In the psychometric literature, item response theory models have been proposed that explicitly take the decision process underlying the responses of subjects to psychometric test items into account. Application of these models is however hampered by the absence of general and flexible software to fit these models. In this paper, we present diffIRT, an R package that can be used to fit item response theory models that are based on a diffusion process. We discuss parameter estimation and model fit assessment, show the viability of the package in a simulation study, and illustrate the use of the package with two datasets pertaining to extraversion and mental rotation. In addition, we illustrate how the package can be used to fit the traditional diffusion model (as it has been originally developed in experimental psychology) to data.


CROSS-‐DISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION: CREATING THE FOUNDATION FOR COLLABORATION AMONGST THE ARTS. POWERED BY TECTONIC THEATRE PROJECT'S MOMENT WORK By Tara Beth Weintraub, M.F.A A Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2015 Major Director: Dr. Noreen Barnes Director of Graduate Studies, Theatre During this course, upper-level VCUArts students are invited to join forces to become a part of a cross-disciplinary, ensemble-based exploration. Powered by Tectonic Theatre Project's Moment Work, students will create new works and gain insight into the philosophies, purposes, and processes of Moment Work and other devised theatre techniques. The class will culminate in short, devised pieces, created and performed by the students. The focus of the class is on the creation of a harmonious ensemble amongst a varied group of young artists. I believe that in order to create a generation of innovative and forward-thinking artists, the segregation of the arts disciplines within academia must halt. Cross-disciplinary collaboration will invite varying perspectives to exist in a single setting, and hopefully lead to new forms of art.


Olive mill wastewaters (OMWs), which are known to have deep impacts on the receiving water bodies due to their high-strength contents of organic materials and color, must be treated before discharge. For this reason; a number of research studies have been available in current literature related to the treatment of OMWs. However, no widely accepted treatment alternatives have been proposed yet. The common results of these studies suggest that OMWs must be pretreated prior to final purification processes. This study focuses on the comparison of alternative pre-treatment processes in the aspect of chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal and costs of operation. Centrifuging, lime precipitation, acid cracking, and electrocoagulation processes were performed to compare removal efficiencies and operational costs. The COD removal efficiencies for centrifuging, lime precipitation, acid cracking, and electrocoagulation processes were determined to be 30.1, 24.1, 20.0, 53.7%, respectively, with operational costs being $0.30, $0.37, $1.42, and $11.60 per cubic meter of wastewater treated, respectively. The centrifuging process was concluded to be the most appropriate one according to the COD removal efficiency and cost of operation.


The purpose of this review is to highlight the novelty elements of the research carried out by Mr. Radu Tudor Petre on The impact of crime on regional economic and social development in Romania. The very first work is to use and adapt to national specificities certain working methods and tools validated by other States, for which crime control and the effective spending of public money is a priority. The multifactorial crime model, the model of situational prevention through regional planning, the calculation of the regional cost of crime per capita, the application of the Granger causality test on the criminal phenomena variables and the Gini index of social inequality, resulting in the likelihood of the causal link between crime, have been tested and adapted, level of economic development and corruption index. Research has emerged as a necessity in the current socio-economic and political national and international context, which inevitably generates new forms of organized crime or the increasing level of existing crime, so that the institutional capacity of a state to anticipate trends or developments in this phenomenon and the assessment of the social and economic impact it has had lead to the adoption of viable regional, national and transnational crime prevention and reduction policies, linked to regional development programs. The quality of the paper is that, by linking social issues (social exclusion, unemployment, early school leaving, risk of victimization, disadvantaged background, etc.), crime and their economic and social impact on regional development, open up new opportunities for cross-disciplinary research.


Accurate and timely identification of anaerobic bacteria is critical to successful treatment. Classic phenotypic methods for identification require long turnaround times and can exhibit poor species level identification. Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) is an identification method that can provide rapid identification of anaerobes. We present a multi-centre study assessing the clinical performance of the VITEK(®) MS in the identification of anaerobic bacteria. Five different test sites analysed a collection of 651 unique anaerobic isolates comprising 11 different genera. Multiple species were included for several of the genera. Briefly, anaerobic isolates were applied directly to a well of a target plate. Matrix solution (α-cyano-4-hydroxycinnamic acid) was added and allowed to dry. Mass spectra results were generated with the VITEK(®) MS, and the comparative spectral analysis and organism identification were determined using the VITEK(®) MS database 2.0. Results were confirmed by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Of the 651 isolates analysed, 91.2% (594/651) exhibited the correct species identification. An additional eight isolates were correctly identified to genus level, raising the rate of identification to 92.5%. Genus-level identification consisted of Actinomyces, Bacteroides and Prevotella species. Fusobacterium nucleatum, Actinomyces neuii and Bacteroides uniformis were notable for an increased percentage of no-identification results compared with the other anaerobes tested. VITEK(®) MS identification of clinically relevant anaerobes is highly accurate and represents a dramatic improvement over other phenotypic methods in accuracy and turnaround time.


Objectives Rehabilitation following medical conditions is largely offered as in-patient service in Germany. Foreign-national residents use rehabilitative services less often than Germans and attain less favourable treatment outcomes. These differences are independent of demographic, socioeconomic and health characteristics. Satisfaction with different aspects of rehabilitative care presumably affects the effectiveness of rehabilitative services. We compared the degree of satisfaction with different domains of the rehabilitative care process between Germans and non-German nationals residing in Germany. Methods We used data from a cross-sectional rehabilitation patient survey annually conducted by the German Statutory Pension Insurance Scheme. The sample comprises 274 513 individuals undergoing medical rehabilitation in 642 hospitals during the years 2007–2011. Participants rated their satisfaction with different domains of rehabilitation on multi-item scales. We dichotomised each scale to low/moderate and high satisfaction. For each domain, a multilevel adjusted logistic regression analysis was conducted to examine differences in the levels of satisfaction between German and non-German nationals. Average marginal effects (AMEs) and 99.5% CI were computed as effect estimates. AMEs represent differences in the probability for the occurrence of the outcome. Results Turkish nationals had a higher probability for being less satisfied with most aspects of their rehabilitation, with AMEs ranging between 0.05 (99.5% CI 0.00 to 0.09) for 'satisfaction with psychological care' and 0.11 (99.5% CI 0.08 to 0.14) for 'satisfaction with treatments during rehabilitation'. Patients from former Yugoslavia and from Portugal/Spain/Italy/Greece were as satisfied as Germans with most aspects of their rehabilitation. Conclusions Turkish nationals are less satisfied with their rehabilitative care than other population groups. This may be attributable to the diversity of the population in terms of its expectations towards rehabilitation. Rehabilitative care institutions need to provide services that are sensitive to the needs of all clients. Diversity management can contribute to this process.


Recently a growing interest has arisen about radial line slot array (RLSA) antennas that appear to be simple and low-cost solutions for applications at high microwaves and millimeter waves. In this paper a computationally efficient method of moments (MoM) formulation that make use of an approximate asymptotic formula for the slot mutual admittance is presented. The formula accuracy to the asymptotic order O(r-3/2) gives sufficient accuracy for moderate slot distance (1.5-2 wavelength). This permits, in a typical RLSA analysis, avoiding the numerical integration in more than 95% of the slot pairs with a save of CPU time of the same order.


Based on unsaturated polyester resin (UP) of type Polimal 109-32RPyk, there were obtained hybrid composites with addition of four different inorganic ingredients. There were assessed mechanical and processing properties of these composites, especially regarding their application to production of gears with rapid prototyping methods. There was determined an apparent improvement in mechanical properties of hybrid composite samples compared to the control sample of pure UP. Tensile strength increased by up to 85 %, unnotched impact strength - by 95 % and Brinell hardness of samples by as much as 110 %. With a coordinate measuring machine there was also examined geometric accuracy of models produced from the obtained composites. Using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) there was observed surface morphology of brittle fractures.


Objectives. To answer two research questions: First, can previously identified factors relating to academic performance be used to predict first-year academic success for students undertaking a newly developed andvocationally oriented prehospital care course delivered in a rural setting? Second, can the study's findings be used to develop appropriate student selection criteria to assist in the admission of students into relevant tertiary studies or the prehospital care industry? Methods. A retrospective review of all first-year, on-campus prehospital care students enrolled in a vocational course at a rural Australian university from 1998 to 2001 was conducted. Six predictors of academic performance were examined, namely: University Admission Index (UAI), postsecondary educational qualifications, student entry type (traditional or mature-aged), previous health-related experience, gender, andbackground (rural or urban). Three dependent variables assessed academic performance: grade point average (GPA) of students who completed all required first-year subjects, GPA of students who completed at least one subject in the first year, andthe student's ability to successfully complete the first year. Results. UAI > 50, previous health-related experience, postsecondary educational qualifications, background, student entry type, andgender were all found to be significant predictors of first-year academic performance in selective cohorts. In addition, a combination of predictors produced higher GPAs than did any single predictor. Conclusion. Academic performance of first-year students in the prehospital care discipline can be predicted given the appropriate selection variables. Admission selection can be assisted with the generated Student Selection 001.


