Objectives Embryonal rhadbomyosarcoma (RMS) is a rare, highly malignant tumour, primarily seen in the pediatric and adolescent population. It is rare in patients above 40 years of age. RMS arises from immature cells destined to form striated skeletal muscle. Around 20% of RMS in childhood arise in the genitourinary tract. The infantile vagina is the most common site. The cervix is a rare site of the disease even in children and adolescents. These lesions are usually embryonal. The botryoid types are usually detected in a child under 8 years. Prognosis of RMS was poor until the introduction of neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Methods Patient had a polypoid mass in cervix 3cm-by-3cm, with normal appearing surrounding ectocervix and vagina. The biopsy was consistent with embryonal RMS. MRI showed a complex polypoidal mass which appeared to be arising from cervix. CT Chest/abdomen and pelvis scan was clear of distal disease. Molecular genetic was sent for germline-DICER1 mutation. Supplementary video of this surgical resection is attached. Results The Sarcoma Cancer Centre recommended following a risk-adapted strategy for patient: - for her: age (>11 yrs) is unfavourable but histology site is favourable. Size (5 cm) is on the cusp. She had IVA chemotherapy (ifosphamide/vincristine/dactinomycin). She had positive margins after loop excision, so also had a trachelectomy. Embryonal RMS of the cervix must be distinguished pathologically from adenosarcomas with heterologous elements, malignant mixed Müllerian tumours and low-grade stromal sarcomas. Conclusions Cervical RMSs seems to have a better prognosis than similar tumours arising from other sites of the female genital tract.


We theoretically study the relation between stripe domains at remanence and magnetic normal modes in a single crystal Co bar. We find different stripe patterns depending on field history and in each case the domain structure can be related to a soft mode that triggers a phase transition. The stripe domain structure when the external field is along the long axis of the bar is shown to be generated by a standing wave mode, which has the same spatial structure as the stripes. At all fields this mode has the lowest frequency of all the standing wave modes. This mode goes soft at a second order phase transition where the stripe domains emerge. For other directions of the field, the symmetry of soft modes is found to be consistent with the change in symmetry of the ground state and that the phase transition can be first order. An analytical model relating phase transitions and soft mode behavior is also briefly discussed.


The past thirty years have witnessed a renaissance in Lockean scholarship. New work and new thinking has now recast our most basic comprehension of John Locke (1623-1704) as a political theorist, and of Locke's Two Treatises of Government as a historical document. This collection of essays investigates the implications of the new scholarship for our understanding of Locke's political thought and its impact upon the liberal tradition. John Locke's "Two Treatises of Government" has long been recognized as one of the great works of political philosophy. Three centuries after it was written, students and scholars continue to study it for insights into the intellectual origins of the modern world and for a better understanding of such fundamental concepts as natural rights, social contract, limited government, and the rule of law. The seven essays in this volume explore various dimensions of Locke's Two Treatises. The introductory essay places the new scholarship in a historical context. The next four essays show how this recent literature has affected our view of particular aspects of the "Two Treatises" its theory of politics, its religious underpinnings, its theory of rationality, and its conception of the relationship between politics and economics. The final two essays discuss how the new scholarship has changed our understanding of the impact of the Two Treatises upon political thought in the eighteenth and late-twentieth centuries. Included at the end of the text is an extended secondary bibliography on John Locke's Two Treaties. These essays do not seek closure. Nor do they set forth a single "correct" interpretation. Instead they offer readers a deeper appreciation of how our view of Locke's Two Treatises has changed over the last three decades and the importance of those changes in understanding of the liberal tradition. "A solid contribution to the literature, bringing together some of the best new scholarship on Locke and reflecting the diversity, breadth, and depth of the current debate on both Locke and early liberalism. The editor's selection clearly demonstrates there is no single orthodox reading of Locke and conveys the intellectually lively debate that pervades the field today." Ronald J. Terchek, author of "Locke, Smith, Mill and the Liberal Concept of Agency.""


In this paper the reliability of the isolation substrate and chip mountdown solder interconnect of power modules under thermal-mechanical loading has been analysed using a numerical modelling approach. The damage indicators such as the peel stress and the accumulated plastic work density in solder interconnect are calculated for a range of geometrical design parameters, and the effects of these parameters on the reliability are studied by using a combination of the finite element analysis (FEA) method and optimisation techniques. The sensitivities of the reliability of the isolation substrate and solder interconnect to the changes of the design parameters are obtained and optimal designs are studied using response surface approximation and gradient optimization method.


The invention is a microcomponent sheet architecture wherein macroscale unit processes are performed by microscale components. The sheet architecture may be a single laminate with a plurality of separate microcomponent sections or the sheet architecture may be a plurality of laminates with one or more microcomponent sections on each laminate. Each microcomponent or plurality of like microcomponents perform at least one chemical process unit operation. A first laminate having a plurality of like first microcomponents is combined with at least a second laminate having a plurality of like second microcomponents thereby combining at least two unit operations to achieve a system operation.


The brake friction materials in an automotive brake system are considered as one of the key components for overall braking performance of a vehicle. Temperature sensitivity of friction materials has always been a critical aspect while ensuring their smooth and reliable functioning, and that sensitivity need to be constantly optimized. The performance of friction materials at elevated temperatures is defined by their fading performance.In this paper,a group of non-asbestos organic based friction materials containing different relative amounts of the ingredients of aluminosilicate fiber, steel fiber, phenolic resin and Cu powder mostly effecting on the tribological properties of designed brake material were manufactured by compression molding. Dry sliding friction characteristics of composites were tested on a model JF150D-II pad-on-disk type friction tester. A model of feed-forward artificial neural networks (ANN) consisting of four input neurons, six output neurons and one hidden layer, was used for the analysis and prediction of the correlation between material components and friction performance. The input parameters of ANN were the contents of four main components as aluminosilicate fiber, steel fiber, phenolic resin and Cu powder. The outputs were the friction coefficients of brake material against cast iron at six different operating tempetures from 100°C to 350°C. Based on ANN model trained successfully by 25 pieces samples, genetic algorithm(GA) was used to optimize the input parameters of compositions of brake material with the goal of minimizing fluctuation of friction coefficients at 100°C to 350°C. The optimum composition of brake material was obtained. The friction experiments of optimized material showed excellent stability of friction coefficients for automotive brake material as test temperatures increased from 100°C to 350°C. The neural network has impressive potential for solving time-consuming problems for the design of automobile brake material.


The effect of supplementary feeding 0, 4 or 8 kg DM/cow/d of turnips or sorghum to cows offered a restricted pasture allowance (25 kg DM/cow/d) on milk characteristics (fat, protein and lactose, N fractions, serum proteins, fatty acids (FAP) and solid fat content (SFC)) was investigated. Thirty identical twinsets were used (10 cows/treatment) in a partial cross-over designed experiment comprising two, 10-day periods. Sorghum was higher in fibre (NDF, 65% v 23%), total lipid (3.5% v 1.5%) and similar for crude protein (9.6% v 12.0%) than turnips. Lipid composition differed between crops; turnips had more lauric (C 12:0 ) and less linolenic (C 18:3 ) fatty acids than sorghum. Differences in the chemical composition of the crop were reflected in different milk compositions. Milkfat content was lower for cows fed turnips than sorghum and the effect was greater (P<0.001) with increasing amount of turnips fed (5.5%, 5.1% and 5.0% for 0, 4, and 8 kg DM/cow/ d respectively). Milkfat composition also differed for cows fed turnips compared to sorghum. With an increased amount of turnips fed, short, medium and long-chain fatty acids increased (P<0.001) and total unsaturated fatty acids decreased (P<0.001). As a consequence, SFC (an indication of milkfat hardness) also increased. Conjugated linoleic acid ( cis-9trans-11-C 18:2 ) declined (P<0.001) as the level of supplementation with crop increased. The effect was greater (P<0.001) with turnips than sorghum. Compared with the fat components in milk the treatments had minimal effect on milk protein and nitrogen fractions. Feeding cows turnips compared to sorghum decreased (P<0.001) milk urea levels and increased (P<0.001) casein: whey protein ratio. This ratio declined (P<0.05) with increasing rates of supplementation with sorghum. These results show that different feed types can change milk components that influence the efficiency of milk processing, physical characteristics and nutritive value of the final dairy products.


