylcyclopentane (MCP) in the deep Gulf of Mexico. MCH and MCP are often abundant cycloalkanes observed in petroleum and will dissolve into the water column when introduced at the seafloor via a spill or natural seep. We conducted incubations with deep Gulf of Mexico (GOM) seawater amended with MCH and MCP at four stations. Within incubations with active respiration of MCH and MCP, we found that a novel genus of bacteria belonging to the Porticoccaceae family (Candidatus Reddybacter) dominated the microbial community. Using metagenome-assembled genomes, we reconstructed the central metabolism of Candidatus Reddybacter, identifying a novel clade of the particulate hydrocarbon monooxygenase (pmo) that may play a central role in MCH and MCP metabolism. Through comparative analysis of 174 genomes, we parsed the taxonomy of the Porticoccaceae family and found evidence suggesting the acquisition of pmo and other genes related to the degradation of cyclic and branched hydrophobic compounds were likely key events in the ecology and evolution of this group of organisms.


The product of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae nuclear gene PET494 is required to promote the translation of the mitochondrial mRNA encoding cytochrome c oxidase subunit III (coxIII). The level of cytochrome c oxidase activity is affected by several different environmental conditions, which also influence coxIII expression. We have studied the regulation of PET494 to test whether the level of its expression might modulate coxIII translation in response to these conditions. A pet494::lacZ fusion was constructed and used to monitor PET494 expression. PET494 was regulated by oxygen availability: expression in a respiration-competent diploid strain grown anaerobically was one-fifth the level of expression in aerobically grown cells. However, since PET494 mRNA levels did not vary in response to oxygen deprivation, regulation by oxygen appears to occur at the translational level. This oxygen regulation was not mediated by heme, and PET494 expression was independent of the heme activator protein HAP2. The regulation of PET494 expression by carbon source was also examined. In cells grown on glucose-containing medium, PET494 was expressed at levels four- to sixfold lower than in cells grown on ethanol and glycerol. However, addition of ethanol to glucose-containing medium induced PET494 expression approximately twofold. PET494 transcript levels varied over a fourfold range in response to different carbon sources. The effects on PET494 expression of mutations in the SNF1, SNF2, SSN6, and HXK2 genes were also determined and found to be minimal.


In the present article, the authors reviewed the rationale of FDG-PET/CT performed at an interim time point during therapy (iPET), focusing on the transition from standard, anatomical assessment of tumor shrinkage with CT to document a chemotherapy response, to the use of functional imaging with PET to assess chemosensitivity of the individual tumor. The prognostic or predictive role of iPET in different lymphoma subsets has been reviewed, with particular emphasis on early and advanced-stage Hodgkin lymphoma, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, peripheral T-cell lymphoma, extranodal natural killer/T-cell lymphoma, and primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma. A large body of evidence exists in most lymphoma subtypes stressing the role of iPET for early chemotherapy response during first-line chemotherapy treatment, but an increased number of reports have recently been published focusing on the role of iPET in relapsed or refractory lymphoma to predict treatment outcome. Varying patterns of FDG uptake was observed across various lymphoma entities; hence, interpretation of FDG-PET scans should be in the context of the tumor architecture and the prevalence of cellular population, in particular, neoplastic vs non-neoplastic inflammatory cells present in tissue microenvironment. In the second part of the article, the authors reviewed the iPET–response adapted clinical trials and the clinical benefits of this strategy compared to standard non–PET adapted therapy. In particular, the authors extrapolated the reproducibility of FDG-PET image interpretation and the feasibility of a timely treatment adaptation based on FDGPET results in daily clinical practice. This is essential for the reader, as the iPET-adapted strategy has become the standard of care in both earlyand advanced-stage Hodgkin lymphoma, and, in the future, probably this strategy will be expanded to primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma, follicular lymphoma, and peripheral T-cell lymphoma. Semin Nucl Med ■■:■■–■■ © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


Content-based image classification is a wide research field that addresses the landmark recognition problem. Among the many classification techniques proposed, the k-nearest neighbor (kNN) is one of the most simple and widely used methods. In this article, we use kNN classification and landmark recognition techniques to address the problem of monument recognition in images. We propose two novel approaches that exploit kNN classification technique in conjunction with local visual descriptors.
 The first approach is based on a relaxed definition of the local feature based image to image similarity and allows standard kNN classification to be efficiently executed with the support of access methods for similarity search.
 The second approach uses kNN classification to classify local features rather than images. An image is classified evaluating the consensus among the classification of its local features. In this case, access methods for similarity search can be used to make the classification approach efficient.
 The proposed strategies were extensively tested and compared against other state-of-the-art alternatives in a monument and cultural heritage landmark recognition setting. The results proved the superiority of our approaches.
 An additional relevant contribution of this work is the exhaustive comparison of various types of local features and image matching solutions for recognition of monuments and cultural heritage related landmarks.