The theory of incomplete contracts has been used to study the relationship between buyers and suppliers following the deployment of modern information technology to facilitate coordination between them. Previous research has sought to explain anecdotal evidence from some industries on the recent reduction in the number of suppliers selected to do business with buyers by appealing to relationship-specific costs that suppliers may incur. In contrast, this paper emphasizes that information technology enables greater completeness of buyer-supplier contracts through more economical monitoring of additional dimensions of supplier performance. The number of terms included in the contract is an imperfect substitute for the number of suppliers. Based on this idea, alternative conditions are identified under which increased use of information technology leads to a reduction in the number of suppliers without invoking relationship-specific costs. We find that a substantial increase in contract completeness due to reduced cost of information technology could increase the cost per supplier even though the cost of coordination and the cost per term monitored decrease. Such an increase in the cost per supplier leads to a reduction in the number of suppliers with whom the buyer chooses to do business. Similarly, we find that if coordination cost is reduced when more information technology is deployed so that the number of suppliers in the buyer's pool increases substantially, the buyer might choose to make the supplier contracts less complete, instead relying on a more market-oriented approach to finding a supplier with good fit.


This study was conducted to identify the bat species inhabiting in selected caves of the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park (NSMNP), Luzon, Philippines through their morphometric characteristics, determine the current conservation status of bat species in the study sites, and recommend possible conservation, protection and maintenance of these species in the selected caves. A total of 24 bat species were identified from the selected sites. These species belong to six families namely: Pteropodidae (2), Emballonuridae (2), Molossidae (1), Vespertilionidae (5), Hipposideridae (5), and (9). Furthermore, the conservation of identified species of bats was categorized based on the IUCN Red list (2010). Majority of the species were categorized as least concern. Three out of the 24 species were near threatened. Two species were categorized as data deficient. Only one species is unknown. In line with the possible threat to bats, it was found out that the major factors that greatly affect their way of living and their population were destruction of their habitat and the rampant hunting of people for them. Result of the study could be subject to in depth molecular assessment. Rigid execution and implementation of the laws and policies concerning the protection of species in the wild should be done by the Government and other concerned agencies to help prevent their extinction.


This study reports the results of a recent field survey for residential apartment buildings in Egypt. The aim of the survey is to create representative building energy models. Two building performance simulation models are created reflecting the average energy consumption characteristics of air-conditioned residential apartments in Alexandria, Cairo and Asyut. Aiming for future evaluation of the cost and energy affects of the new Egyptian energy standard this study established two detailed models describing the energy use profiles for air-conditioners, lighting, DHW and appliances in respect to buildings layout and construction. Using EnergyPlus simulation tool the collected surveyed data was used as input for two building simulation models. The simulation models were verified against the apartment characteristic found in the survey. This paper presents details of the building models including the energy use patterns and profiles created for this study.


OF THESIS A MODELING APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING GLYPHOSATE TRANSPORT IN THE BELIZE RIVER WATERSHED Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide worldwide and is often transported from application areas to surface water when solubilized in runoff or sorbed to eroded sediment. There is evidence that suggests both glyphosate and its main metabolite aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) may pose a risk to human health, as well as cause adverse effects in the environment. However, consistent monitoring data is still limited, especially in developing countries. Belize is a developing nation with agriculture being a major sector of its economy and is heavily reliant on glyphosate. The widespread use of glyphosate in Belize may be resulting in glyphosate transport to drinking water resources. Samples were collected from two rural communities that rely on the Belize River for their drinking water systems, Bullet Tree and Spanish Lookout, at points upstream of the abstraction site, at the abstraction site, and at the site of drinking water distribution. Samples were analyzed using HPLC, ELISA kits, and LC-MS/MS. From these analyses, it was concluded that glyphosate was not present in any water samples at a detectable concentration. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was used to develop a model of the Belize River Watershed. The model was calibrated and validated for observed flow rates using the SWAT Calibration and Uncertainty Program (SWATCUP), which revealed acceptable model performance for simulating flow. Model results indicate that glyphosate transport to the Belize River is occurring, with contributions from glyphosate sorbed to eroded sediment being significantly greater than soluble glyphosate in surface runoff (p-values <0.0). Average simulated concentrations of soluble glyphosate in both wet and dry seasons are below the European Union (EU) standard of 0.1 ppb across the watershed. However, subbasins 2, 3, and 28 were identified as higher risk areas, due to having the highest percentages of days exceeding the EU standard. Subbasin 28, located just downstream of the Spanish Lookout drinking water system, was the most significant contributor of soluble glyphosate to the river, as compared to soluble glyphosate concentrations in subbasins 2 (p-values <0.0) and 3 (p-values <0.0). Soluble glyphosate concentrations in subbasin 28 inflow and outflow exceeded the EU standard 12.53% and 11.65% of the time, respectively. This work demonstrates a framework for applying SWAT for pesticide transport modeling in developing countries, and has the potential to be a powerful and accessible tool for watershed management when monitoring data is unavailable.


Meningitis caused by varicella zoster virus (VZV) infection is uncommon in immunocompetent patients. We report 3 cases of VZV meningitis with rash in immunocompetent adults from a single academic institution over a 1-year period. The low prevalence of VZV meningitis in this population is attributed to lack of early recognition or underreporting. We highlight the importance of considering VZV as a possible cause of meningitis even in previously healthy young individuals.


Background: In the latest 2017 American Heart Association guidelines for Kawasaki disease (KD), there are no recommendations regarding the early administration of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG). Therefore, the purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to investigate the effects of early IVIG therapy on KD. Methods: We searched databases including the PubMed, Medline, the Cochrane Library, and the Clinicaltrials.gov website until July 2019. Results: Fourteen studies involving a total of 70,396 patients were included. Early treatment with IVIG can lead to an increased risk of IVIG unresponsiveness [OR 2.24; 95% CI (1.76, 2.84); P = 0.000]. In contrast to the studies performed in Japan [OR 1.27; 95% CI (0.98, 1.64); P = 0.074] that found no significant difference in coronary artery lesions (CAL) development, studies conducted in China [OR 0.73; 95% CI (0.66, 0.80); P = 0.000] and the United States [OR 0.50; 95% CI (0.38, 0.66); P = 0.000] showed a reduced risk in the occurrence of CAL with early IVIG treatment. Conclusions: At present, the evidence does not support the treatment with IVIG in the early stage of the onset of KD. But, early IVIG treatment could be a protective factor against the development of CAL, which needs to be further clarified.


Over the past 65 years, kidney transplantation has evolved into the optimal treatment for patients with kidney failure, dramatically reducing suffering through improved survival and quality of life. However, access to transplant is still limited by organ supply, opportunities for transplant are inequitably distributed, and lifelong transplant survival remains elusive. To address these persistent needs, the National Kidney Foundation convened an expert panel to define an agenda for future research. The key priorities identified by the panel center on the needs to develop and evaluate strategies to expand living donation, improve waitlist management and transplant readiness, maximize use of available deceased donor organs, and extend allograft longevity. Strategies targeting the critical goal of decreasing organ discard that warrant research investment include educating patients and clinicians about potential benefits of accepting nonstandard organs, use of novel organ assessment technologies and real-time decision support, and approaches to preserve and resuscitate allografts before implantation. The development of personalized strategies to reduce the burden of lifelong immunosuppression and support "one transplant for life" was also identified as a vital priority. The panel noted the specific goal of improving transplant access and graft survival for children with kidney failure. This ambitious agenda will focus research investment to promote greater equity and efficiency in access to transplantation, and help sustain long-term benefits of the gift of life for more patients in need.


The therapeutic use of cannabis has generated a lot of interest in the past years, leading to a better understanding of its mechanisms of action. Countries like the United States and Canada have modified their laws in order to make cannabinoid use legal in the medical context. It's also the case in France now, where a recent decree was issued, authorizing the prescription of medication containing "therapeutic cannabis" (decree no. 2013-473, June 5, 2013). Cannabinoids such as dronabinol, Sativex and nabilone have been tested for the treatment of acute and chronic pain. These agents are most promising to relieve chronic pain associated with cancer, with human immunodeficiency virus infection and with multiple sclerosis. However, longer-term studies are required to determine potential long-term adverse effects and risks of misuse and addiction.


Recent advances in computer vision and graphics have shown that regular, monocular cameras and video (e.g. cell phone cameras and Digital SLRs) can be used to identify the resonant frequencies of structures, and even image visually subtle operational deflection shapes. This paper is offered as a teaser for that work, focusing specifically on an example that may be of interest to people in the structural health monitoring (SHM) community. The discussion is high-level, and presented in an intentionally casual tone (much of the paper presents an anecdote – about recovering the operational deflection shape of an airplane wing using a cell phone and a dish sponge – using the first person). Our hope is to make this text as accessible and painless to read as possible, with hopes of introducing readers from different engineering disciplines to our related work in computer vision and graphics.


ABSTRACT The number of population-based studies focused on the prevalence of paraphilic sexual interests in men is very low and for women, the subject remains largely unexplored. The two main aims of this study are to investigate the prevalence of paraphilias and to explore sex differences in an online representative sample of Czech men and women using various dimensions of sexual experience. We collected data about sexual motivations and behavior from a representative online sample of 10,044 Czechs (5,023 men and 5,021 women). In a standardized online interview, participants answered questions about selected dimensions of sexual experience within specific paraphilic patterns: sexual preferences, sexual arousal, sexual fantasies in the past 6 months, pornography use in the past 6 months, and experience with paraphilic behaviors. Our results show that 31.3% of men (n = 1,571) and 13.6% of women (n = 683) admitted to at least one paraphilic preference. Moreover, 15.5% of men and 5% of women reported more than one paraphilic preference. Except for beating/torture and humiliation/submission, in terms of real experience with such behaviors almost all paraphilias were more common among men than among women. Our results indicate that the high prevalence of some paraphilic patterns might render their pathologization problematic.