It is well-known that projections acquired over an angular range slightly over 180° (so-called short scan) are sufficient for fan-beam reconstruction. However, due to practical imaging conditions (projection data and reconstruction image discretization, physical factors, and data noise), the short-scan reconstructions may have different appearances and properties from the full-scan (scans over 360°) reconstructions. Nevertheless, short-scan configurations have been used in applications such as cone-beam CT (CBCT) for head-neck-cancer image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT) that only requires a small field of view due to the potential reduced imaging time and dose. In this work, we studied the image quality trade-off for full, short, and full/short scan configurations with both conventional filtered-backprojection (FBP) reconstruction and iterative reconstruction algorithms based on total-variation (TV) minimization for head-neck-cancer IGRT. Anthropomorphic and Catphan phantoms were scanned at different exposure levels with a clinical scanner used in IGRT. Both visualization- and numerical-metric-based evaluation studies were performed. The results indicate that the optimal exposure level and number of views are in the middle range for both FBP and TV-based iterative algorithms and the optimization is object-dependent and task-dependent. The optimal view numbers decrease with the total exposure levels for both FBP and TV-based algorithms. The results also indicate there are slight differences between FBP and TV-based iterative algorithms for the image quality trade-off: FBP seems to be more in favor of larger number of views while the TV-based algorithm is more robust to different data conditions (number of views and exposure levels) than the FBP algorithm. The studies can provide a general guideline for image-quality optimization for CBCT used in IGRT and other applications.


Much research documented the influence of music on various behaviors, including substance use and delinquency. Yet, less is known about its influences on dimensions that are crucial for behavioral outcomes, namely beliefs and attitudes. In this study, we reviewed and meta-analyzed the literature about music effects on beliefs ( n = 82, published 1972–2021) by mapping the theoretical and methodological features of this literature, focusing on the effect size of various characteristics (e.g., age, design) and on open scientific practices. Results indicate a relationship between exposure to music and music-consistent beliefs, with heterogeneity related to the type of beliefs, modality of exposure, designs, and sample characteristics. We conclude by evaluating this literature and reflecting upon future opportunities in this area of research.


Adults can improve their performance on many perceptual tasks with training, but when does the response to training become mature? To investigate this question, we trained 11-year-olds, 14-year-olds and adults on a basic auditory task (temporal-interval discrimination) using a multiple-session training regimen known to be effective for adults. The adolescents all began with performance in the adult range. However, while all of the adults improved across sessions, none of the 11-year-olds and only half of the 14-year-olds did. The adolescents who failed to learn did so even though the 10-session training regimen provided twice the number of sessions required by adults to reach asymptotic performance. Further, over the course of each session, the performance of the adults was stable but that of the adolescents, including those who learned, deteriorated. These results demonstrate that the processes that underlie perceptual learning can continue to develop well into adolescence.


Enriched populations of either normal human promyelocytes and myelocytes or blast cells were obtained by fluorescence-activated cell sorting with the monoclonal antibody WEM-G11. These populations were used to study the effect of pulse stimulation by purified recombinant human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) or cross-reacting purified murine granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF). Maximal clone formation by promyelocytes and myelocytes was observed in 1-mL agar cultures stimulated continuously with 400 units of either CSF and in cultures of cells that were pulse stimulated by 3,200 units (or greater) of either CSF. Pulse stimulation by 800 units of GM-CSF or G-CSF generated 75% clone formation, and pulse stimulation by 200 units CSF gave 50% clone formation. The majority of clones formed by pulse-stimulated cells were only two cells in size; however, some clones were up to 15 cells in size after a single exposure to CSF. Clone formation was not observed in cultures of blast cell populations after a single pulse stimulation with GM-CSF or G-CSF.


The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of ankle taping and the combined effect of ankle taping and exercise on ankle stabilization under four different conditions (pre-taped, taped, walking on the treadmill, removal of tape) in drop landing from a 40 cm height. The subjects consisted of 14 healthy adult (four male, ten female) volunteers with ages ranging from 22-28 years. Preamplified EMG electrodes were attached to the soleus, tibialis anterior, vastus medialis, and biceps femoris. EMG and force plate data were collected at 500 Hz. While standing on one leg, subjects hopped from a 40 cm height onto a force plate. The ankle of the right leg was then taped followed by a repeat of the hopping task, walking on a treadmill, and a second repetition of the hopping task. The hopping task was again repeated following the removal of the tape. Significant increases occurred in vertical ground reaction forces for the taped conditions compared with those in pretaped and untaped conditions. In the taped conditions, the soleus displayed a significant decrease in mean iEMG from impact to peak vertical ground reaction force (p<0.05). Results suggest that taping can provide enough mechanical support to limit ankle motion even after 30 minutes of walking on the treadmill. Additionally, diminished soleus iEMG activity may be related to an increase in the ground reaction forces upon landing from a jump.


ABSTRACT The liberal and neoliberal world order is increasingly under attack. Global levels of democracy have been declining for over a decade, accompanied by rollbacks in some kinds of rights. We examine the implications of increasing criticisms of the (neo)-liberal era over time for educational reform discourse around the world by drawing on a unique primary dataset of 473 reports produced by international organisations between 1998 and 2018. Extending insights from neo-institutional theories of organisations, we argue that globalised models of education reform is on a decline as a result of growing attacks on the (neo)-liberal cultural system that has affected education policies around the world. Empirically, we find no evidence that reform emphases continue to grow since the 1990s, and support for arguments that predict stagnant or falling levels of reform discourse.


A facile and low-cost method for preparing a nickel–cobalt phosphide/multilayer graphene (MLG) (NiCoP/MLG) composite was developed in this study using a new strategy. NiCoP/MLG was prepared through calcination of NiCo-benzoate layered double hydroxide (NiCo-B-LDH) to obtain NiCoO2/MLG first followed by phosphorization to obtain the composite of NiCoP/MLG. Here, NiCo-B-LDH served as a self-sacrificing template. The obtained porous flower-like NiCoP/MLG was tested as a material for supercapacitor electrodes, which exhibited excellent electrochemical performance in terms of specific capacitance (1419.6 F g−1 at 1 A g−1), durability at high current density and long-term operation with 91.7% capacitance retention after more than 3000 cycles at a current density of 5 A g−1. Moreover, the symmetrical supercapacitor based on NiCoP/MLG delivered a high energy density of 32.19 W h kg−1 at a power density of 741.65 W kg−1. Therefore, the as-prepared NiCoP/MLG could serve as a high-performance supercapacitor electrode material.


Background/Aims: Neural crest cells play a vital role in craniofacial development, microRNA-1 (miR-1) is essential in development and disease of the cardiac and skeletal muscle, the objective of our study is to investigate effects of miR-1 on neural crest cell in the craniofacial development and its molecular mechanism. Methods: We knocked down miR-1 in zebrafish by miR-1 morpholino (MO) microinjection and observed phenotype of neural crest derivatives. We detected neural crest cell migration by time-lapse. Whole-mount in situ hybridization was used to monitor the expressions of genes involved in neural crest cell induction, specification, migration and differentiation. We performed a quantitative proteomics study (iTRAQ) and bioinformatics prediction to identify the targets of miR-1 and validate the relationship between miR-1 and its target gene sec63. Results: We found defects in the tissues derived from neural crest cells: a severely reduced lower jaw and delayed appearance of pigment cells. miR-1 MO injection also disrupted neural crest cell migration. At 24 hours post fertilization (hpf), reduced expression of tfap2a, dlx2, dlx3b, ngn1 and crestin indicated that miR-1 deficiency affected neural crest cell differentiation. iTRAQ and luciferase reporter assay identified SEC63 as a direct target gene of miR-1. The defects of miR-1 deficiency could be reversed, at least in part, by specific suppression of sec63 expression. Conclusion: miR-1 is involved in the regulation of neural crest cell development, and that it acts, at least partially, by targeting sec63 expression.


Periodical literature has a significant place in most research disciplines partly because of its unique packaging and marketing features. Librarians neither influence the amount or format of published information not control the sources of library funding. During the past six years, the sharp reductions in purchasing ability have put producers as well as consumers of information under stress. Various efforts in resource sharing remove the reader yet one more step from the material and can be only part of a solution. Government, academic and professional organizations, and commercial publishers are urged to consider new ways to help libraries improve their vital role in the distribution of scientific literature and information.