Reports of the sequential use of multiple light and laser sources for topical 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA) activation in photodynamic therapy (PDT) of inflammatory acne vulgaris are lacking. The authors sought to retrospectively compare field-directed ALA-PDT with blue light only, blue light + pulsed dye laser (PDL), blue light + intense pulsed light (IPL), blue light + PDL + IPL, or blue light + red light + PDL + IPL for inflammatory acne of the face or upper trunk. Results showed a trend toward greater patient-reported improvement with comparable tolerability using multiple, sequential light sources in ALA-PDT for acne vulgaris, albeit not statistically significant. The addition of red light, however, did not improve outcomes. The disparate numbers of patients between treatment arms and high potential for recall bias limit this single-center retrospective study.


: Chondrodermatitis helicis is a benign, painful lesion of the auricle affecting the elderly population, particularly men. These lesions usually affect the helix of the ear, although the antihelix and, less commonly, the antitragus may be involved. The lesions are most frequently unilateral, although bilateral involvement has been reported. An unusual case of bilateral involvement of the antitragus is presented. The etiologic and pathologic manifestations are reviewed and current treatment modalities outlined.


Quality of life and smart health are some of the main use cases for current Internet of Things (IoT) systems. However, healthcare providers are reluctant in using sensors which are increasingly abundant in our environment and have a huge potential for application in tailored, specific and even individualized services to improve the quality of life. Furthermore, our study shows that the healthcare industry has been slow to embrace innovative technologies - such as using big data, machine learning and cloud computing for analytics - that could help them leverage their growing information assets and better learn the human behavior. In this paper, we present how making use of machine learning algorithms running on a cloud platform can be used to process big data about the biological signals of people using various types of IoT systems, including wearable devices and environmental sensors. The paper presents how all this data can be used to provide suggestions for actions to be taken to optimize the quality of life and improve health. We demonstrate that healthcare providers need big data tools to manage and analyze this huge volume of data. The main goal of the paper is to show how to convert environmental sensor data into actionable information for users to provide a healthier and safer environment, learning their behavior, thereby improving the quality of life, reducing health costs and most valuable - increase the scale of prevention. Finally, we present how data from monitoring personal indoor and outdoor environment can be aggregated and managed at different geographical levels, in order to provide statistics at city or district level.


Three patients in the younger age group are described who are thought to have had intermittent volvulus of the sigmoid colon. Successful treatment was effected by sigmoid colectomy and end-to-end anastomosis. The incidence and aetiology of sigmoid volvulus are reviewed, with particular reference to its occurrence in younger patients.


We study the electrochemistry of single layer graphene edges using a nanopore-based structure consisting of stacked graphene and Al(2)O(3) dielectric layers. Nanopores, with diameters ranging from 5 to 20 nm, are formed by an electron beam sculpting process on the stacked layers. This leads to a unique edge structure which, along with the atomically thin nature of the embedded graphene electrode, demonstrates electrochemical current densities as high as 1.2 × 10(4) A/cm(2). The graphene edge embedded structure offers a unique capability to study the electrochemical exchange at an individual graphene edge, isolated from the basal plane electrochemical activity. We also report ionic current modulation in the nanopore by biasing the embedded graphene terminal with respect to the electrodes in the fluid. The high electrochemical specific current density for a graphene nanopore-based device can have many applications in sensitive chemical and biological sensing, and energy storage devices.


Eighty-five percent of American households were food secure throughout the entire year in 2008, meaning that they had access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. The remaining households (14.6 percent) were food insecure at least some time during the year, including 5.7 percent with very low food security—meaning that the food intake of one or more household members was reduced and their eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year because the household lacked money and other resources for food. Prevalence rates of food insecurity and very low food security were up from 11.1 percent and 4.1 percent, respectively, in 2007, and were the highest recorded since 1995, when the first national food security survey was conducted. The typical food-secure household spent 31 percent more on food than the typical food-insecure household of the same size and household composition. Fifty-five percent of all food-insecure households participated in one or more of the three largest Federal food and nutrition assistance programs during the month prior to the 2008 survey.