We compare some methods recently used in the literature to detect the existence of a certain degree of common behavior of stock returns belonging to the same economic sector. Specifically, we discuss methods based on random matrix theory and hierarchical clustering techniques. We apply these methods to a portfolio of stocks traded at the London Stock Exchange. The investigated time series are recorded both at a daily time horizon and at a 5-minute time horizon. The correlation coefficient matrix is very different at different time horizons confirming that more structured correlation coefficient matrices are observed for long time horizons. All the considered methods are able to detect economic information and the presence of clusters characterized by the economic sector of stocks. However different methods present a different degree of sensitivity with respect to different sectors. Our comparative analysis suggests that the application of just a single method could not be able to extract all the economic information present in the correlation coefficient matrix of a stock portfolio.


Ovule development in Arabidopsis thaliana involves pattern formation which ensures that ovules are regularly arranged in the pistils to reduce competition for nutrients and space. Mechanisms underlying pattern formation in plants, such as phyllotaxis, flower morphogenesis or lateral root initiation, have been extensively studied, and genes controlling the initiation of ovules have been identified. However, how a regular spacing of ovules is achieved is not known. Using natural variation analysis combined with quantitative trait locus analysis, we found that the spacing of ovules in the developing fruits is controlled by two secreted peptides, EPFL2 and EPFL9 (also known as Stomagen), and their receptors from the ERECTA (ER) family that act from the carpel wall and the placental tissue. We found that a signalling pathway controlled by EPFL9 acting from the carpel wall through the LRR-receptor kinases ER, ERL1 and ERL2 promotes fruit growth. Regular spacing of ovules depends on EPFL2 expression in the carpel wall and in the inter-ovule spaces, where it acts through ERL1 and ERL2. Loss of EPFL2 signalling results in shorter fruits and irregular spacing of ovules or even ovule twinning. The EPFL2 expression pattern between ovules is under negative-feedback regulation by auxin, which accumulates in the arising ovule primordia. We propose that the auxin-EPFL2 signalling module evolved to control the initiation and regular, equidistant spacing of ovule primordia, which serves to minimise competition between developing seeds. Together, EPFL2 and EPFL9 coordinate ovule patterning and thereby seed number with fruit growth through a set of shared receptors.


ABSTRACT Temperature variations are particularly harmful to wearing courses with asphalt mixture. During wintertime, and especially, at very low temperatures, a surface cracking may appear and propagate more or less rapidly. An experimental investigation has been carried out on specimens of bituminous mixtures cored in the wearing course of 16 test sections of a motorway in Switzerland. These 16 wearing courses are composed with 16 different bitumen as pure bitumen, polymer modified bitumen and bitumen with additives. Those selected bitumen give a representation of the bitumen market in the 80's in Switzerland. 8 years after construction, bituminous mixtures specimens were cored in the driving carriageway and in the "emergency lane", which is not driving Their thermomechanical behaviour through the Tensile Stress Restrained Specimens Test (TSRST), and their mechanical behaviour when subjected to mechanical load through a new highly precise Direct Tensile Test (DTT) were assessed. Significative behaviour, which was depending on the origin of the specimens (carriageway or emergency lane) were observed through the TSRST. In addition, this paper provides a relevant approach procedure for investigating thermal cracking at low temperature with a highly precise DTT.


Metallic sandwich plates have been widely used in blast-resistance structures due to the excellent capacity of energy absorption. In this work, dynamic response of square honeycomb sandwich plates is investigated using LS-DYNA. The effect of mass of TNT charge on the deformation and on internal energy of square honeycomb sandwich plate is numerically analyzed. The relationship of deflection, as well as internal energy and the mass of TNT charge is obtained. The performance of square honeycomb sandwich plate is compared with monolithic solid plate with the same mass and blast loading. During the response of sandwich plate, the deformation includes local dent of upper face sheet, overall bending and stretching of both face sheets and buckling of square honeycomb core while the deformation of monolithic solid plate is involved in overall bending and stretching. It denotes that square honeycomb sandwich plate has better capacity of resistance-deformation and energy absorption than that of monolithic solid plate with the same mass and the same blast loading.


Retrotransposons are transposable elements that use reverse transcriptase as an intermediate to copy and paste themselves into a genome via transcription. The presence of retrotransposons is ubiquitous in the genomes of eukaryotic organisms. This study analyzed the structures and determined the comparative distributions and relatedness of retrotransposons across diverse orders (34) and families (58) of kingdom Plantae. In silico analyses were conducted on 134 plant retrotransposon sequences using ClustalW, EMBOSS Transeq, Motif Finder, and MEGA X. So far, the analysis of these plant retrotransposons showed a significant genomic relationship among bryophytes and angiosperms (216), bryophytes and gymnosperms (75), pteridophytes and angiosperms (35), pteridophytes and gymnosperms (28), and gymnosperms and angiosperms (70). There were 13 homologous plant retrotransposons, 30 conserved domains, motifs (reverse transcriptase, integrase, and gag domains), and nine significant phylogenetic lineages identified. This study provided comprehensive information on the structures, motifs, domains, and phylogenetic relationships of retrotransposons across diverse orders and families of kingdom Plantae. The ubiquitousness of retrotransposons across diverse taxa makes it an excellent molecular marker to better understand the complexity and dynamics of plant genomes.


The post-transition '4d' Cd(II) metal complex were synthesized and characterized by the addition of neutral Schiff base (E)-N-(4-chlorobenzylidene)isonicotinohydrazide) as primary ligand and nitrite ion as mixed ligand. The Schiff base were synthesized with the addition of bio active Isoniazid and 4-chlorobenzaldehyde by eco-friendly technique (water as solvent). The synthesized complex where physically, chemically, spectroscopically and biologically characterized by various Physico-chemical, spectral and biological methods such as micro analytical data, namely elemental analysis & metal estimation, conductivity, Ultraviolet-visible, Infra-Red, Far-Infra Red, and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (1H &13C) spectral studies. Based on the conductivity and spectral studies, the complex is neutral and non-electrolyte in nature. They have tetrahedral geometry around the Cd(II) metal ion. The in-vitro antibacterial and antifungal activities of Schiff base and Cd(II) complex were screened against E. coli and A. Niger by Agar disc diffusion method using Chloramphenicol and Fluconazole as standard control and DMSO as a solvent control. The results indicate that the complex have more potent than the Schiff base due to the chelation. The pharmacological studies of Schiff base and Cd(II) complex also predicted using a computational method by Swiss ADME software. The lipophilicity and medicinal chemistry importance of the Schiff base and Cd(II) complex were predicted and confirmed by the bio-potential activities.


Two methods of intramedullary fixation of fractures of the middle of the femoral shaft were evaluated in a sheep model to determine the effect of femoral reaming on pulmonary function. The effect of a modified reamer was also studied. A second experiment with the same model was performed to evaluate the relationship between embolization and pulmonary dysfunction. This experiment involved two groups of sheep—those with normal lungs and those with contused lungs—divided into subgroups—those that had nailing with reaming and those that had nailing without reaming. Intracardiac ultrasound was used to measure the magnitude and duration of transvenous particulate embolization during the operations. Both experiments involved hemodynamic monitoring during and after the nailing. The pulmonary tissue was examined histologically after the animals were killed. The hemodynamic monitoring revealed only a transient increase in pulmonary vascular resistance in the animals that had femoral nailing with reaming in both experiments. The modified reamer had no effect on the pulmonary response. Histological analysis of pulmonary tissue demonstrated a significant increase in the number of fat emboli in both the animals that had nailing with reaming and the animals that had nailing without reaming compared with the control animals. Intravascular ultrasound revealed that the operative maneuver associated with the greatest number of emboli was opening of the intramedullary canal with the awl. The first two passes of the reamer produced more emboli and embolism of longer duration than did the later passes. Pulmonary contusion did not increase the risk of pulmonary dysfunction due to intramedullary nailing in this model. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Pulmonary dysfunction as a result of intramedullary nailing was minimum in our fracture model. There was no significant difference, between the animals that had reaming and those that did not have reaming, with regard to the adverse effects on pulmonary function. Reaming had a minor transient effect on pulmonary vascular resistance that was not seen in the animals that did not have reaming. The minor pulmonary effects in the two groups were not worsened by the presence of a pulmonary contusion. We concluded that, with regard to their effects on pulmonary function, there was no distinct advantage either to nailing with reaming or to nailing without reaming for fractures of the femoral shaft.


This paper studies the effects of monetary policy on the bank profitability and risk-taking. Using banklevel and account-level data sets of Thai banks during the period 2004-2017, we find that lower interest rates tend to reduce profitability. The effect works mainly through the impact of the interest rates on bank net interest income. At the bank level we find limited evidence of increased riskiness in the overall balance sheet of Thai banks when interest rates are low. However, the account-level results from a duration analysis suggest that low rates may lead to higher loan default risk and lower loan quality for long-term loans, particularly those in the portfolio of small and medium banks. Small firms seem to be more affected by bank risk-taking behavior. We also find that when the interest rate remains low for a protracted period, this tends to further increase bank risk-taking in new loans, though it helps lower the default risk for existing loans. The findings overall point to the potential unintended consequences of a low-for-long monetary policy accommodation with implications on financial stability. JEL classification: E43, E52, G21


Aim of study Person-centered medicine (PCM) with its focus on humanistic-biographical-oriented medicine and integrated, positive-salutogenic health is a central aspect in the patient-physician relationship in general practice. The objective of this analysis is to assess the prevalence and type of research project in academic institutions of general practice in Germany (Ger) and Austria (At) and the thematic priorities of the projects in the areas PCM, health promotion (HP), prevention (PRE) and conventional medicine (CM).