Valuable high-precision data are often published in the form of tables in both scientific and business documents. While humans can easily identify, interpret and contextualize tables, developing general-purpose automated techniques for extraction of information from tables is difficult due to the wide variety of table formats employed across corpora. To extract useful data from tables, data cells must be correctly extracted and linked to all relevant headers, units of measure and in-text references. Table extraction involves identifying the border and cell structure for each document table, while table understanding provides context by linking cells with semantic information inside and outside the table, such as row and column headers, footnotes, titles, and references in surrounding text. The objective of this tutorial is to provide a detailed synopsis of existing approaches for table extraction and understanding, highlight open research problems, and provide an overview of potential applications.


OF DISSERTATION BIOGEOMORPHOLOGY OF BEDROCK FLUVIAL SYSTEMS: EXAMPLE FROM SHAWNEE RUN, KENTUCKY, USA The dynamic interactions between fluvial processes and vegetation vary in different environments and are uncertain in bedrock settings. Bedrock streams are much less studied than alluvial in all aspects, and in many respects act in qualitatively different ways. This research seeks to fill this lacuna by studying bedrock streams from a biogeomorphic perspective. The first part of this research aims to identify the impacts of woody vegetation that may be common to fluvial systems and rocky hillslopes in general, or that may be unique to bedrock channels. A review of the existing literature on biogeomorphology — mostly fluvial and rocky hillslope environments — was carried out, and field examples of biogeomorphic impacts (BGIs) associated with fluvial systems of six various bedrock environments were then examined to complement the review. This research shows that bedrock streams exhibit both shared and highly concentrated BGIs in relation to alluvial streams and bedrock hillslope environments. It shows that while no BGIs associated with bedrock streams are unique to the environment, the bioprotective function related to rootbanks (when the root itself creates the stream bank) and the processes related to bioweathering and erosion are rarely addressed in alluvial fluvial literature, despite their importance in bedrock fluvial environments. The second part of the dissertation is largely grounded upon the important BGIs associated with bedrock fluvial environments identified in the first part. Drawing from ecological lexicon, this part introduces some biogeomorphic concepts, most importantly biogeomorphic keystone species and equivalents, with respect to different biotic impacts on surface processes and forms. Later, it explores these concepts by examining the general vs. species-specific BGIs of trees on a limestone bedrockcontrolled stream, Shawnee Run, in central Kentucky. Results suggest that Platanus occidentalis plays a keystone role by promoting development of biogeomorphic pools in the study area. Further, some species play equivalent roles with respect to surface processes and landforms by promoting development of avulsion-associated islands and can be recognized as biogeomorphic equivalents. Finally, this dissertation also examines the relative importance of systematic up-to downstream vs. local scale variation explaining channel morphology and biogeomorphological phenomena in Shawnee Run. Results show that local scale variation − primarily attributable to the local scale structural controls, incision status and edaphic variation − largely explains channel morphology and vegetation patterns. These patterns may therefore be common in bedrock rivers strongly influenced by geological controls.


Introduction. Frequent users of emergency medical services (EMS) have disproportionately high 9-1-1 call frequency. Evidence suggests that this small group burdens the health care system, leading to misallocation of already-limited health resources. Aim. To understand frequent users' perceptions and experiences regarding EMS, as well as the driving factors underlying their frequent use. Method. A grounded theory approach guided our qualitative research process. Participants older than 17 years who called EMS five or more times in the past year were consecutively sampled where each participant was contacted in the order they appeared on our list of potential participants for interviews until data saturation was achieved. Transcripts were analyzed to derive common themes among frequent EMS callers. Results. Frequent EMS calls often resulted from chronic medical conditions creating recurrent crisis situations, mental health issues as well as mobility issues, frequent noninjurious falls, and social isolation. Combined with these factors, perceptions of the purpose of EMS and social circumstances also contributed to the creation of complex health issues that influenced frequent EMS use. These findings can advise the development of future paramedicine programs and health promotion interventions.


Atropine is used both to treat a variety of clinical disorders and as an antidote to cholinesterase poisoning. While various conditions affect the physiologic responses to atropine, little is known of the pharmacokinetics of this drug except under resting conditions. Pharmacokinetic studies were performed in mongrel dogs under two experimental conditions, moderate hemorrhage and hypothyroidism, to determine whether im absorption and elimination of atropine (0.05 mg/kg body weight) were affected by changes in hemodynamic or metabolic status. Using a randomized, crossover experimental design, it was found that during hypovolemia the mean volume of distribution was reduced by 22% (2.50 ± 0.62 vs. 3.21 ± 0.63 L/kg), with no changes in peak serum level, total atropine availability, elimination half-life, or whole-body clearance. Hypothyroidism was associated with a significant increase in peak serum atropine concentration (26.4 ± 3.9 vs. 20.6 ± 4.9 ng/ml) and drug bioavailability (48.5 ± 8.8 vs. 30.0 ± 10.7 ng/ml-h), while the clearance was reduced by 39% (426 ± 34 vs. 696 ± 187 ng/ml-min). These results suggest that atropine kinetics are not altered appreciably during moderate hemorrhage. In hypothyroidism, alterations in atropine pharmacokinetics may warrant modification of drug dose and frequency of administration.


Reuse of already developed object-oriented software components is reduced when software is written in different object-oriented languages, or when it is not easy to relocate the software components from one machine to another machine. Software development in a distributed and heterogeous environment is a solution to this problem. Several common object models have been defined for software development in a distributed and heterogeous environment. Most of the existing common object models do not agree upon a common set of object-oriented features. These models are weak (i.e., they have only a modest subset of object-oriented features) because they support both object-oriented and non object-oriented languages and mapping of the model into non object-oriented languages is a complex problem. In this paper an interoperable common object model (ICOM) that supports statically typed object-oriented languages is presented. The ICOM model has an extensive set of object-oriented features that uses reflection techniques to support the model. The architecture of ICOM framework is described and a detailed account on how reflection is used is given. A prototype involving dynamic method binding feature is explained in detail.


In vivo estimates of xenobiotic chemical flux across the dermal surface of intact fish were obtained by measuring chemical loss from venous blood to expired water. An experimental system was developed to separate the dermal route of exposure from all other routes. The system was then used to measure dermal absorption of tetrachloroethane (TCE), pentachloroethane (PCE), and hexachloroethane (HCE) in channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), two fish with very different skin anatomies. The kinetics of accumulation varied among chemicals, but for each compound were similar among species. TCE accumulated rapidly, reaching steady state in blood within 48 hr. Steady state was not reached in 48 hr with PCE or HCE, although blood levels of PCE were probably close to steady-state values. Dermal flux estimates (based on branchial efflux) for TCE, PCE, and HCE were two to four times greater in catfish than in trout. Arterial blood concentrations of each compound were three to six times greater in catfish. These observations are indicative of greater flux across catfish skin, augmented by higher blood:water chemical partitioning. Trout skin is covered with scales and has no taste buds, while catfish skin does not possess scales and has numerous taste bud papillae. Both scales and taste bud papillae originate in the dermis and extend to the skin surface through the epidermis. In catfish these taste buds may offer channels through which chemicals diffuse across the epidermis to the more vascularized dermis. A comparison of dermal and branchial uptake was made by estimating zero-time dermal and branchial fluxes for all three chloroethanes. The mean dermal fluxes for TCE, PCE, and HCE ranged from 1.4 to 2.8, 1.8 to 3.6, and 1.4 to 3.2% of the total flux (branchial plus dermal) in rainbow trout and channel catfish, respectively. This research demonstrates that dermal absorption of waterborne chemicals occurs in large adult fish and results in distribution kinetics similar to those observed in inhalation exposures. Compared to branchial uptake, the dermal route of exposure appears to be relatively unimportant in large fish. It may, however, be very important in smaller fish and for juveniles of larger species.


Research on " gender " has developed the last decades as an important theoretical and empirical field of research. But in times of crisis, when lower classes, race minorities, citizens on the margin, and the poor, are the excluded for sectarian reasons, disparities between men and women increase. This is particularly observed in those spaces where the internationally defined global dominance order disrupts local paths to development. In rural areas in Latin America, men and women are unequal. In this paper, in order to generate new paths towards equality, we aim to investigate in which ways, under which educational premises, and under what social organizations, gendered negative features can be minimized. To get to this point, we are forced to analyze what means sharing public and private spheres of life in one and another context and circumstance. Evidently, gender stereotypes are not fixed, neither gender heritage. They are a result of mixed circumstances related to how the relations of dominion and dominance are established in a colonial modeled order which oppresses the oppressed and leaves no space to find a balance to develop human rights and citizenship participation for men and women in this time in history.