Background: Recent literature on the behavioural phenotype of Cornelia de Lange syndrome suggests that the trajectory of a number of behaviours may be atypical in the syndrome, including mood and sociability however there is a lack of quantitative research to support these findings. Methods: Three empirical studies were conducted. The first study employed a questionnaire design to follow up mood, interest and pleasure over a two-year period in individuals with Cornelia de Lange syndrome. The second study involved the development of an informant-based questionnaire to examine the trajectory of sociability in Cornelia de Lange syndrome. The third study employed an experimental design to examine indicators of social anxiety in adolescents and adults with Cornelia de Lange syndrome. Results: Low mood and reduced initiation of social interactions with unfamiliar people is characteristic of older adolescents and adults with Cornelia de Lange syndrome. Reduced verbalisation is also evident in this group when demands involving the initiation of speech are placed upon these individuals and this is related to impairments in both planning and working memory. A high rate of selective mutism is also characteristic of Cornelia de Lange syndrome. Conclusion: The trajectory of both mood and sociability appears atypical in Cornelia de Lange syndrome. Cognitive impairments may underpin these behavioural differences in adolescents and adults with the syndrome. A hypothetical model of the pathway from genes to behaviour via cognition is proposed for older adolescents and adults with the syndrome.


In pharmaceuticals, about 90% of all medicines, active pharmaceutical ingredients are in the form of solid particles. With the development of nanotechnology, nanotechnology is a new approach within promising applications in the area of medicine, especially pharmaceutical for safe, controlled, and targeted drug delivery system. Nanotechnology is frequently applied in fiber textile, agriculture, electronics, forensic science, space, and medical therapeutics, namely, in disease detection, controlled drug delivery, as biosensors in tissue engineering. A nanocarrier drug delivery system formulation reduces the patient expenses and gives patient compliance. The major challenges in the development of nanoparticles as a drug delivery system are the control of particle size, surface properties and release of the active moiety to get the site-specific action at the desired rate and dose. Nanocarriers are being used as a transport moiety for another molecule. Nanocarriers are micelles, polymers, carbon-based materials, and liposome, and other substances are used for the delivery of drugs in the control or sustain release. Nanocarriers have recently been studied for their use in drug delivery for their unique characteristic use of chemotherapy. The colloidal system used in drug delivery with size ranging from 10 to 100 nm, use for sustained drug delivery system. In the present scenario nanotechnology has improved the diagnosis and treatment of dermatological conditions. The challenges associated with nanocarriers through the skin permeation are one of the hurdles, and it will soon overcome.


The spread of interactive electronic devices (especially smartphones and tablets) among children is a recent but increasingly expanding phenomenon. Research conducted so far in Italy has focused on school-aged children and adolescents, while there are still very few studies on preschoolers. In our study, 473 parents of 5-6 year old children completed a questionnaire on socio-demographic and familiar features, problems of the child, typology of home-based devices, characteristics of the use of smartphones and tablets by the child, opinions of parents on such use. The results indicate that the smartphone is used by half of the children and the tablet by 48,5% of them. Children using mobile devices for at least 2 hours a day (regular users, n=45) were compared with children who only occasionally use them (occasional users, n=69). The results show that, compared to the other group, regular users: a) have younger fathers; b) live in contexts where digital devices are more present; c) have parents who consider mobile devices as instruments of knowledge and promotion of intelligence and allow their children to use them mainly in environments more suited to adults (eg restaurants). Moreover, emotional, selfregulating, sleep and feeding problems are more frequent among regular users.


This paper presents a digital correction technique for wide-band multibit error-feedback (EF) digital-to-analog converters (DACs). The integral nonlinearity (INL) error of the multibit DAC is estimated (on line or off line) by a calibration analog-to-digital converter (CADC) and stored in a random-access memory table. The INL values are then used to compensate for the multibit DAC's distortion by a simple digital addition. The accuracy requirements for the error estimates are derived. These requirements can be significantly relaxed when the correction is combined with data-weighted averaging (DWA). Simulation and discrete-component measurement results are presented for a fourth-order 5-bit EF DAC. The results show a 14-bit DAC operating at an oversampling ratio of 8, which is suitable for digital subscriber line applications. The correction uses simple digital circuitry and a 3-bit CADC enhanced by DWA.


In chicken farm, the biggest cost is from chicken feed. The feed cost is too expensive because it uses factory feed, which makes operational costs high, then  the profits obtained are very small. The idea is to make the design of a chicken feed processing machine to increase the efficiency of chicken feed costs. The owner of chicken farm can produce chicken feed itself. This chicken feed processing machine is equipped with a corn grinder, dough mixer, and chicken feed mold. This chicken feed processing machine in chicken feed printing has a screw conveyor working principle that utilizes the threads of the screw as a material carrier and presses towards the end of the mold and is cut using 2 rotating blades following the screw conveyor rotation. The chicken feed processing machine uses an electric motor that has a power of 1.5 Hp with a rotation of 140 rpm and can produce 20.16 kg/hour of chicken feed. This machine has dimensions of 125 cm x 40 cm x 80 cm, the chicken feed processing machine designed using Autodesk Inventor software.