Methods A search was conducted (September–December 2015) on the websites of 30 institutes and divisions of general medicine for their current research projects. The retrieved projects were assigned to five categories: PCM, HP, PRE, CM and others. Subsequently, we identified the targeted patient groups of the projects as well as the thematic focus in the categories PCM, HP, PRE and CM with focus on PCM and HP.

Results 541 research projects were identified, 452 in Germany and 89 in Austria. Research projects were only included if they were explicitly indicated as research-oriented. Seventy projects addressed PCM aspects, 15 projects HP aspects, 32 projects PRE aspects and 396 projects CM aspects. The most frequently target groups in the categories PCM (24 of 70) and HP (7 of 15) were chronically ill patients. The most common thematic focus in PCM was communication (13 of 70) and in HP, physical activity (6 of 15).

Conclusion The vast majority of research projects investigated conventional medical topics. The percentage of research activities in the field of PCM (13%) or PCM including HP (16%) in Ger and At is below the European average of 20%. From our point of view, PCM and HP need to be implemented to a greater extent in general practice.


The thesis investigated the application and implementation of marketing practices in
public library services in the UK and Republic of Ireland, using local authority
leisure services as a comparator. The empirical research included both qualitative
and quantitative methodologies to assess marketing strategy development in public
libraries, using a comparison with local authority leisure services to provide a
contextual framework. The research covered the period 1991-1999, using a
triangulation approach of national questionnaire surveys, case study interviews and
document analysis, as well as extensive reference to the relevant literature.
The research was conducted during a period of increasing economic, political and
social pressure to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of public sector services.
The growth of consumerism in the 1980s and 90s had increased pressures on public
libraries to provide an even wider range of quality services at a time of financial
restraint.
The hypotheses for the research were: that marketing principles, which have been
modified to meet the needs of not-for-profit services, are essential for the delivery
of effective public library services; the successful implementation of such relevant
marketing principles and practice in public library services is dependent on a range
of organizational, environmental and cultural constraints.
The research found the hypotheses to be valid; there were a number of significant
constraints on public library marketing, including government legislation, budget
reductions, local government reorganization, and a lack of marketing awareness and
customer orientation. Recommendations included the fundamental reorientation of
library service delivery from a product orientated organization to a customer
focused service; further research to investigate the linkages between marketing tools
and the principles of total quality management; and research into the marketing
training and continuing education needs of senior managers, the marketing
awareness of elected members, and the in-house training of all library staff in
marketing theory and techniques.


This article presents a blueprint for marketing libraries for the 21st century. Through an inspirational overview, this research presents an episodic outline for a documentary series to promote libraries surveying various historical and technological areas, among them: Great US and European libraries, The Ancient Library of Alexandria, Asian, African and Latin American Libraries, classificatory systems, digital libraries, the changing nature of the book, library as learning commons and information as commodity. This article is oriented towards library stakeholders and public interested in the future of libraries.


High levels of cytochrome P450 are present in the olfactory mucosa (OM) in mammalian animals and contribute to the known tissue-selective toxicity of numerous chemical compounds. Olfactory toxicity in the perinatal period may have a greater impact on behavior, growth, and development than in adults. To establish a molecular basis for determining the risk of developmental toxicity in OM, the expression of several cytochrome P450 enzymes, as well as NADPH-cytochrome P450 reductase and microsomal epoxide hydrolase, was examined in hepatic and nasal microsomes prepared from human fetal tissues at gestational day 91-125. The relative microsomal concentrations of these biotransformation enzymes were determined on immunoblots. Expression of CYP2A, CYP2J2, the reductase, and epoxide hydrolase was detected in both OM and liver. The microsomal levels of these enzymes were generally lower in OM than in liver of the same fetuses, except for the CYP2A-related proteins, which were expressed in OM at much higher levels. OM expression of CYP2A6, CYP2A13, CYP2B6, and CYP2J2 mRNAs was detected using RNA-PCR. These results document, for the first time, prenatal expression of xenobiotic-bioactivating cytochrome P450 enzymes in human OM and suggest that the human fetal OM may be a preferred target tissue for the toxicity of maternally derived chemical compounds that are activated by the CYP2A enzymes.


s: An abstract must accompany all articles except Letters to the Editor and contributions to International Report. The abstract should be typed double-spaced on a page separate from the rest of the manuscript. The abstract should be as informative as possible in the length allowed. It should state, in not more than 300 words, the main conclusions of the article and should include, briefly, the principal numerical results. Because an abstract is usually reprinted in its entirety in AIP and other abstract journals and on-line services, special care should be used in writing it.


The automatic recognition of Arabic dialectal speech is a challenging task since Arabic dialects are essentially spoken varieties, for which only sparse resources (transcriptions and standardized acoustic data) are available to date. In this paper we describe the use of acoustic data from modern standard Arabic (MSA) to improve the recognition of Egyptian conversational Arabic (ECA). The cross-dialectal use of data is complicated by the fact that MSA is written without short vowels and other diacritics and thus has incomplete phonetic information. This problem is addressed by automatically vowelizing MSA data before combining it with ECA data. We described the vowelization procedure as well as speech recognition experiments and show that our technique yields improvements over our baseline system.


haemolytic streptococci (2 9 x 105 organisms/ ml) which were serologically group B (the organisms were, unfortunately, not typed). Pasteurisation at 62°C for 30 min in a purposebuilt Holder pasteuriser (Oxford') eliminated the organisms, as predicted from their known heat sensitivity. The early-onset, septicaemic form of group B streptococcal infection is thought to originate from colonisation in passage through the birth canal; there is little information, however, on the pathogenesis of the less common, late-onset, meningitic form of the disease. Kenny and Zedd2 and Schreiner and Coates3 have suggested that in the latter disease form breast milk may be a source of infection; these authors have reported three cases of infection in neonates whose mothers' milk has grown group B streptococci. In our own studies it is not certain that the organism originated from the milk itself, but, whatever the source, the profuse growth of group B streptococci in a human milk pool again raises the important and unresolved question as to the bacteriological safety of using untreated pooled breast milk for feeding premature infants. The advantages of untreated milk, with its live cells and intact protective properties, may be outweighed by its bacteriological disadvantages when using pooled milk from a milk bank, where cross-contamination and pathogenic bacterial overgrowth are inevitable problems. Optimal procedures in milk banking have yet to be defined, but at present pasteurisation would seem a satisfactory method of processing human milk. There is evidence for considerable preservation of the protective properties in milk with this form of heat treatmentl 4 and our own preliminary data suggest that pasteurisation satisfactorily destroys most common pathogenic bacterial.


Democracy's Uneasy Relationship with Information Technology Telecommunications technology has from the start been regarded as an engine of democracy. Recently, this same technology has also driven globalization, helping to make frontiers porous and to erode the parochial limits that separate national economies. Yet in its support of globalization, technology may also undermine democracy, imperiling the national sovereignty that has been democracy sanctuary. Most discussions about the intersection of the new telecommunications technologies and global democracy have been inconclusive, if only because those who understand technology know little about democracy, and those who understand democracy are woefully ignorant about technology. Nevertheless, there is no issue with more implications for the future of democracy than the question, "Will the new technologies that have sustained globalization reinforce or undermine democracy?" Terms like "teledemocracy" and virtual community" come easily to us, but deciphering their meaning requires not only a grasp of the technology but also a deeper understanding of ideas such as community and democratic governance than is usually manifested by those enthralled with the electronic frontier. We can only comprehend how technology affects democracy when we understand the character and nature of democracy itself, something too often taken for granted. Before I address the problems of defining democracy, however I want to offer several caveats concerning the more general problem of technology, for here, too, we often make dubious assumptions. Questioned Assumptions Uneven progress. The first caveat is that the new technologies often discussed--information technology (IT), digital technology, computer technology and the Internet--are not universal. Because they have become so widespread in the prosperous parts of the developed world, it is easy to overestimate their penetration elsewhere and therefore to overestimate their impact. Most of the world is still dominated by traditional media. Newspapers, radio, television, and government propaganda still constitute for most people the informational framework of their lives. For them, issues of democracy or tyranny and censorship or free speech are determined more by radio, television, and newspapers than by the new media. Ironically, although poverty has prevented many societies from enjoying the virtues and advances of the new technologies, it has also insulated them from the vices. The accelerating pace of change. The second caveat is that new communications technologies are not only undergoing rapid change; they are also responding to forces that compel geometric rates of development. There has been more radical technological change in the last two centuries than in the previous two millennia. Miniaturization and the speed of microprocessors proceed at the same accelerating pace, decreasing the weight and price of electronic products even as their efficiency and speed increase. Under these circumstances, any generalization we make about technology today is unlikely to survive tomorrow. Moreover, rapid change means that those who missed yesterday's enhancements may be today's beneficiaries, leapfrogging a technology with which a more "advanced" society actually feels burdened. Africa has not yet been hardwired, but as a consequence it may enjoy a more rapid leap into the wireless age than the wired societies of Europe and North America. The generational fallacy. A third caveat concerns the "generational fallacy." Those who create new technologies bring to their innovations all the judgments, values, and prejudices acquired in using the older technologies with which they grew up. Today, academics educated in libraries and reference rooms find the Internet a wonderful research tool. For them, it is a surrogate library, a substitute reference system, and they naturally assume that this will be its primary purpose. …


In our experience with BTX and IDO/NDO there is an improvement in urodynamic and voiding diary variables that is sustained for 6–12 months. Data are presented on such variables in the article, with statistical significance for most at 6 weeks. When do the BFLUTS, KHQ and voiding diary variables cease to be statistically significant? This would give a better idea of the efficacy of treatment for these variables. In one patient the effect of BTX therapy lasted for 10 weeks only, which is considerably shorter than reported so far. Could the authors speculate as to why this may be the case? Presumably if patients were injected under general anaesthesia, rigid cystoscopy was used. However, the needle used for injecting the toxin was not described. A recent letter to the BJU Int [2] highlighted the possibility of back-flow of toxin in patients where a flexible needle is used to inject BTX through a rigid cystoscope. This is particularly important if the bladder is inadequately filled. Traditionally the needles used in this technique are reported to be 6 F [3] or 2 mm in diameter. We prefer to use a 0.36 mm diameter needle with a depth of 4 mm [4], which reduces the risk of back-flow of the toxin and the extravasation of toxin when injected into thin bladders.