KKrikor (Grigor) Balakian's 1910 work, The Ruins of Ani (Ngarakrut'iwn Anii Aweragnerun Badgerazart), documents the visit of the Armenian Catholicos Matt'ēos Izmirlean (1845-1910) to Ani in 1909. Largely neglected by historians of architecture, The Ruins of Ani nevertheless offers an extraordinary account of the city and its monuments. After considering Balakian's sources and scholarly perspectives, this paper explores his report on the buildings and the archaeological museum of Ani, highlighting discrepancies from the known record. Balakian's often surprising remarks require careful scrutiny and cross-checking; at the same time, they highlight the value of any eyewitness source on Ani composed during the period of Russian control.
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The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of zinc supplement on strength and serum lipid profile on physical activity women. The target population of research was all of physical education students in Alzahra University. Twenty-four subjects (age=20.33 ± 1.7 years, height=163.12 ± 6.75 cm, weight=60.66 ± 8.27 kg) selected randomly. Subjects completed testing session at per week up to 8 weeks that included 1 RM test on bench and leg press (triceps and quadriceps strength) and blood sample analysis to determined TG, TC, LDL, HDL, LDL/HDL. Subjects were then divided in placebo and experiment group randomly. Either placebo (1 g/day dextrose) and Zn group (25 mg/day Zn) to begin resistance training for 8 weeks according to a protocol that design by author. The collected data were analysed by SPSS version 11 through t Student (dependent and independent). 1-Zn supplement (25 mg/day) had non-significant effect on strength of subjects and 2-Zn supplement (25 mg/day) had non-significant effect on serum lipid profile in both groups. The findings of this study indicate that using Zn supplement does not appear enhance strength and also does not have positive effect on serum lipid profile. According to this finding author suggested that using of Zn supplement should be under taken by physician. It is required that non-significant results may because of amount of used the supplement, the kind of contraction recruit in the resistance training and the time of apply the supplement therefore these results maybe not severe and exceed investigation seem necessary.


Current immunization models have limited power in interest rate risk protection. A new approach, entitled M-Absolute, is designed to provide powerful and practical single-risk-measure immunization in particular circumstances. M-Absolute is similar to M-Square but is derived as a first-order lower bound immunization risk model. Like duration, M-Absolute can be implemented as a simple, single-risk-measure immunization model. M-Absolute of a bond is defined as the weighted average of the absolute distances of the bond's cash flows from a horizon point. Even though it is a single-risk measure, M-Absolute can act effectively to reduce the impacts of several types of interest rate risks rather than hedge against only a single type of term structure shift. Empirical tests show that M-Absolute reduces the interest rate risk inherent in the traditional duration model by more than half. These results are independent of the particular time period chosen.


Student participation in community research has received little attention either in the community research literature or the service-learning literature. The Urban Research Group model of community research includes undergraduates in two types of research: that which is linked to classes and that not linked to classes. In the research linked to classes, students learn skills that are used to write the Senior Investigative Paper. In the research not linked to classes, students learn interviewing skills and more about the local community. The needs of community-based organizations and the service mission of the university determine the amount of student involvement.


Wandering spleens are rarely encountered ectopic localizations of the spleen. They are either congenital or acquired owing to the lack of or weakening of the major splenic ligaments. Herein, we present a female patient who was admitted to our hospital with the complaint of abdominal distension and chronic constipation. We performed laparoscopic splenectomy in this case for the diagnosis of a wandering spleen located in the right upper quadrant. The accepted treatment of this pathology is splenopexy unless there is no necrosis of the organ. Minimal invasive procedures should be the primary choice in the treatment of this entity.


The article presents data on the current state of health, physical preparedness, motor activity of students in non-sports profile higher education establishments. It was found that low levels of physical condition of students is determined by a number of factors, among which, the lack of their motor activity, as well as non-rational approaches of the governing bodies and the administration of some higher educational establishments to organizing teaching and extracurricular physical training of future specialists are the major ones. It contains data relative to the main functions of motor activity. The basic provisions of the letter of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine of 09.25.2015 No1 / 9–454 "Regarding the organization of physical education in higher education".


Oleksa Storozhenko's (1806-1874) long story "Закоханий  чорт"  [Devil in Love] (1861) reveals close parallels to the eponymous novella of the French Gothic author, Jacques Cazotte (1719-1792;  Le Diable amoureux [The Devil in Love, 1772]). However, literary criticism left this connection uncommented on and emphasized only the folklore of Storozhenko's work. This article aims to examine whether Storozhenko was indeed inspired by folklore alone, which would make his connection to Cazotte's narrative coincidental. I will subject the folkloric stratum in his tale to in-depth analysis, utilizing a combination of motif (Thompson), tale type (Aarne, Thompson, and Uther), and structural (Propp) methods for the assessment and classification of oral narrative. While my study shows that Storozhenko's tale does invoke the universal folkloric motif of love between a mortal and the devil and adheres to Propp's structure of a typical folktale, the application of the ATU index does not return any folktale type that could serve as a model for the 'devil in love' narrative. Moreover, a few collections of Ukrainian folktales that I consulted also do not have a specific tale that would at least remotely remind us of Storozhenko. Thus, my findings show that Storozhenko's tale merely exudes a folkloric allure, which must have prevented the scholars from searching for its antecedents beyond strictly oral tradition. But the fact that Storozhenko selected folktale motifs that resemble Cazotte's and stylized them in a similar manner, proves my hypothesis that the two are intertextually linked. This also shows that Storozhenko produced a peculiar mode of the Gothic that followed his French predecessor's practice in utilizing metafolkloric allusions, but instead of exotic elements he turned to local Ukrainian legendary and historical tradition to fill its framework.


According to some philosophers we can distinguish two trends in dealing with (especially natural) language. One of them is older and uses explications that simplify the richness of the language, so that the result of its efforts is an artificial image of language not corresponding to its real shape. The more recent trend tries to capture all the richness of the language together with all its irregularities and is represented mainly by Quine's and later Wittgenstein's philosophy. The older trend (I call it analytic group, AG, here) is sometimes criticized as being somehow obsolete while the more recent trend (called here Q-W group, Q-W, here) is then evaluated as more promising (more 'progressive'). I try to show that AG is incomparable with Q-W because both try to answer distinct questions, solve distinct problems. (A comparison could be realized on the higher level of evaluating the choice of problems itself, which is another topic.)


This study seeks a model for Knowledge Management in project based firms. The work process in these firms is getting on a contract with a client over a project which is to be delivered in a certain period of time and with a certain amount of budget. Depending on the type and specification of the project, the firm achieves or creates some knowledge which is almost tacit. The concern here is that this tacit knowledge is lost by the end of the project, whether due to time limitations and rush for delivering the project which makes it impossible for the firm to turn this knowledge into explicit; or it goes away with the workers since they are generally project-loyal not company-loyal. Based on the literature this study reveals that KM can act as powerful instrument for increasing project-based firms' performance and hence raise their chances for absorbing more projects. However this is a two-sided fact; clients have more faith in those firms with loaded with high-level experiences while the chances are higher for satisfying clients in those firms which manage their knowledge gained from earlier projects.