The objective of this paper is to develop transformable anticlastic structures based on the geometry of hyperbolic paraboloids (hypars) for temporary architecture. At first, 2DoF (degrees-of-freedom) transformable hypar structure that is capable of shape changes both in plane and on space has been introduced. Then, hypar structures have been connected to each other with respect to the developed design methodology. Starting from joining four hypars together, different types of anticlastic structures have been generated. After studying the morphology and kinematic analyses of the generated structures, a transformable hexagonal joined-hypar structure has been developed as an example of architectural application of such structures. The proposed structure has the ability to change its shape from planar geometry into various doubly-curved geometries. The movement of the structure is provided by means of actuators in its system. By controlling the actuators, the geometry of the structure is adjusted according to the activity and user requirements.


Behavioral aspects and attitudes toward the balanced scorecard (BSC) could be a determinant factor in the success of BSC implementation. In the study we examine the match between factors affecting employee buying into the BSC and corporate strategy and whether a fit between them is necessary to maximize the benefits of BSC implementation by enhancing corporate performance. Conforming to our expectations, we found that firms that carefully planned their strategic objectives were more likely to have a positive impact on their employees' perception of the BSC. A deliberate strategy - or planned strategy - as defined by Mintzberg (1978) is associated with higher levels of BSC awareness, perception of BSC ease of use, perception of BSC usefulness, and intention to use the BSC. We also found that higher perceptions of BSC ease of use were positively associated with aspects of a firm's performance, such as from the customer, internal processes, and learning and innovation perspectives. Hence, we conclude that firms implementing the BSC need to take into consideration that the successful implementation of the BSC requires careful planning to ensure that the firm's strategic objectives are well formulated, fitted with BSC measures, and effectively communicated to BSC users.


Natural fibers reinforced polymer composites have gained more interest because of their biodegradable, light weight, less expensive sources, easy processing, high specific modulus and also environmentally friendly appeal. This paper presents an overview of a study aimed at showing on how the bio-composites which is bagasse fibers combined with resins as an alternative of bagasse-fiber-based composites panel. Transforming bagasse fibers into panel products provides a prospective solution. Bagasse-fiber-based composites offer potential as the core material replacing high density and expensive wood-based fiberboard. Biodegradable composites reinforced with bagasse fibres after being modified or treated by alkali treatment were prepared and also the mechanical properties were investigated. The bio-composites panel samples were processed by hot press machine. All panels were made with aspect ratios between bagasse fibers and polystyrene thermoplastics resins and also the sieve size of bagasse fibers which has short fibers and combination of short fiber and granules fibers. The polystyrene was added as a modified from natural fibers to determine the effect it had on physical and mechanical properties of the panel. Resin content level and panel density were very important in controlling the strength properties of the panels. Surface hardness value, compressive strength, bending strength and bending modulus values all increases in resin content level and panel density. Bagasse-based-panel products can be commercialize successfully if have good development of a cost manufacturing process on an establishment of a market base for the products.


Border regions are expected to benefit from their position when it comes to tourism development. In this article, I propose a new approach to interpreting the connection between an area's proximity to the national border and the development of tourism at the municipal level. The aim of this study is to identify the strengths and limitations of borderlands as regards the development of tourism in seven municipalities of Karelia. I examine summarised data available from online and other resources, as well as my own observations. Using median values, I rely on the method of content analysis of strategic documents on the development of cross-border municipalities of Karelia. My research focuses on the tourism and recreation potential of borderlands and analyses the development of local tourism infrastructure. I describe the major types of tourism, examine tourist flows, and consider the strategic aspects of tourism at the municipal level. I identify the strengths and limitations of the development of tourism in border areas by comparing the data on border and inland municipalities of Karelia and investigate the role of international border crossing points in the development of tourism in borderlands.


This article analyses the reception in France of the Warsaw Confederation (1573) which established religious tolerance in Poland as Henry of Valois ascended the throne, leaving behind the Kingdom of France rent by civil war. In France, some contemporary accounts prefer not to mention such tolerance and cast a veil of silence over confessional diversity in this part of Christendom. Other writers, equally Catholic but more intransigent, assert that this tolerance is illegal, effectively constituting an oath against the king. Protestants, for their part, are unwilling to promote this model of religious peace, which they do not seek, favouring negotiations between the Valois and the Polish Diet to obtain concessions for French Protestants. Finally, for the crown, what is key in Poland is not so much religious tolerance as the goodwill of the nobility and fidelity to the king.