Rapid evaluation of strong ground‐shaking maps after moderate‐to‐large earthquakes is crucial to recognizing those areas where the largest damage and losses are expected. These maps play a fundamental role for emergency management. This is particularly important for areas having high seismic risk potential and covered by dense seismic networks. In near‐real‐time applications, ground‐shaking maps are produced by integrating recorded data and estimates obtained by using ground‐motion predictive equations, which assume point‐source models. However, particularly for large earthquakes, improvements in the predictions of the peak ground motion can be obtained when fault extension and orientation are available. In fact, detailed source information allows one to use a more robust source‐to‐site distance metric compared with hypocentral distance.

In this paper, a technique for estimating both fault extent (in terms of its surface projection) and dominant rupture direction is presented. This technique can be used in near‐real‐time ground‐motion map calculation codes with the aim of improving ground‐motion estimates with respect to a point‐source model. The model parameters are estimated by maximizing a probability density function based on the residuals between observed and predicted peak‐ground‐motion quantities, the latter obtained by using predictive equations. The model space to be investigated is defined through a Bayesian approach, and it is explored by a grid‐searching technique. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is demonstrated by offline numerical tests using data from three earthquakes occurring in different seismotectonic environments. The selected earthquakes are the 17 August 1999 M w 7.5 Kocaeli (Turkey) earthquake, the 6 April 2009 M w 6.3 L'Aquila (Italy) earthquake, and the 17 January 1994 M w 6.7 Northridge (California) earthquake. The obtained results show that the proposed technique allows for fast and first order estimates of the fault extent and dominant rupture direction, which could be used to improve ground‐shaking map calculations.


The aim of the current study is to examined the moderating effect of supply chain dynamic capabilities (SCDC) on the relationship of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) practices, supply chain integration (SCI) and business performance (BP) in the restaurant industry of Indonesia. For this purpose, the self-administered questionnaires were distributed among 269 supply chain managers which yield a 78% response rate. The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) has shown that both the exogenous variable namely, SSCM practices and SCI have a positive and significant direct effect on the BP of restaurant industry of Indonesia. Moreover, the indirect effect also shown that SCDC is positively and significantly moderates among the relationship of SSCM practices, SCI and BP. In this regards, these findings indicate that SCDC is an important moderating variable which could help to take improvement in the SSCM practices and SCI to improve the BP. These findings could add a body of literature in the empirical perspective which could help to increase the area of research in future.


Intestinal biopsy is a basic experimental method for studying pathological changes in the intestinal tract during human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. In this study, jejunal resection and anastomosis were successfully performed in 12 Chinese rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). The sampled gut tissues were then examined by hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining, electron microscopy, flow cytometry, immunofluorescence detection, and RNA quality analysis to ensure suitability for histological, physiological, pathological, and immunological detection, as well as mechanistic analysis at the cellular and molecular level. Importantly, the surgery did not affect the ratio or number of immune cells in peripheral blood or the concentration of lipids, proteins, and vitamins in plasma, which are important indicators of nutritional status. Our results thus indicated that jejunal resection and anastomosis are feasible, and that immune homeostasis and intestinal barrier integrity are not altered by surgery. All macaques recovered well (except for one), with no postoperative complications. Therefore, this animal surgery may be applicable for longitudinal intestinal research related to diseases such as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).


The current study investigates the effects of vascular disease on white matter health by comparing participants with atherosclerotic vascular disease (AVD) to healthy control participants (HC). The comparison between groups will help elucidate the differences between early-stage mild vascular disease and normal aging processes in terms of their effects on white matter health as measured by diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Relationships between white matter health and depression, attention, and processing speed are studied by the application of a variety of DTI neuroimaging techniques, which will allow investigation of these relationships at the levels of global, lobe-wise, and subregional analysis. The specific subregion of interest in the depression study is Brodmann Area 25, which has shown significant relationships with depressive symptomatology in patients with treatment refractory depression, but has not been studied in the context of aging, vascular disease, or subthreshold depressive symptoms. Results indicate that there are significant differences between AVD and HC participants in global and regional FA measures. Within the AVD group, significant relationships of FA with depressive symptoms and attentional function have been observed in the current study. Several unexpected findings emerged, most important of which was the observation that there is a significant relationship between FA in Brodmann Area 25 and depressive symptoms in AVD participants which is specific to the right hemisphere. These findings have implications for the treatment of depressive symptoms in older adults and participants with vascular disease.


ElliptiGO cycling is a new form of exercise; the metabolic demands, however, have not been investigated. In a cross-over design, 17 runners completed 5×3 min stages while either cycling on a stationary ElliptiGO or running on a treadmill during which HR, RPE, and expired gases were collected using a portable metabolic analyzer. Subjects increased one gear or 1 mph every 3 min during cycling or running respectively. A 10 min recovery between modes of exercise was given. For each testing intensity, metabolic demand (VO2), HR, and VE was significantly higher during running (p < 0.05), however the RPE for each intensity was similar (p > 0.05). There was a linear relationship between speed and VO2 but the relationship for running had a steeper slope compared to the ElliptiGO. As a result, the ElliptiGO speed that was equivalent to the VO2 of each running speed increased at a greater rate. When matched for VO2, the HR, VE, and RPE were actually higher for ElliptiGO compared to running.


Contemporary international television offers a rich site for the investigation of matters concerning cultural adaptation. Over the past 20 years, a formalized, organized system has developed whereby program production knowledge can be borrowed from place to place for the re-creation of a television program in another territory. The TV program format is a kind of template or recipe whereby particular industry knowledges are packaged to facilitate this process of remaking. This article provides a trade background to the development of the TV format industry. It links the TV format's emergence to the practice of franchising, with its attendant cultural need to customize the format to suit local audience taste and outlook in a particular territory. This process of localization is examined on three levels using a model derived from translation theory. The article finds that the localization which occurs in such processes primarily involves the development of content that is nationally unexceptional through which audiences in a national territory can be addressed as a collective 'we'. Even beyond this detail, format adaptation raises crucial issues concerning globalization and nationalization, and these are addressed in the final part of the analysis.


F. Randy Vogenberg has over 30 years of experience with drug benefit design, which will clearly be apparent to readers of his single-author text, Pharmacy Benefits. In 10 chapters and a total of 180 pages, the author provides a concise review of the evolution of the drug benefit design and a focus on its current state. The book is written at a level that will enable newcomers to the subject to quickly grasp the methods of benefit design while providing those actively involved in the field with important points for consideration. References at the end of each chapter, as well as a glossary, a list of commonly used acronyms, and an index, are included.

Nine of the 10 chapters deal directly with issues surrounding the development and management of a pharmacy benefit, and one chapter provides an overview of several public sector and government programs that provide a prescription drug benefit: Medicare, Medicaid, Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and Worker's Compensation. While the author does not explicitly state the intended audience, it appears that the text would be suitable as a textbook for pharmacy management students as well as a useful guide for employee benefit managers.

Topics include pharmacy benefit management, plan design, practice guidelines, outcomes research, e-prescribing, formularies, drug utilization review, patient and provider compliance, pharmacy networks, and the selection and evaluation of a pharmacy benefit manager. Each chapter is complete with a bibliography for interested readers to seek out additional detailed information on the topic covered.

Effective use is made of tabular material and sidebar discussions to reinforce important points. For example, in the chapter on formularies, the author provides a plan sponsor with a number of questions, such as: Are there rebate agreements or other incentive contracts with manufacturers? What is the agreement based on? What are the potential savings to the plan? How much is shared with the payer? Future issues, including medication therapy management, generic biologics, and the impact of personalized medicine are all adequately covered.

The author is to be commended for delivering a text that provides a complete yet succinct overview of the salient issues to consider in the development and management of a prescription drug benefit. I highly recommend this book.


Background— It is unknown whether the preferred 1-stent bifurcation stenting approach with stenting of the main vessel (MV) and optional side branch stenting using drug-eluting stents should be finalized by a kissing balloon dilatation (FKBD). Therefore, we compared strategies of MV stenting with and without FKBD. Methods and Results— We randomized 477 patients with a bifurcation lesion to FKBD (n=238) or no FKBD (n=239) after MV stenting. The primary end point was major adverse cardiac events: cardiac death, non–procedure-related index lesion myocardial infarction, target lesion revascularization, or stent thrombosis within 6 months. The 6-month major adverse cardiac event rates were 2.1% and 2.5% (P=1.00) in the FKBD and no-FKBD groups, respectively. Procedure and fluoroscopy times were longer and more contrast media was needed in the FKBD group than in the no-FKBD group. Three hundred twenty-six patients had a quantitative coronary assessment. At 8 months, the rate of binary (re)stenosis in the entire bifurcation lesion (MV and side branch) was 11.0% versus 17.3% (P=0.11), in the MV was 3.1% versus 2.5% (P=0.68), and in the side branch was 7.9% versus 15.4% (P=0.039) in the FKBD versus no-FKBD groups, respectively. In patients with true bifurcation lesions, the side branch restenosis rate was 7.6% versus 20.0% (P=0.024) in the FKBD and no-FKBD groups, respectively. Conclusions— MV stenting strategies with and without FKBD were associated with similar clinical outcomes. FKBD reduced angiographic side branch (re)stenosis, especially in patients with true bifurcation lesions. The simple no-FKBD procedures resulted in reduced use of contrast media and shorter procedure and fluoroscopy times. Long-term data on stent thrombosis are needed. Clinical Trial Registration— URL: http://clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT00914199.