OF DISSERTATION CELLULAR AND MOLECULAR ASPECTS OF THE INTERACTION BETWEEN MAIZE AND THE ANTHRACNOSE PATHOGEN Colletotrichum graminicola Maize anthracnose, caused by the fungus Colletotrichum graminicola, is an economically important species contributing to major yield losses. C. graminicola is a hemibiotroph; initially it invades its host while it is alive, and then it switches to destructive necrotrophic growth and the host is killed. Establishment of compatible interactions by biotrophic pathogens is usually associated with suppression of host defenses and cell death, while necrotrophic pathogens typically secrete phytotoxic compounds and induce cell death. To understand the relationship of hemibiotrophy in C. graminicola to biotrophy and necrotrophy, I compared a compatible and an incompatible interaction, utilizing a nonpathogenic mutant strain that is very similar to the wild type in vitro. I developed an assay to visualize in detail living fungal and host cells during pathogenic and nonpathogenic interactions. My results provided evidence that C. graminicola produces diffusible substances during colonization that predispose nearby living host cells for fungal invasion. My observations further suggested that the mutant is nonpathogenic because it fails to produce these substances. To explore the possibility that the C. graminicola mutant is impaired in the production and/or secretion of one or more secondary metabolites (SM), I characterized the range of SM-associated genes in C. graminicola. C. graminicola has a large and diverse repetoire of these genes, indicating significant capacity for the production of SM. I then characterized the global expression of fungal genes during different developmental phases in both compatible and incompatible interactions. I found that SM-associated genes are expressed during early and late stages of maize infection. Secreted proteins and putative effectors were overrepresented among differentially regulated predicted gene products. There were relatively few differences in expression between the mutant and wild type, suggesting that differences between them may relate to post-transcriptional events. The transcriptional analysis indicated that the mutant was defective very early in biotrophy. This study indicates that biotrophy and necrotrophy coexist in this pathosystem in different cells, and that arrays of differentially regulated and locally expressed genes are involved in maintaining this balance. Understanding the nature of induced susceptibility may lead to new therapeutic targets for management of this damaging disease.


The aim of this study was to determine antimicrobial susceptibility testing patterns of Candida Albicans and Salmonella typhi isolates. Fifteen isolates of each microorganism were collected from three hospitals located in Dar es Salaam region within a 3-month period in the year 2005. Candida Albicans and Salmonella typhi isolates were purified by sub-culturing on appropriate culture media in order to obtain pure cultures of the assayed microorganisms. Candida Albicans isolates were identified by Gram staining technique and germ tube test, while Salmonella typhi isolates were also identified by Gram staining technique followed by sub-culturing in various selective and differential culture media, then confirmed by immunological (agglutination) test. In-vitro antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of the assayed microbial isolates were determined by the disk diffusion technique of Stokes. The disk strength and tentative sizes of zones of inhibition (ZI) were interpreted in accordance with American National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standard (NCCLS). Antifungal susceptibility patterns for Candida Albicans isolates showed that azoles are more efficacious than other assayed antifungal agents. Results of antibacterial susceptibility revealed that all the assayed S. typhi isolates were resistant to chloramphenicol and co-trimoxazole, but were sensitive to ciprofloxacin, gentamicin, ampicillin, doxcycline and ceftriaxone. Therefore, this study finding calls for a need to review the current prescription and dispensing practices of antimicrobial agents in both hospitals and pharmacies respectively. Furthermore, it is recommended that a nationwide study on antimicrobial susceptibility pattern should be conducted in order to come up with national policy on rational use of antibiotics. Keywords : Susceptibility patterns testing, antimicrobial agents. Tanzania Medical Journal Vol. 21 (1) 2006: pp. 13-16


Computer use has grown rapidly during the past decade. Within the educational community, interest in authentic assessment has also increased. To enhance the authenticity of tests of writing, as well as of other knowledge and skills, some assessments require students to respond in written form via paper-and-pencil. However, as increasing numbers of students grow accustomed to writing on computers, these assessments may yield underestimates of students' writing abilities. This article presents the findings of a small study examining the effect that mode of administration -- computer versus paper-and-pencil -- has on middle school students' performance on multiple-choice and written test questions. Findings show that, though multiple-choice test results do not differ much by mode of administration, for students accustomed to writing on computer, responses written on computer are substantially higher than those written by hand (effect size of 0.9 and relative success rates of 67% versus 30%). Implications are discussed in terms of both future research and test validity.


The research- and practice-based knowledge on the links between men's violence to women and men's physical, emotional, and sexual violence to children in the family is not always reflected in professional's assessments of children's safety and well-being. In the presentation it is argued that when there are children in the family, domestic violence is an attack not only on an adult victim (usually the mother), but on the children and the relationships in the family: between children and mothers, children and fathers, and between siblings. It is argued that a lack of recognition of relational aspects may at least partly be due to gendered notions of parenthood and professionals' construction of mothers as mainly responsible for children's needs, protection and safety. Furthermore, that a double standard for the parenthood of fathers contributes to the transformation of violent fathers' possible neglect of, and violence to, their children into marginal issues. Against this backdrop the implications for policy and practice are discussed. It is argued that the lack of recognition of violence may create slightly different problems in different domains of policy-practice, due to the different cultural and institutional practices that mark, for example, the domains of 'child protection' and 'custody and contact' respectively.


The skills debate in many European countries has for many years been preoccupied with the supply of qualified individuals and participation in training events. However, recent case‐study work suggests that qualifications and training are partial measures of skill development as most learning arises naturally out of the demands and challenges of everyday work experience and interactions with colleagues, clients and customers. This paper argues that the 'learning as acquisition' and 'learning as participation' metaphors aptly capture these two competing intellectual traditions. The paper outlines an experiment that was designed to give the 'learning as participation' metaphor a firmer survey basis than it has hitherto enjoyed. The results highlight the importance of social relationships and mutual support in enhancing individual performance at work, factors which individual acquisition of qualifications and attendance on courses ignores. The paper also confirms the importance of job design in promoting and facilitating learning at work.


In this paper, the analytic formulation of the single input Fuzzy PID (FPID) controller output is derived to present an Internal Model Control (IMC) based design method. In this context, we have firstly derived the input- output relationship of the fuzzy controller and investigated the effect of the membership function (MF) parameters on the output of the Single input FPID (SFPID). Based the presented observations, design guidelines are presented on how to tune MF parameters of the controller to obtain aggressive and smooth control actions. Moreover, we have derived the analytic formulation of the SFPID controller output. It has been shown that the output formulation is analogous to the Conventional FPID (CFPID) and the PID controller ones. Moreover, we have also shown that the SFPID controller can be seen as combination of a PID controller and nonlinear compensation term. Thus, we have used this analytical information to employ the well-known IMC based design method to tune the design parameters of the SFPID structure. Comparative simulation results have been conducted on a benchmark nonlinear system to show that the SFPID improved the transient state performance while providing an identical disturbance rejection performance of the CFPID structure.


Past applications of biosolids to soils at some locations added higher Cd levels than presently permitted. Cadmium phytoextraction would alleviate current land use constraints. Unamended farm soil, and biosolids amended farm and mine soils were obtained from a Fulton Co., IL biosolids management facility. Soils contained 0.16, 22.8, 45.3 mg Cd kg–1 and 43.1, 482, 812 mg Zn kg–1 respectively with initial pH 6.0, 6.1, 6.4. In greenhouse studies, Swiss chard (Beta vulgaris var. cicla), a Cd-accumulator maize (inbred B37 Zea mays) and a southern France Cd-hyperaccumulator genotype of Noccaea caerulescens were tested for Cd accumulation and phytoextraction. Soil pH was adjusted from ∼5.5–7.0. Additionally 100 rice (Oryza sativa) genotypes and the Ni-hyperaccumulator Alyssum murale were screened for potential phytoextraction use. Chard suffered phytotoxicity at low pH and accumulated up to 90 mg Cd kg–1 on the biosolids amended mine soil. The maize inbred accumulated up to 45 mg Cd kg–1 with only mild phytotoxicity symptoms during early growth at pH > 6.0. N. caerulescens did not exhibit phytotoxicity symptoms at any pH, and accumulated up to 235 mg Cd kg–1 in 3 months. Reharvested N. caerulescens accumulated up to 900 mg Cd kg–1 after 10 months. Neither Alyssum nor 90% of rice genotypes survived acceptably. Both N. caerulescens and B37 maize show promise for Cd phytoextraction in IL and require field evaluation; both plants could be utilized for nearly continuous Cd removal. Other maize inbreds may offer higher Cd phytoextraction at lower pH, and mono-cross hybrids higher shoot biomass yields. Further, maize grown only for biomass Cd maximum removal could be double-cropped.