The way in which people enter into a job is relevant to understand the mechanisms that regulate the social redistribution of job opportunities among people. In this way we can understand the paths that lead to exclusion, from work primarily, and through it from social participation in a wider sense. Therefore the job attainment process is our main concern in this paper. Using 1994 ECHP data the paper analyses the attained job status of actors who use social contacts as the main channel to get a job in 1994. The results demonstrate that there exists a real trade-off between three different types of job attainment regulation. Following a well established research tradition, these three main forms of job matching are defined as market, state and networks. These three institutions manage the whole process through which job seekers are matched to vacancies. The paper considers five European countries with different labour market structures and describes the way in which the job matching process is mainly regulated in each. Subsequently, the consequences of such different forms of labour market entry regulation are analysed and it is shown that when the job matching process is mainly regulated by individuals' social capital, ascriptive social inequalities are reproduced. However, the market is also incapable of eliminating such inequalities. The findings demonstrate that only in those countries in which the state plays an important role in helping people to get a job, do job matching processes not result in processes of social exclusion


Going beyond dyadic (one-to-one) interaction has been increasingly explored in HRI. Yet we lack a comprehensive view on non-dyadic interaction research in HRI. To map out 15 years of works investigating non-dyadic interaction, and thereby identifying the trend of the field and future research areas, we performed a literature review containing all 164 publications (2006-2020) from the HRI conference investigating non-dyadic interaction. Our approach is inspired by the 4C framework, an interaction framework focusing on understanding and categorising different types of interaction between humans and digital artefacts. The 4C framework consists of eight interaction principles for multi-user/multi-artefact interaction categorised into four broader themes. We modified the 4C framework to increase applicability and relevance in the context of non-dyadic human-robot interaction. We identify an increasing tendency towards non-dyadic research (36% in 2020), as well as a focus on simultaneous studies (85% from 2006-2020) over sequential. We also articulate seven interaction principles utilised in non-dyadic HRI and provide specific examples. Last, based on our findings, we discuss several salient points of non-dyadic HRI, the applicability of the modified 4C framework to HRI and potential future topics of interest as well as open-questions for non-dyadic research.


During the past year 45 patients have been treated for bronchiectasis. The symptoms in 20 of these patients followed attacks of atypical pneumonia occurring during the winter of 1942-1943. It is with these 20 patients whose bronchiectasis appears to have been related to atypical pneumonia that this paper is primarily concerned. In 3 of the 20 patients, the bronchiectasis appeared to be reversible as confirmed by subsequent bronchograms. These 3 patients showed less severe cylindric bronchiectasis, confined mainly to the larger bronchi. The remaining 17 patients had more extensive bronchial and bronchiolar destruction, and the damage appeared to be permanent. The diagnosis of atypical pneumonia was made at the time of the original illness, prior to transfer to this hospital, and was concurred with only after careful reexamination of the clinical records and roentgenograms. It is impossible, with the material available to us to determine the general incidence of bronchiectasis


INTRODUCTION
The diagnostic algorithm in children with head injury remains uncertain. The National Emergency X-Radiography Utilization Study II (NEXUS II) recently proposed a new decision aid. We analyzed the data prospectively recorded in a local database to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of the variables proposed by NEXUS II, by comparing with an Italian proposal.

METHODS
The clinical data of 2,391 children with head injury (0-10 years old) were prospectively collected, for an 8-year period. Any posttraumatic intracranial lesion was selected as the main outcome. The predictive ability of the selected variables was tested by the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve.

RESULTS
Eighteen of the 2,391 children (0.7%) showed the presence of intracranial lesions on computed tomography scan; neurosurgical intervention was needed in only one subject and an unfavorable outcome at 6-month follow-up occurred in only two subjects. The ability to correctly predict intracranial lesions was higher for the Italian proposal (ROC area, 0.896; 95% confidence interval, 0.887-0.904) than the NEXUS II (ROC area, 0.741; 95% confidence interval, 0.666-0.817; Fisher's exact test; p<0.001). The individual variables of the Italian proposal were both more sensitive (100% vs. 89%) and more specific (79% vs. 59%). No lesions remained undiagnosed by the variables considered in the Italian proposal, whereas two cases with lesions would have been missed by the NEXUS II rule.