Based on the assumption that the work of contemporary Swedish poet Helena Eriksson, in various ways elaborates the inseparable relation between body and language, this study aims to investigate how this view of language comes to expression in her poetry. Stepping from a theoretical background of feminist perspectives on the body, as well as recent theories on poetic materiality, the analysis points out how the concepts of aesthetic and/or linguistic materiality, social and technological materiality, and what can be described as the ethical dimension of materiality, all as termed by Jesper Olsson and Fredrik Hertzberg, take on feminist implications in Eriksson's poetry. Through the theory of feminist anthropologist Vicki Kirby and her account of Derrida's general view of writing, the study makes use of a deconstructive approach to the later work of Eriksson. It is shown in the analysis how this poetry can be effectively mirrored against Kirby's concept of corporeography, in order to make visible the elision of the breach between meaning and materiality. In this respect, Kirby's theoretical device "The body as the scene of writing" in particular, is vastly adapted. Arriving at its conclusion, the study suggests that by engaging the body in the writing of poetry, allowing it to re-inscribe the scripture already made upon it by culture, the poet as woman can preserve her subjectivity and her sense of corporeality.


Summary The infective process of a filamentous bacteriophage was studied in the electron microscope using thin sections of cells of Escherichia coli infected at a high multiplicity. Marked intracellular changes beginning after about 20 min. consisted of multiple layer membraneous structures and mesosomes formed by the invagination of the cell wall and the protoplasmic membrane. At the same time many particles were extruded and appeared in transverse section as small circles with a black dot, believed to be the nucleic acid core. It was difficult to see particles within the cell or being extruded from it, but some evidence suggested that bacteriophage synthesis was occurring near the cell wall. There was no abrupt lysis; the cell contents slowly leaked out leaving an intact cell envelope.


The dynamic shear rheometer (DSR) was used to measure viscoelastic properties of asphalt mastic. Mechanical volume filling effects and additional interacting mechanisms within mastic systems are discussed on the basis of micromechanical-rheology model to predict the complex shear modulus of asphalt mastic from the measured mastic data. The Einstein coefficient is 3.761, and the maximum volumetric packing fraction is 0.562 for the measured asphalt mastic. The predicted G* of asphalt mastics is very close to the actual value, and the relative error is not exceeding 10%. The micromechanical-rheology model can predict the complex shear modulus of the asphalt mastic from the viscoelastic property of neat asphalt, the volumetric filler effect and an interactive effect between the filler and the asphalt.


This paper presents an optimized architecture and weights of three layered ANN designing method using sensitivity analysis and adaptive particle swarm optimization (SA-APSO). The optimized ANN architecture determination means to look for near minimal number of neurons in the ANN and finding the efficient connecting weights of it in such a way so that the ANN can achieve better performance for solving different problems. The proposed algorithm designs the ANN into two phases. In the first phase it tries to prune the neurons from ANN using sensitivity analysis to achieve the near minimal ANN structure and therefore it tries to optimize the weight matrices for further performance enhancement by adaptive particle swarm optimization. In the SA phase the authors use impact factor and correlation coefficients for pruning lower salient neurons. Initially it tries to prune the neurons having less impacts in the performance of ANN based on their impact factor values. Therefore it tries to lessen more neurons through merging the similar neurons in the ANN using correlation coefficient among the neuron pairs. In the optimization part it applied adaptive particle swarm optimization to optimize the connecting weight matrices to attain better performance. In the optimization by APSO, a special type of PSO, the authors' use training and validation fitness functions to emphasis on avoiding overfitting and more adapted with ANN, and to achieve effective weight matrices of ANN. To evaluate SA-APSO, it is applied on the dataset of Regional Power Control Center of Saudi Electricity Company, Western Operation Area (SEC-WOA) to do short term load forecasting (STLF). Results show that the proposed SA-APSO is able to design smaller architecture and attain excellent accuracy.


Atmospheric aerosol particles can collect on and adhere to high voltage electrical wires, causing power loss as well as other detrimental effects on electrical insulation. The mass of fine particles (PM2.5) adhering to wires has been estimated using a modified size-resolved particle dry deposition model and a range of annual average PM2.5 concentrations found in literature for the Yangtze River Delta region of China. Annual mass collected by the surface of a unit length (1 m) of wire with a radius of 0.5 cm is estimated to be in the range 1.56 × 104–1.46 × 105 µg. The actual mass adhering to the wire may be reduced by 85% of these estimated values considering the washing-off effects of rain. For a wire of 1.0 cm in radius, the annual mass on the wire is estimated to be in the range of 4.68 × 103–4.35 × 104 µg after considering the effects of rain. This study provides a first estimation of particle mass collected by electrical wires, although


The numerical search for the optimum shape of an aerofoil is of great interest for aircraft and turbomachine designers. Unfortunately, this process is very computationally intense and can require a large number of individual flow field simulations resulting in very long CPU run times. One of the core issues that the designer must deal with is how to describe the shape of the airfoil. Clearly, we can not treat the profile on a point by point basis as the problem would have an infinite number of degrees of freedom. Hence the typical practice is to resort to using a series of curves, such as polynomials and Bezier curves, to describe the profile. This typically reduces the number of degrees of freedom to a much smaller, manageable number. The influence of the selection of the parameterization on the optimization has received relatively little consideration to date. We can anticipate that some parameterizations will be less suitable for describing the profile shape and may result in slower convergence times. Our paper will discuss a new airfoil parameterization, Bezier-PARSEC, that was developed to extend and improve the typical Bezier parameterization found in use. This parameterization was found to fit the known shape of a wide range of existing airfoil profiles as well as resulting in accelerated convergence for aerodynamic optimization using Differential Evolution. Our presentation will present the development and details of the Bezier-PARSEC parameterization and provide evidence that the parameterization is suitable and accelerates convergence.


This study investigated factors that affect Secondary School Based In-service Training. Ten (10) government secondary schools from Unguja West District were used as case study. The study had the following specific objectives (i) to assess the capability of secondary schools on handling School Based In-service Training. (ii) to assess factors which hinder the provision of secondary School Based In-service Training. ( iii) to determine stakeholder opinions on how secondary School Based In-service Training can be improved. The study used both qualitative and quantitative approach on data collection, analysis and interpretation. The study revealed that, secondary schools have low capability to conduct School Based In-service Training due to lack of support from other school stakeholders and ineffective school leadership on administering SB-INSET. On the other hand the study revealed that the main factors affecting SB-INSET included; lack of skills and knowledge on SB-IN SET, negative attitude towards SB-INSET among many stakeholders and; inability of schools to find appropriate time for SB-INSET. The study suggests that as a strategy to promote INSET, teachers' successful attendance to the programme should be made a criterion for teachers' promotion and motivation. Based on the findings, the study recommends that the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training should plan for change which will equip secondary schools with supportive work environment in order to provide schools with authority and power for planning and implementing School Based In-service Training.


Functional phenotypes, which cells can acquire depending on the microenvironment, are currently the focus of investigations into new anti-inflammatory therapeutic approaches. Glial cells, microglia, and astrocytes are major participants in neuroinflammation, but their roles differ, as microglia are cells of mesodermal origin, while astrocytes are cells of ectodermal origin. The inflammatory phenotype of cells can be modulated by ω-6- and ω-3-polyunsaturated fatty acid-derived oxylipins, although data on changes in oxylipin profiles in different cell adaptations to pro- and anti-inflammatory stimuli are scarce. Our study aimed to compare UPLC-MS/MS-measured oxylipin profiles in various rat astrocyte adaptation states. We used cells treated for 24 h with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) for classical pro-inflammatory adaptation and with interleukin 4 (IL-4) or 10 (IL-10) for alternative anti-inflammatory adaptation, with the resulting phenotypes characterized by quantitative real-time PCR (RT-PCR). We also tested long-term, low-concentration LPS treatment (endotoxin treatment) as a model of astrocyte adaptations. The functional response of astrocytes was estimated by acute (4 h) LPS-induced cell reactivity, measured by gene expression markers and oxylipin synthesis. We discovered that, as well as gene markers, oxylipin profiles can serve as markers of pro- (A1-like) or anti-inflammatory (A2-like) adaptations. We observed predominant involvement of ω-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) and the cyclooxygenase branch for classical (LPS) pro-inflammatory adaptations and ω-3 PUFA and the lipoxygenase branch for alternative (IL-4) anti-inflammatory adaptations. Treatment with IL-4, but not IL-10, primes the ability of astrocytes to activate the innate immunity signaling pathways in response to LPS. Endotoxin-treated astrocytes provide an alternative anti-inflammatory adaptation, which makes cells less sensitive to acute LPS stimulation than the IL-4 induced adaptation. Taken together, the data reveal that oxylipin profiles associate with different states of polarization to generate a pro-inflammatory or anti-inflammatory phenotype. This association manifests itself both in native cells and in their responses to a pro-inflammatory stimulus.