The so-called jellyfish galaxies are objects exhibiting disturbed morphology, mostly in the form of tails of gas stripped from the main body of the galaxy. Several works have strongly suggested ram pressure stripping to be the mechanism driving this phenomenon. Here, we focus on one of these objects, drawn from a sample of optically selected jellyfish galaxies, and use it to validate sinopsis, the spectral fitting code that will be used for the analysis of the GASP (GAs Stripping Phenomena in galaxies with MUSE) survey, and study the spatial distribution and physical properties of the gas and stellar populations in this galaxy. We compare the model spectra to those obtained with gandalf, a code with similar features widely used to interpret the kinematics of stars and gas in galaxies from IFU data. We find that sinopsis can reproduce the pixel-by-pixel spectra of this galaxy at least as well as gandalf does, providing reliable estimates of the underlying stellar absorption to properly correct the nebular gas emission. Using these results, we find strong evidences of a double effect of ram pressure exerted by the intracluster medium onto the gas of the galaxy. A moderate burst of star formation, dating between 20 and 500 Myr ago and involving the outer parts of the galaxy more strongly than the inner regions, was likely induced by a first interaction of the galaxy with the intracluster medium. Stripping by ram pressure, plus probable gas depletion due to star formation, contributed to create a truncated ionized gas disk. The presence of an extended stellar tail on only one side of the disk points instead to another kind of process, likely gravitational interaction by a fly-by or a close encounter with another galaxy in the cluster.


The subject of the paper is river cruising along the rivers of Europe in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, France, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and Italy. The research needed to determine the trends in terms of consumers and labour force, particularly considering great political and economic changes in Europe (and the world) in the last ten years. The aims of the research were set in relation to the following: to determine the profile of a tourist as well as the crew members. This paper is based on empirical and theoretical research. It combines quantitative primary and secondary as well as qualitative data collection (interview). Primary data was collected from the "Uniworld" company by analysing crew manifests in order to define the demographical profile of the employees. Secondary data collection was used to define the profile of the tourist, where latest relevant publications were consulted. Qualitative method was used to gain more insight in the latest trends of River Cruising by interweaving the managers of the "Uniworld" company. It was determined that "baby boomers" are no longer prevalent on the cruise ships, but the "millennials" cohort are on the rise. Such changes will require a new approach among the cruising companies – in terms of the concept of service delivery and marketing. However, among employees there is no significant change, suggesting that this type of job market is tightly regulated by EU regulations. This research offers valuable data in the field of tourism destination management, as well as the needs of some stakeholders, especially in terms of human resources management and management of strategic development issues. This is important both for the countries which already have positioned themselves on the cruising market as well as for emerging destinations.


: A case of recurrent acute polyhydramnios successfully treated with indomethacin is described. The possible mode of action and risks associated with the use of the drug are discussed.


Peer-to-peer networks are widely criticized for their inefficient flooding search mechanism. Distributed hash table (DHT) algorithms have been proposed to improve the search efficiency by mapping the index of a file to a unique peer based on predefined hash functions. However, the tight coupling between indices and hosting peers incurs high maintenance cost in a highly dynamic network. To properly balance the tradeoff between the costs of indexing and searching, we propose the distributed caching and adaptive search (DiCAS) algorithm, where indices are passively cached in a group of peers based on a predefined hash function. Guided by the same function, adaptive search selectively forwards queries to "matched" peers with a high probability of caching the desired indices. The search cost is reduced due to shrunk searching space. Different from the DHT solutions, distributed caching loosely maps the index of a file to a group of peers in a passive fashion, which saves the cost of updating indices. Our simulation study shows that the DiCAS protocol can significantly reduce the network search traffic with the help of small cache space contributed by each individual peer


Purpose: This qualitative study examined the perceptions of student athletes regarding sexual harassment and other forms of gendered harassment (homophobic bullying) as well as knowledge of and/or experiences with harassment in high school and university settings, primarily in athletic school culture. Methodology: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty-seven former high school athletes/active university athletes. The data were analyzed regarding theme and their relationship to the reviewed literature. Findings: Findings indicate that the athletic culture poses particular issues pertaining to the vulnerabilities and persistence of sexual bullying and harassment. Discussion: Educators, coaches, and administrators must understand harassment, work to establish and implement an educational precedent and policies to decrease the likelihood of occurrence and acceptance, and provide resources for addressing discrimination and hostility on campuses.


n B S T R n C T Smooth muscle of strips of rabbit aorta, placed in a state of active tonic contraction by addition of a stimulating drug, relaxes during exposure to light. The relaxation is reversible. The extent of relaxation produced by a standard exposure depends on the preexposure level of active contraction but not on the nature of the stimulating drug used to produce contraction. With strips brought to an intermediate level of contraction, the degree of relaxation (steady state levels) is a rectangular hyperbolic function of radiation intensity. The kinetics of the relaxation process during irradiation and the recovery process following irradiation are consistent with the hypothesis that the primary photoactivated material initiates a reaction or reactions leading to a product which inhibits some process involved in the production of active contraction. The photorelaxation does not require the presence of oxygen. It is potentiated by reducing the temperature of the aortic strip. The action spectrum of the photorelaxation shows relatively low effectiveness at wavelengths above 450 m#. The effectiveness increases markedly and progressively as the wavelength is lowered below 450 m#, reaching a peak at 310 m#. A deep trough occurs at 280 m#. However, both peak and trough probably result from internal filtering due to absorption by proteins in the aortic strip. It is surmised that if a correction could be made for this internal filtering, the action spectrum would rise continuously down to wavelengths at least as low as 250 m/z.


Background and Aim: Surgical procedures in patients with COVID-19 disease are associated with increased perioperative morbidity and mortality. A retrospective study was conducted to evaluate the demographic and clinical data of surgical patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 disease. Methods: After taking hospital ethics committee approval, medical records of surgical patients operated during the period from May 2020 to November 2020 in a COVID-19-designated tertiary care hospital of northern India were assessed. The demographic data such as age, gender, associated comorbidities, type of surgery, intraoperative complications, and data on the postoperative status of the patients were collected and analyzed. Results: Ninety-four patients underwent surgical procedures during the study period. Out of all patients, 87.2% were females. The median age of patients was 28 years (range: 1 month–59 years). The emergency cesarean section was the most common surgery performed. The subarachnoid block was the most commonly used anesthesia technique. Out of 94 patients, 70 patients were confirmed COVID-19 positive, and 24 were suspected cases. Most of the patients were American Society of Anesthesiologists II (83%) and 43.6% of patients had comorbidities. Conclusion: The cesarean section was the most commonly performed surgical procedure. The most common anesthesia technique used was the subarachnoid block. The patients operated under subarachnoid block had a better prognosis and did not require intensive care unit stays in the postoperative period.


ABSTRACTThe University of ManchesterRoberto Carrasco-Hernandez. PhD in Earth Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences.Calculation of patterns of solar radiation within urban geometries.30 May 2015The present work proposes methods to calculate street-level exposures to solar radiation. The methods comprise a combination of different software algorithms, online databases and real-time standard measurements of solar radiation. Firstly, the use of the free access image database ?Google Street View? to reconstruct urban geometries is illustrated. Google Street View represents an enormous source of information readily available for its general use in the field of urban atmospheric studies. With the aid of existing software packages, it was possible to reconstruct urban geometries as projected fisheye images of the canyon upper-hemispheric view, and to model total-shortwave solar irradiance within an urban canyon. The models allowed the calculation of relative street-canyon irradiance as a fraction of that received under a full-sky view, depending on the visibility of the solar disc and the reduced sky view factor. The combined use of the ideal models with real-time data allows for the calculation of street-canyon irradiance under any cloud conditions. Validation of these techniques was obtained by comparing the calculations against in situ measurements of irradiance from a local street canyon.The existing software, however, does not allow the calculation of spectral irradiance, required for inferring, for example, the biological effects of solar radiation. The use of spectral radiative transfer software was explored to provide spectral irradiance, but commonly available models do not include the effects of horizon obstructions. The approach presented here followed the same general guidelines used to calculate total-shortwave irradiance. The spectral models required a spectral partitioning of global irradiance into direct and diffuse components, allowing the independent analysis of horizon obstruction effects on these components at each wavelength. To partition global irradiance, two equations were developed for the calculation of the diffuse-to-global irradiance ratio (DGR) under cloudless conditions: one based on simplified radiative transfer theory, and an empirical fit for local conditions. Afterwards, the effects of horizon obstructions were evaluated in combination with real-time measurements of unobstructed global spectral irradiance. A set of simulated obstructions were used to validate the models. Finally, it was observed that neglecting the anisotropic distribution of the diffuse component of solar radiation in these simple models could produce large uncertainties in some situations. A practical solution for including the anisotropy of diffuse radiation was proposed, requiring images from an unobstructed digital sky camera. The combination of tools described here will allow calculation of total and spectral global irradiance upon a flat horizontal surface whatever the local field of view. This is possible at any geographical location were the urban geometries can be described, either by manually obtaining digital photographs, or through the Google Street View database, and where there is a reasonably local standard measurement of radiation.