CONCLUSIONS
In our setting, the variables selected by the Italian proposal had higher discriminating capacity for intracranial lesions than those proposed by the NEXUS II rule, in children with head injury. These results should be considered in children with head injury attending an emergency department of a general hospital.


Hematopoietic cells have secretory lysosomes that degranulate at the inflammatory site upon stimulation. We asked whether one could target exogenous proteins with a therapeutic potential to secretory lysosomes in hematopoietic cells. For this purpose, we expressed a soluble tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptor form (sTNFR1) in hematopoietic cell lines. In order to accomplish targeting to secretory lysosomes, both endoplasmic reticulum (ER) retention and constitutive secretion have to be prevented. ER export was facilitated by addition of a transmembrane (tm) sequence, and constitutive secretion was overcome by incorporating a cytosolic sorting signal (Y) from CD63. This signal directed the resulting sTNFR1-tm-Y to secretory lysosomes. Confirmation of these results was provided by biosynthetic radiolabeling, subcellular fractionation, immunofluorescence microscopy, and immunoelectron microscopy. The tm-Y fragment was cleaved by proteolysis, resulting in generation of the membrane-free sTNFR1 in secretory lysosomes. Our results suggest a potential for using the storage organelles of hematopoietic cells as vehicles for targeting sites of inflammation with therapeutically active agents.


Abstract Microstructure of austenitic stainless steel is primarily monophasic, i.e. austenitic. However, precipitation of the δ-ferrite in the austenite matrix is possible depending on the chemical composition of steel. δ-Ferrite is stable on room temperature but it transforms into σ-phase, carbides and austenite during heat treatment. In this work, the results of analysis of influence of temperature and time on decomposition of δ-ferrite are presented. Magnetic induction method, microstructure and hardness analyses were used for testing the degree of decomposition of the δ-ferrite. Analysis of results showed that increase in temperature and time increases the degree of decomposition of δ-ferrite.


Hyperspectral imagery typically provides a wealth of information captured in a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum for each pixel in the image; however, when used in statistical pattern-classification tasks, the resulting high-dimensional feature spaces often tend to result in ill-conditioned formulations. Popular dimensionality-reduction techniques such as principal component analysis, linear discriminant analysis, and their variants typically assume a Gaussian distribution. The quadratic maximum-likelihood classifier commonly employed for hyperspectral analysis also assumes single-Gaussian class-conditional distributions. Departing from this single-Gaussian assumption, a classification paradigm designed to exploit the rich statistical structure of the data is proposed. The proposed framework employs local Fisher's discriminant analysis to reduce the dimensionality of the data while preserving its multimodal structure, while a subsequent Gaussian mixture model or support vector machine provides effective classification of the reduced-dimension multimodal data. Experimental results on several different multiple-class hyperspectral-classification tasks demonstrate that the proposed approach significantly outperforms several traditional alternatives.


SUMMARY This article is based on a presentation made at The First International Conference on Domestic Abuse in the Jewish Community–Pursuing Truth, Justice and Righteousness: A Call to Action, sponsored by Jewish Women International and Partners, held in July, 2003, in Baltimore, MD, USA.


The purpose of this paper is to discuss the process of developing Questionnaires of DeviantSexual Behavior and Awareness on Sexual Deviation Behavior Based on Islam. Somecriteria's has been identified to develop these questionnaires in the aspect of psychology,counseling and Islamic education. The benefit is to produce an applicable instrument to theIslamic context. These questionnaires were developed through integrated discipline of psychology, counseling and Islam and the aim is for enable to measure sexual deviantbehavior from the Islamic perspective. The main sources of these references were based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Text Revision (2000), Checklist Sexual Behavior Inventory (Friedrich, 1997), Al Ghazali Model (Yatimah and MohdTajudin, 2008) and the tendency of immoral behavior based on human sense according toIslam (Amir Hassan, 2007). DSM-IV-TR (2000) which involved some clinical items such as exhibitionism,
frotteurism and voyeurism. Meanwhile Checklist Sexual Behaviour Inventory (Friedrich, 1997) were refers to personal boundaries, exhibitionism, self-stimulation, sexualinterest, sexual knowledge and voyeuristic behavior. Counseling Model Based On HumanTraits Al Ghazali (Yatimah and Mohd Tajudin, 2008) involved some items such aslimitation in intermingle, aurat limitation, sense limitation, and the tendency of immoralbehaviour based on human sense according to Islam (Amir Hassan, 2007) such as part of body, hands, mouth, ear and eye. These questionnaires has been evaluated for the contentvalidity and expert validity from the internal expert and external expert. The result of thesequestionnaires showed a commonly acceptable for the Cronbach alpha value more than 0.6(Kerlinger, 1979). The Questionaires of Deviant Sexual Behaviour Based on Islam for thevalue of Cronbach Alpha was 0.7038 and Awareness on Sexual Deviation Behaviour Based
on Islam for the Cronbach Alpha was 0.7183.