1. A method to measure both occupied and unoccupied oestrogen receptors directly in the crude nuclear fraction of the MCF-7 cells was developed. The receptors had high affinity for oestradiol (Kd approx. 0.7 nM) and binding specificity characteristics of oestrogen receptors. 2. A substantial amount of the unoccupied receptors were found in the crude nuclear fraction. 3. Several experiments excluded the possibility that the unoccupied nuclear receptor might be a cytoplasmic contaminant. (a) Multiple extractions with Tris buffer released about 75% of the total receptor content, leaving the rest unextractable in the crude nuclear fraction. (b) Nuclei purified by centrifugation through 1.8M-sucrose and treatment with 0.7% Triton X-100, or by centrifugation through 50% glycerol with 0.1% Triton X-100 contained similar amounts of unoccupied receptors to that found in the crude nuclear fraction. (c) In cells cultured during 5 days after preconfluency a 3-fold increase in the amount of unoccupied cytoplasmic receptors occurred, whereas the amount of unoccupied nuclear receptors did not change significantly and conversely in cells exposed to increasing concentrations of oestradiol the unoccupied cytoplasmic receptor was continuously depleted but no considerable change in the unoccupied nuclear receptor was found.


Membership determination with classification is an essential function for a variety of applications, such as network routing and packet inspection. We aim to constitute a mechanism capable of performing such a service with the considerations of efficiency and error ratio issues. The proposed method employs an array structure, in which each unit composes of multiple bits. The array houses a circular bound representation and a Bloom filter, where the former encodes the members and makes judgments of queries, while the latter acts as a secondary means for programming cases indeterministic by the former. Experimental results show that the error ratios were competitive and consistent with different levels of classification, as well as the memory space utilized. The lookup time decreased as the memory space increased. We depict specific characteristics for tackling the problem, including simplicity of data structure for encoding the members, avoidance of checking all classification IDs in the lookup process, and adoption of an auxiliary means for improving the error ratios. The ID-bound method is novel, and with the Bloom filter as the assistant, the proposed approach is robust in performances of both efficiency and error ratio.


The mechanisms by which ethanol inhibits hepatocyte proliferation have been a source of some considerable investigation. Our studies have suggested a possible role for tissue transglutaminase (tTG) in this process. Others have shown that tTG has two distinctly different functions: it catalyzes protein cross-linking, which can lead to apoptosis and enhancement of extracellular matrix stability, and it can function as a G protein (Gαh). Under that circumstance, we speculated that the cross-linking activity would be decreased and that it would function to enhance hepatocyte proliferation in response to adrenergic stimulation. Ethanol treatment inhibited hepatocyte proliferation and led to enhanced tTG cross-linking activity, whereas treatment of hepatocytes with an α1 adrenergic agonist, phenylephrine, enhanced hepatocyte proliferation while decreasing tTG cross-linking. However, phenylephrine treatment of several hepatoma cell lines had no effect on cellular proliferation or tTG cross-linking activity, and of note, Northern blot analysis demonstrated that whereas primary hepatocytes had high levels of the α1β adrenergic receptor (α1BAR) mRNA, the hepatoma cell lines did not have this mRNA. When the Hep G2 cell line was stably transduced with an expression vector containing the α1BR cDNA, the cell line responded to phenylephrine treatment with enhanced proliferation and with decreased tTG cross-linking activity. Ethanol treatment of the α1BAR-transfected cells suppressed the phospholipase C-mediated signaling pathways, as detected in the phenylephrine-induced Ca2+ response. These results suggest that phenylephrine stimulation of hepatocyte proliferation appears to be occurring through the α1BAR, which is known to be coupled with the tTG G protein moiety, Gαh, and that tTG appears to play a significant role in either enhancing or inhibiting hepatocyte proliferation, depending on its cellular location and on whether it functions as a cross-linking enzyme or a G protein.


e15543 Background: Trimodality therapy (TT) with chemo/radiation (C/RT), chemotherapy and total mesorectal excision (TME) surgery remains the standard for patients with stage 2/3 rectal cancer. Use of pre-operative (pre-op) C/RT is an important Commission on Cancer (CoC) quality benchmark but has not previously been shown to improve overall survival when compared to post-op C/RT. The objective of this study was to document the impact on survival of peri-op C/RT in stage 2/3 rectal cancer in a broad population. Methods: The National Cancer Database was used to identify all patients diagnosed with stage 2/3 rectal cancer from 2006-16. Included patients received true TT and were classified into groups A, Total Neoadjuvant Therapy (TNT) with pre-op C/RT + pre-op multi-agent (MA) chemotherapy (CT); group B, pre-op C/RT+ post-op single-agent CT; group C, pre-op C/RT + post-op MA CT; and group D, post-op C/RT and MA CT. Cox multivariate survival analysis were performed including demographics, peri-op C/RT, surgery type, stage, lymph node count, year of diagnosis and facility type: academic (Acad), Comprehensive (Comp)/Community (Comm), Integrated (Integ) and unknown (Unkn). Results: Of 110,372 stage 2/3 patients, 32,467 received TT (mean age 58, 61% male) and were included. Of these, 8883 (27%, group A) received TNT, 5967 (18%) were in group B, 12,928 (40%) in group C, while 4,689 (14%) were in group D. A reduction in use of post-operative C/RT (group D) was observed between 2006 (28%) and 2016 (8%), p < .001, accompanied by a reciprocal increase in patients receiving pre-op C/RT and post-op MA CT (Group C) between 2006 and 2016 (24 to 45%, respectively, p<0.001). Increasing use of pre-op C/RT led to a migration to lower pathologic stages 0/1/2/3 from 0.60/10/31/57% in 2006, to 2.8/22/29/45% in 2016, respectively (p < .001), while clinical stage 2/3 distribution remained unchanged. Receipt of pre-operative C/RT (Groups A/B/C) was associated with improved survival compared to post-op C/RT (group D) (table). Conclusions: Between 2006-2016 the proportion of patients with stage 2/3 rectal cancer treated with post-op C/RT declined dramatically and in 2016 accounted for 8% of all patients treated with TT. Multivariate analysis documented superior overall survival among patients treated with pre-operative C/RT, justifying the introduction of the CoC quality benchmark.[Table: see text]


Internalizing pathology is related to alterations in amygdala resting state functional connectivity, potentially implicating altered emotional reactivity and/or emotion regulation in the etiological pathway. Importantly, there is accumulating evidence that stress exposure and genetic vulnerability impact amygdala structure/function and risk for internalizing pathology. The present study examined whether early life stress and genetic profile scores (10 single nucleotide polymorphisms within 4 hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis genes: CRHR1, NR3C2, NR3C1, and FKBP5) predicted individual differences in amygdala functional connectivity in school-age children (9- to 14-year-olds; N = 120). Whole-brain regression analyses indicated that increasing genetic "risk" predicted alterations in amygdala connectivity to the caudate and postcentral gyrus. Experience of more stressful and traumatic life events predicted weakened amygdala-anterior cingulate cortex connectivity. Genetic "risk" and stress exposure interacted to predict weakened connectivity between the amygdala and the inferior and middle frontal gyri, caudate, and parahippocampal gyrus in those children with the greatest genetic and environmental risk load. Furthermore, amygdala connectivity longitudinally predicted anxiety symptoms and emotion regulation skills at a later follow-up. Amygdala connectivity mediated effects of life stress on anxiety and of genetic variants on emotion regulation. The current results suggest that considering the unique and interacting effects of biological vulnerability and environmental risk factors may be key to understanding the development of altered amygdala functional connectivity, a potential factor in the risk trajectory for internalizing pathology.


: The author's concept on the system of self regulation of immune response is described. Four types of this response are proposed, which differ by total intensity of cytokine reaction, the development time as well as manifestation degree of non specific immunosuppression, and, most importantly, the profile of specific immune response to the antigens of the infective agent. These four types of immune response are closely linked with increased severity of clinical manifestations.


in political decision-making have been commonplace for decades. However, there are serious problems in the application of science to policy — from energy to health and environment to education. One suggestion to improve matters is to encourage more scientists to get involved in politics. Although laudable, it is unrealistic to expect substantially increased political involvement from scientists. Another proposal is to expand the role of chief scientific advisers, increasing their number, availability and participation in political processes. Neither approach deals with the core problem of scientific ignorance among many who vote in parliaments. Perhaps we could teach science to politicians? It is an attractive idea, but which busy politician has sufficient time? In practice, policy-makers almost never read scientific papers or books. The research relevant to the topic of the day — for example, mitochondrial replacement, bovine tuberculosis or nuclear-waste disposal — is interpreted for them by advisers or external advocates. And there is rarely, if ever, a beautifully designed double-blind, randomized, replicated, controlled experiment with a large sample size and unambiguous conclusion that tackles the exact policy issue. In this context, we suggest that the immediate priority is to improve policy-makers' understanding of the imperfect nature of science. The essential skills are to be able to intelligently interrogate experts and advisers, and to understand the quality, limitations and biases of evidence. We term these interpretive scientific skills. These skills are more accessible than those required to understand the fundamental science itself, and can form part of the broad skill set of most politicians. To this end, we suggest 20 concepts that should be part of the education of civil servants, politicians, policy advisers and journalists — and anyone else who may have to interact with science or scientists. Politicians with a healthy scepticism of scientific advocates might simply prefer to arm themselves with this critical set of knowledge. We are not so naive as to believe that improved policy decisions will automatically follow. We are fully aware that scientific judgement itself is value-laden, and that bias and context are integral to how data are collected and interpreted. What we offer is a simple list of ideas that could help decision-makers to parse how evidence can contribute to a decision, and potentially to avoid undue influence by those with vested interests. The harder part — the social acceptability of different policies — remains in the hands of politicians and the broader political process. Of course, others will have slightly different lists. Our point is that a wider Twenty tips for interpreting scientific claims


In this chapter, it is demonstrated that when using advanced evolutionary algorithms, whatever the adopted system model (SOSPD, nonminimum phase, oscillatory or nonlinear), it is possible to find optimal parameters for PID controllers satisfying simultaneously the behavior of the system and a performance index such as absolute integral error (IAE). The Multidynamics Algorithm for Global Optimization (MAGO) is used to solve the control problem with PID controllers. MAGO is an evolutionary algorithm without parameters, with statistical operators, and for the optimization, it does not need the derivatives, what makes it very effective for complex engineering problems. A selection of some representative benchmark systems is carried out, and the respectively two-degree-of-freedom (2DoF) PID controllers are tuned. A power electronic converter is adopted as a case study and based on its nonlinear dynamical model, a PI controller is tuned. In all cases, the control problem is formulated as a constrained optimization problem and solved using MAGO. The results found are outstanding.