An innovative application of fuzzy clustering and mathematical morphology for the problem of luminal contour detection in intravascular ultrasound images is presented. Median and standard deviation are used as features for segmentation process. Comparison was made with gold standard segmented images obtained from the average of images segmented by experienced medical doctors. Tests were carried out with 20 in vivo coronary images obtained from different patients. High correlation coefficients were found between lumen regions manually and automatically defined when area, mean gray level, and standard deviation of the lumen regions were compared


The relationship of acid adaptation to tolerance of other environmental stresses was examined in Salmonella typhimurium. S. typhimurium was adapted to acid by exposing the cells to mildly acidic conditions (pH 5.8) for one to two cell doublings. Acid-adapted cells were found to have increased tolerance towards various stresses including heat, salt, an activated lactoperoxidase system, and the surface-active agents crystal violet and polymyxin B. Acid adaptation increased cell surface hydrophobicity. Specific outer membrane proteins were induced by acid adaptation, but the lipopolysaccharide component appeared to be unaltered. These results show that acid adaptation alters cellular resistance to a variety of environmental stresses. The mechanism of acid-induced cross-protection involved changes in cell surface properties in addition to the known enhancement of intracellular pH homeostasis.


The article considers the process of the formation of the tank industry in the Urals during the Great Patriotic War in connection with the aspects of regional development within the large territorial and industrial entities. In modern economic science, such territorial industrial associations are known as «clusters». They mean a group of enterprises, united by a common technological process and management, concentrated to achieve a specific production and economic goal. In the modern world, such associations play a decisive role in managing high-tech and innovative industries in the realities of the market economy. This applies both to the civilian and military engineering, including the large and small production, both to public and private ones. In the Sverdlovsk region, at the present time, there is a large tank-building cluster, concentrated around the Uralvagonzavod Corporation (UVZ) in Nizhny Tagil, which includes a number of production units in the territory of the Ural Federal District. The tank production, which originated in the Urals in 1940-s, and fast developed during the Great Patriotic War, shows the typical features of modern cluster structures. This suggests the existence of so-called «protocluster» formations within the tank industry of the Ural economic region in 1941–1945. The article presents the features of the formation of two major protoclusters in the Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions, which have concentrated in their borders a significant economic potential for the production of medium and heavy tanks, as well as automatic control systems based on them. The article discusses the chronology of their occurrence, the member enterprises, the features of their cooperation and interaction within the unified system of the People's Commissariat of Tank Industry of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR NKTP).


World War II research into cryptography and computing produced methods, instruments and research communities that informed early research into artificial intelligence (AI) and semi-autonomous computing. Alan Turing and Claude Shannon in particular adapted this research into early theories and demonstrations of AI based on computers' abilities to track, predict and compete with opponents. This formed a loosely bound collection of techniques, paradigms, and practices I call crypto-intelligence. Subsequent researchers such as Joseph Weizenbaum adapted crypto-intelligence but also reproduced aspects of its antagonistic precepts. This was particularly true in the design and testing of chat bots. Here the ability to trick, fool, and deceive human and machine opponents was a premium, and practices of agent abuse were admired and rewarded. Recognizing the historical genesis of this particular variety of abuse can help researchers develop less antagonistic methodologies.


To provide a structured experience in operative endoscopy, a comprehensive teaching program has been incorporated into the obstetrics and gynecology residency program at our institution. This program consists of both a didactic and a hands-on portion. The hands-on session is conducted on a pelvic trainer. This approach to teaching residents operative endoscopy has been widely accepted by residents, faculty, and operating room personnel.


In the article the state of foreign trade in meat products between Belarus and Poland is analyzed. Our countries for long years have been partners in this trade, first of all in pork products. However since March 2007 Belarus has ceased import purchases of Polish meat. In the article problems which have arisen recently are studied. Also the analysis conducted in this article discovers the reasons of the problems and ways of their solution are offered.


Purpose: The purpose of this research is to examine influence between profitability measured by return on asset (ROA), liquidity measured by current ratio (CR), cash holding, non-debt tax shield, and asset growth on capital structure measured by debt to equity ratio (DER) and the influence on stock return.
Methodology: This research was conducted during the period of 2011-2015. This research is quantitative research that used associative studies to determine the relationship or influence between two or more variables. Population in this research was all of consumer goods industries listed on Indonesia Stock Exchange during the period of research. This research combines multiple and simple regression analysis technique. In addition, hypothesis testing used coefficient of determination, F-test statistic, and t-test statistic.
Findings: The result of this research indicates that profitability (ROA) has positive influence toward capital structure. Liquidity (current ratio) and cash holding have negative influence toward capital structure. Non-debt tax shield and asset growth do not have significant influence toward capital structure. Furthermore, capital structure does not have significant influence toward stock return.
Keywords: profitability, liquidity, cash holding, non-debt-tax shield, asset growth, capital structure, stock return.


As the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is highly heritable, pervasive and prevalent, the clinical diagnosis of ASD is vital. In the existing literature, a single neural network (NN) is generally used to classify ASD patients from typical controls (TC) based on functional MRI data and the accuracy is not very high. Thus, the new method named as the random NN cluster, which consists of multiple NNs was proposed to classify ASD patients and TC in this article. Fifty ASD patients and 42 TC were selected from autism brain imaging data exchange (ABIDE) database. First, five different NNs were applied to build five types of random NN clusters. Second, the accuracies of the five types of random NN clusters were compared to select the highest one. The random Elman NN cluster had the highest accuracy, thus Elman NN was selected as the best base classifier. Then, we used the significant features between ASD patients and TC to find out abnormal brain regions which include the supplementary motor area, the median cingulate and paracingulate gyri, the fusiform gyrus (FG) and the insula (INS). The proposed method provides a new perspective to improve classification performance and it is meaningful for the diagnosis of ASD.


Summary
In North America, herbicides are commonly used to control non-native invasive plants on public wildlands. Little is known about the magnitude, efficacy and financial costs of this practice, although this information is crucial for policymakers, researchers, land managers, pesticide producers and the general public.
In Canada and Mexico, herbicide usage data have not been tracked by agencies. In the USA, data archiving has been implemented by federal land managing agencies. However, while area sprayed and amounts of herbicides have been documented to varying degrees, efficacy and financial costs have not been recorded in a standardized and consistent manner and data publication has been insufficient.
Based on requested data, we estimate that in the USA, half a million hectares of public wildlands were sprayed with herbicides in 2010, representing 201 tonnes. Although non-selective, glyphosate was the most commonly used active ingredient.
Synthesis and applications. Increasing efforts by land management agencies to collect and share herbicide usage data is a key step towards narrowing the knowledge gap on herbicide usage in invasive non-native plant management on public wildlands. Land managers and policymakers in particular would benefit from an enhanced flow of information on efficacy, costs and effects of herbicides.


This project improves the current performance of the Sweep-N-Go LabVIEW program used in Cal Poly electrical engineering laboratories. Sweep-N-Go expedites the laboratory data collection process through automated testing. The new version of the program (Sweep-N-Go Version 3.0) reduces user debugging time, improves sustainability, increases efficiency, and considers all new lab bench equipment. Sweep-N-Go Version 3.0 includes an enhanced Graphical User Interface (GUI) to optimize user-efficiency and user-friendliness according to student survey feedback. To further achieve usability, this program has been well documented online, outlining LabVIEW functions, such as how to open the program in LabVIEW, how to run an executable command, and which parameters to set in the GUI. The Sweep-N-Go LabVIEW program interfaces with all instruments on standard Cal Poly electrical engineering lab benches through both USB and GPIB communication. After users run the program, they have the capability to capture and graph collected data and export the data to a CSV file for further analysis.