Background: Influenza co-circulates with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the space and time. Given the current situation of COVID-19 pandemic and influenza seasonal epidemic worldwide, there are lots of concerns about the potential co-infections or interactions between these two respiratory viruses. We aimed to study the potential interactions between them in Wuhan.

Methods: We obtained the epidemiological, demograhic and laboratory data from the COVID-19 and influenza cases visited the study hospital between January 2017 and February 2020. The co-infections of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza virus were retrospectively investigated in COVID-19 and influenza cases, and prospectively detected in the cases with fever and any other respiratory symptom visited the same hospital during February 14-24, 2020.

Findings: COVID-19 incidence dramatically increased in the end of January 2020 and reached the peak on February 4 in the study hospital. The seasonal epidemic of influenza was interrupted in January. A sharp decline of influenza A incidence and a premature plummet of influenza B incidence were observed. Negative correlations between the epidemic curves of COVID-19 and influenza A (r=-0.49, p<0.05) or influenza B (r=-0.51, p<0.05) were uncovered. Nine co-infections were retrospectively identified in 1054 cases of COVID-19 or influenza (0.9%, 95% CI: 0.4-1.6%). No co-infection was prospectively detected in 179 patients with fever and any respiratory symptom.

Interpretation: The emergence of COVID-19 interfered influenza epidemic in 2019-2020 season in Wuhan. Enhancing the surveillance of influenza could potentially facilitate better judgment about the real situation of COVID-19 pandemic, which could be hidden in massive influenza cases.

Funding Statement: Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81900097, 81903401), the Emergency Response Project of Hubei Science and Technology Department (2020FCA023), the National Science and Technology Major Project (2018ZX10101004), the Young Taishan Scholars Program of Shandong Province of China (tsqn20161046), the Shandong Province Higher Educational Young and Innovation Technology Supporting Program (2019KJL004), the Academic Promotion Program of Shandong First Medical University (2019RC010) and the Emergency Diagnostic and Therapeutic Center of Central China.

Declaration of Interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethics Approval Statement: This study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University (Clinical Ethical Approval No. 2020020). Written informed consent was obtained from the patients of respiratory symptoms group, and waived for the patients in other groups.


Single cell RNA-Seq (scRNA-Seq) has become the most widely used high-throughput technology for gene expression profiling of individual cells. The potential of being able to measure cell-to-cell variability at a high-dimensional genomic scale opens numerous new lines of investigation in basic and clinical research. For example, by identifying groups of cells with expression profiles unlike those observed in cells with known phenotypes, new cell types may be discovered. Dimension reduction followed by unsupervised clustering are the quantitative approaches typically used to facilitate such discoveries. However, a challenge for this approach is that most scRNA-Seq datasets are sparse, with the percentages of measurements reported as zero ranging from 35% to 99% across cells, and these zeros are partially explained by experimental inefficiencies that lead to censored data. Furthermore, the observed across-cell differences in the percentages of zeros are partly due to technical artifacts rather than biological differences. Unfortunately, standard dimension reduction approaches treat these censored values as true zeros, which leads to the identification of distorted low-dimensional factors. When these factors are used for clustering, the distortion leads to incorrect identification of biological groups. Here, we propose an approach that accounts for cell-specific censoring with a varying-censoring aware matrix factorization (VAMF) model that permits the identification of factors in the presence of the above described systematic bias. We demonstrate the advantages of our approach on published scRNA-Seq data and confirm these on simulated data.


Defective RNAs (D-RNAs) ranging in size from 1968 to 2759 nt were detected in four citrus tristeza virus (CTV) isolates by hybridization of electroblotted dsRNAs with two probes specific for the 5'- and 3'-terminal genomic regions. The RNAs that hybridized with both probes were eluted, cloned and sequenced. Comparison with the sequences of the corresponding genomic regions of the helper virus showed, in all cases, over 99% nucleotide identity and direct repeats of 4-5 nt flanking or in the vicinity of the junction sites. The presence of the repeats from two separate genome locations suggests a replicase-driven template switching mechanism for the generation of these CTV D-RNAs. Two of the CTV isolates that differed greatly in their pathogenicity contained an identical D-RNA, suggesting that it is unlikely that this D-RNA is involved in symptom modulation, which may be caused by another factor.