Abstract Background: Large-scale studies regarding the long-term efficacy of infliximab (IFX) treatment in non-Caucasian patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) are lacking. Study: We analyzed the long-term outcomes of IFX in 195 Korean UC patients who received scheduled IFX treatments at Asan Medical Center. IFX failure was defined as IFX discontinuation due to colectomy or non-response to IFX, and additionally UC-related hospitalization or a need for rescue corticosteroids during the course of IFX. Results: Between December 2006 and October 2016, a total of 3101 infusions of IFX were administered to 195 patients over a median period of 21 months. At the end of the follow-up, 86 patients (44.1%) were still receiving IFX without failure. IFX was stopped in 73 (37.4%) patients due to colectomy (23 patients, 11.8%), non-response to IFX (35 patients, 17.9%) or other reasons such as adverse events or patients' preferences (15 patients, 7.7%). An additional 36 (18.5%) patients experienced IFX failure during follow-up due to a need for rescue corticosteroids (13 patients, 6.7%), UC-related hospitalization (8 patients, 4.1%), or both (15 patients, 7.7%). The survival free of IFX failure was 58.1% at 1 year, 50.7% at 3 years and 44.8% at 5 years. In a multivariate regression analysis, cytomegalovirus colitis within 3 months before IFX initiation was a predictor of IFX failure (hazard ratio 1.57; 95% confidence interval 1.04–2.37; p = .032). Conclusions: The long-term efficacy of IFX in a large, real-life cohort of Korean UC patients appears to be comparable to that in previously published Western studies.


Gases are produced and consumed by numerous biological processes in the oceans and some volatiles are readily exchanged with the atmosphere where they can affect our climate. They can be waste products but they are also fundamental as nutrient and energy sources and terminal electron acceptors in respiration, and can facilitate communication and interactions via diffusive signalling. Here we will introduce some major gases and mention a few more enigmatic volatiles before focussing on the bio(geo)chemistry of dimethyl sulfide (DMS), ethene and isoprene, three important gases that are currently at the forefront of our research.


On 13 March 2004, the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) rendered an important decision on the validity of amnesties under international law. The Appeals Chamber of the SCSL ruled that amnesties granted to persons of the warring factions in the Sierra Leone civil war by the so-called Lomé Peace Agreement are no bar to prosecution before it. This decision is the first ruling of an international criminal tribunal unequivocally stating that amnesties do not bar the prosecution of international crimes before international or foreign courts. The following article will briefly discuss this significant and controversial decision for the development of international humanitarian law and will then examine the most important and critical findings of the ruling, after first giving a brief summary of the legal background to the SCSL, the Lomé Peace Agreement and the Appeals Chamber decision (Lome Decision) itself.


Transanal total mesorectal excision (taTME) is a new natural orifice translumenal endoscopic surgery modality combined of three rectal surgery techniques. Detailed analysis of the taTME is the object of this article. We submit the report of three taTME procedures for histologically confirmed rectal adenocarcinoma that were performed for the first time in Lithuania, Vilnius University Hospital Santariskiu Klinikos.


The use of online collaborative assignments (OCAs) between two flipped organic chemistry classrooms, one in Canada and the other in the United States, was examined for impact on learners. The intervention was designed to support content mastery, aid in increasing students' communication skills through chemistry drawing and verbalization, facilitate emergence of professional identity, and promote development of appreciation for chemistry as an international language. A mixed-methods approach consisting of interviews, student written reflections, and questionnaires was used to evaluate the impact of the OCAs. Students described their experience of the OCAs in terms of: chemistry communication confidence; engaged learning; chemistry learning; relationships; and professional identity.


In the coming decade, a new generation of massively multiplexed spectroscopic surveys, such as the Prime Focus Spectrograph Galaxy Evolution Survey (PFS), Wide Area Vista Extragalactic Survey-Deep (WAVES), and Multi-Object Optical and Near-infrared Spectrograph (MOONS) for the Very Large Telescope, will probe galaxies in the distant universe in vastly greater numbers than was previously possible. In this work, we generate mock catalogs for each of these three planned surveys to help quantify and optimize their scientific output. To assign photometry into the UniverseMachine empirical model, we develop the Calibrating Light: Illuminating Mocks By Empirical Relations procedure using Ultra Deep Survey with the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (UltraVISTA) photometry. Using the published empirical selection functions for each aforementioned survey, we quantify the mass completeness of each survey. We compare different targeting strategies by varying the area and targeting completeness, and quantify how these survey parameters affect the uncertainty of the two-point correlation function. We demonstrate that the PFS and MOONS measurements will be primarily dominated by cosmic variance, not shot noise, motivating the need for increasingly large survey areas. On the other hand, the WAVES survey, which covers a much larger area, will strike a good balance between cosmic variance and shot noise. For a fixed number of targets, a 5% increased survey area (and ∼5% decreased completeness) would decrease the uncertainty of the correlation function at intermediate scales by 0.15%, 1.2%, and 1.1% for our WAVES, PFS, and MOONS samples, respectively. Meanwhile, for a fixed survey area, 5% increased targeting completeness improves the same constraints by 0.7%, 0.25%, and 0.1%. All of the utilities used to construct our mock catalogs and many of the catalogs themselves are publicly available.


Recently, short-distance high-speed wireless communication using a 60 GHz band has been studied for mobile application. To realize higher-speed wireless communication while maintaining low power consumption for mobile application, however, a short-millimeter-wave band (more than 100 GHz) is used since it can potentially provide a wider frequency band. Thus, we have studied D-band (110 - 170 GHz) CMOS circuits to realize low-power ultrahigh-speed wireless communication. In the short-millimeter-wave band, since only an insufficient device model is provided, research has to start from device modeling. In this paper, our studies of modeling and design for D-band CMOS circuits are described. Finally, a 10 Gbps, 135 GHz wireless transceiver with a power consumption of 98 mW is demonstrated.


An examination of the Northern Hemisphere winter surface temperature patterns after the 12 largest volcanic eruptions from 1883-1992 shows warming over Eurasia and North America and cooling over the Middle East which are significant at the 95 percent level. This pattern is found in the first winter after tropical eruptions, in the first or second winter after midlatitude eruptions, and in the second winter after high latitude eruptions. The effects are independent of the hemisphere of the volcanoes. An enhanced zonal wind driven by heating of the tropical stratosphere by the volcanic aerosols is responsible for the regions of warming, while the cooling is caused by blocking of incoming sunlight.


The Clinical Research Act went into force on April 1, 2018, marking a major shift in clinical research in Japan. Moving forward, review of research plans by a Certified Review Board authorized by the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare will be necessary when conducting clinical research using pharmaceuticals or medical devices which are off-label or have not been approved, or when conducting clinical research supported by company funding. Moreover, even currently ongoing research will need to be reviewed by a Certified Review Board during the transition period. The main feature of the Clinical Research Act is that only one review by a Certified Review Board will be needed for multicenter studies. That is, ethics review by each participating institution is no longer necessary. While criteria that must be adhered to under the new Act are substantially the same as the rules that have been in place for clinical trials, there are also notable differences, including reporting of adverse events, compensation for health injury, conflict of interest management, and registration in a new clinical trial registry database.


Social entrepreneurship is a model that has a significant impact on the social transformation process. It has emerged as an effective and complementary method of achieving social change which has been poorly interpreted by governments and businesses. Today, many social enterprises are established to develop innovative solutions for catering to essential human needs. In this paper, emerging processes, advancements and organizational concepts of some social enterprises are reviewed in detail. This review puts forward that each of social initiatives has diverse dimen- sions, features, barriers and issues. Therefore, this article offers a comparative analysis identifying strengths and weaknesses of the social entrepreneurship model at the organizational level.


This paper taked hollow glass window as the model, and heat transfer coefficient, sunshading coefficient and energy consumption of the window glass were obtained in the situations of window glass with and without low-E film by doing experiment and theoretical calculation. The results show that both heat transfer coefficient and sunshading coefficient decrease comparing the hollow glass window film with no film. For the fixed and push-pull window of the whole window, the heat transfer coefficient decrease by 24.2% and 28.9% respectively and sunshade coefficient decreases by 31.37%. And the low-E film by this study adopting reduces energy consumption of the summer greatly by 32.96%, and has no too large effect on winter heating, so the annual energy consumption reduces and the window film saves annual energy consumption 14.62% .