State of the art neural methods for open information extraction (OpenIE) usually extract triplets (or tuples) iteratively in an autoregressive or predicate-based manner in order not to produce duplicates. In this work, we propose a different approach to the problem that can be equally or more successful. Namely, we present a novel single-pass method for OpenIE inspired by object detection algorithms from computer vision. We use an order-agnostic loss based on bipartite matching that forces unique predictions and a Transformer-based encoder-only architecture for sequence labeling. The proposed approach is faster and shows superior or similar performance in comparison with state of the art models on standard benchmarks in terms of both quality metrics and inference time. Our model sets the new state of the art performance of 67.7% F1 on CaRB evaluated as OIE2016 while being 3.35x faster at inference than previous state of the art. We also evaluate the multilingual version of our model in the zero-shot setting for two languages and introduce a strategy for generating synthetic multilingual data to fine-tune the model for each specific language. In this setting, we show performance improvement of 15% on multilingual Re-OIE2016, reaching 75% F1 for both Portuguese and Spanish languages. Code and models are available at https://github.com/sberbank-ai/DetIE.


Contact-active antibacterial surfaces with irreversibly attached antibacterial com-pounds are a sustainable alternative to traditional biocides. No chemicals are released into nature and the antibacterial mechanism reduces the risk of the evolution of re-sistant bacteria. However, the preparation of such surfaces is far from sustainable, as organic solvents and harsh reaction conditions commonly are required. An alter-native option is to use polyelectrolyte multilayers (PEM), based on physical ad-sorption, which can be performed in water-based solutions at room temperature. Although contact-active antibacterial PEMs have been reported previously, this is the first study of renewable cellulosic wood fibres.The build-up of cationic polymer polyvinylamine (PVAm) and anionic polyacrylic acid (PAA) multilayers on model surfaces was studied to optimise adsorption. The amount of adsorbed polyelectrolytes was continuously growing with increasing number of layers, but remained dense and flat as the number of layers increased. The largest adsorption was obtained at a high salt concentration, which shielded the repulsion between the polymers.Model surfaces were also used to evaluate the influence of the polymer and number of layers on the antibacterial properties. Multilayers on model surfaces showed a low bacteriostatic effect, with up to approximately 40 % inhibition for 3 layers of un-modified PVAm/PAA. In contrast, when the same multilayers were applied on cel-lulosic fibres, bacterial-growth inhibition of > 99.9% was obtained. Hydrophobically modified PVAm did not yield better results, despite being superior in solution. An increase in fibre charge by fibre oxidation led to the largest amount of adsorbed pol-ymer and the best antibacterial properties, an effect that lasted for weeks. Electron microscopy study of bacteria on the fibres showed that the bacteria interacted more on a highly charged surface and that the morphology of the bacterial cell could be affected. The effect was suggested to be due to electrostatic interaction with the pos-itively charged modified fibres. The promising results offer the possibilities of a new generation of antibacterial surfaces based on a renewable resource.


"Nanobacteria" are nanometer-scale spherical and ovoid particles which have spurred one of the biggest controversies in modern microbiology. Their biological nature has been severely challenged by both geologists and microbiologists, with opinions ranging from considering them crystal structures to new life forms. Although the nature of these autonomously replicating particles is still under debate, their role in several calcification-related diseases has been reported. In order to gain better insights on this calciferous agent, we performed a large-scale project, including the analysis of "nanobacteria" susceptibility to physical and chemical compounds as well as the comprehensive nucleotide, biochemical, proteomic, and antigenic analysis of these particles. Our results definitively ruled out the existence of "nanobacteria" as living organisms and pointed out the paradoxical role of fetuin (an anti-mineralization protein) in the formation of these self-propagating mineral complexes which we propose to call "nanons." The presence of fetuin within renal calculi was also evidenced, suggesting its role as a hydroxyapatite nucleating factor.


We have performed density functional theory and MP2 calculations of the unnatural DNA base pair, Ds–Pa, (7-(2-thienyl)-imidazo[4,5-b]pyridine (Ds) and pyrrole-2-carbaldehyde (Pa)) in the gas phase. By calculating the interaction energy curve of Ds–Pa pair as a function of intermolecular distance, we have found that the interaction energy between Ds and Pa molecules is very weak. The detailed analysis of the structural properties of the optimized Ds–Pa pair has been also used and compared with those of A–T and G–C natural base pairs. These results clearly show that the Ds–Pa pair does not have any hydrogen bonds and suggest that the pair selectivity in the Ds–Pa pair mainly comes from the interaction of Ds or Pa molecules with other parts in DNA or RNA, such as upper or lower natural bases, sugar phosphate backbones, and water molecules. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.