ABSTRACT Late Liassic in the Western Tethys has been the cradle of Middle and Late Jurassic diversity of corals. This is what revised and enhanced taxonomy of corals from Pliensbachian and Toarcian stages reveals. The current new taxonomic study of Pliensbachian corals describes 66 species distributed in 41 genera and 20 identified families. It includes four new genera: Podosmilia n. gen., Tubulosmilia n. gen., Prismastrea n. gen. and Spongiocoenia n. gen.; and 20 new species: Axosmilia amellagouensis n. sp., Apocladophyllia guigouensis n. sp., Coryphyllia bicuneiformis n. sp., Coryphyllia capillaria n. sp., Proleptophyllia calix n. sp., Proleptophyllia magna n. sp., Proleptophyllia subphaceloida n. sp., Fungiaphyllia praecursor n. sp., F. rotunda n. sp., Margarosmilia dividenda n. sp., Paravolzeia calabrensis n. sp., Distichophyllia pauciseptata n. sp., Retiophyllia zizensis n. sp., Epismiliopsis paraeudesi n. sp., Phacelostylophyllum mg. arbustulum n. sp., Podosmilia horologium n. gen., n. sp., Stylophyllopsis bovista n. sp., S. veracolumella n. sp., Tubulosmilia regularis n. gen., n. sp. and Prismastrea organum n. gen., n. sp. So many new species appear surprising at first sight considering the special attention paid in this study to the correction of species diversity overestimations that took place in the literature of the last century as a consequence of a typological approach. Many taxa previously considered extinct at T-J boundary were still living during Pliensbachian times, various genera are known only for Pliensbachian. In addition, a small number of genera namely Isastrea, Montlivaltia and Thamnasteria have their first occurrence during this stage. Despite their low abundance during Pliensbachian, these genera will significantly increase their part in Middle and Upper Jurassic communities. Most collected coral assemblages come from both reefs and level-bottom assemblages found in carbonate platform situation.


IZA DP No. 15326 MAY 2022 Does Hotter Temperature Increase Poverty? Global Evidence from Subnational Data Analysis Despite a vast literature documenting the negative effects of climate change on various socio-economic outcomes, little, if any, evidence exists on the global impacts of hotter temperature on poverty. Analyzing a new global dataset of subnational poverty in 166 countries, we find higher temperature to increase poverty. This finding is robust to various model specifications, data samples, and measures of temperature. Our preferred specification shows that a 1 ̊C increase leads to a 2.1 percent increase in the headcount poverty rate, using the US$ 1.90 daily poverty threshold. Regional heterogeneity exists, with Sub-Saharan African countries being most vulnerable to higher temperature. We find suggestive evidence that reduction in crop yields could be a key channel that explains the effects of rising temperature. Further simulation indicate that global warming can significantly increase poverty, with more pronounced effects occurring in poorer regions and under scenarios of higher greenhouse gas emissions without mitigation policies. JEL Classification: Q54, I32, O1


We consider four-dimensional de Sitter, flat and anti de Sitter branes embedded in a six-dimensional bulk spacetime whose dynamics is dictated by Lovelock theory. We find, applying a generalised version of Birkhoff's theorem, that all possible maximally symmetric braneworld solutions are embedded in Wick-rotated black hole spacetimes of Lovelock theory. These are warped solitonic spaces, where the horizons of the black hole geometries correspond to the possible positions of codimension-2 branes. The horizon temperature is related via conical singularities to the tension or vacuum energy of the branes. We classify the braneworld solutions for certain combinations of bulk parameters, according to their induced curvature, their vacuum energy and their effective compactness in the extra dimensions. The bulk Lovelock theory gives an induced gravity term on the brane, which, we argue, generates four-dimensional gravity up to some distance scale. As a result, some simple solutions, such as the Lovelock corrected Schwarzschild black hole in six dimensions, are shown to give rise to self-accelerating braneworlds. We also find that several other solutions have self-tuning properties. Finally, we present regular gravitational instantons of Lovelock gravity and comment on their significance.


The present paper describes the evaluation of the control rod worth data obtained in the Monju restart core. The best-estimate value and its uncertainty are evaluated in detail. As in the criticality evaluation, data obtained in the previous test are evaluated in the same level of detail. Evaluated results of control rod worth are consistent among control rods at symmetrical positions for a random uncertainty. The experimental uncertainty is ±2%, where the dominant uncertainty originates from the delayed neutron parameters used in the period method. The correlation in the uncertainties is also evaluated among different control rods and tests. One can discuss a difference in worth among different control rods and cores without a detailed knowledge of the original uncertainty evaluation. Based on the evaluated data, calculation accuracy is investigated with JENDL-3.3 and JENDL-4.0. It is confirmed that the calculation accuracy is within an experimental uncertainty of ±2% for each layer and 10B content.


Executive compensation influences managerial risk preferences through executives' portfolio sensitivities to changes in stock prices (delta) and stock return volatility (vega). Large deltas discourage managerial risk-taking, while large vegas encourage risk-taking. Theory suggests that short-maturity debt mitigates agency costs of debt by constraining managerial risk preferences. We posit and find evidence of a negative (positive) relation between CEO portfolio deltas (vegas) and short-maturity debt. We also find that short-maturity debt mitigates the influence of vega- and delta-related incentives on bond yields. Overall, our empirical evidence shows that short-term debt mitigates agency costs of debt arising from compensation risk. between and


Abstract : This paper aims to study the data assemblage of three centres of calculation which produce and use big data for social research. By unfolding how big data are produced we want to compare and contrast different aspects of data construction, management and exploitation. The results are drawn from focus groups and in-depth interviews of data experts. Respondents were interviewed about the activities of setting objectives, design decisions and choices with respect to expert languages, influences, constraints, debates with actors internal and external to data assemblage. The analysis presented in the paper focuses on the methodological activities run in the assemblage, and on subjectivities and communities involved in big data. Keywords : data assemblage; big data; qualitative methods; data centres; data interoperability.


Millions of American school children suffer from food allergies, and increasingly, these children are bullied because of their allergies. If the bully exposes the victim to the allergen, food allergy bullying can sicken or kill within minutes. Food allergy bullying is already responsible for many hospitalizations and at least one death. Most food allergy bullying happens at school, and schools play a crucial part in addressing and preventing bullying. All too often, though, schools fail to take appropriate action. Sovereign immunity insulates public schools from liability in many instances, but federal disability law may provide a solution.

This article forges a new path through disability law for schools to be held liable for food allergy bullying under federal disability discrimination laws. It advocates for food allergy being classified as a disability in most instances under these laws, which would then provide the basis for school liability based on a theory of disability harassment. This statutory claim avoids the sovereign immunity hurdle and holds schools accountable for their role in facilitating or refusing to respond appropriately, thereby motivating schools to protect allergic children from bullying.


Background and purpose: Magnetite hydroxyapatite (m-Hap) as a magnetic nano-adsorbent was synthesized for the removal of tetracycline (TC) from aqueous solutions. Materials and methods: The properties of m-Hap were investigated by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Factors affecting the adsorption of TC including pH (3-10), adsorbent dosage (0.1-5 g/L), contact time (5-120 min) and initial concentration of TC (10-25 mg/L) were investigated. The effect of adsorbent on the removal of tetracycline from real wastewater was also studied. Results: The nanocomposite was almost spherical in shape and about 20-30 nm in diameter. In optimum conditions more than 99% of TC was removed (contact time 60 min, adsorbent dose 1g/L, and pH 7.5). The equilibrium data were well fitted into Langmuir model (R= 0.977) and the maximum adsorption capacity was 64.4 mg g at pH 7.5 and 298 K. Adsorption experiments on hospital wastewater indicated a slight decrease in adsorption removal of TC (85%). Conclusion: This study showed that the magnetic Hydroxyapatite nanoparticles could be used as a highly efficient and promising adsorbent in water and wastewater treatment systems.


Objective The aim of the study was to investigate whether lactotripeptides supplementations alleviate the decrease in the maximal isometric force, an indirect marker of muscle damage, after eccentric exercise (ECC). Design Twenty-two young men performed 50 ECC of the elbow flexors using an isokinetic dynamometer. The subjects were randomly assigned to either the placebo or lactotripeptides group and were each given a 4.5 mg/d placebo or lactotripeptides thrice on the exercise day and the day after. Maximal isometric force and brachial arterial diameter were assessed before and 2 days after the ECC. Results The interaction of time and group on maximal isometric force was significant (P < 0.05); maximal isometric force was significantly decreased in both groups after ECC (P < 0.005). The interaction of brachial arterial diameter was significant (P < 0.05); brachial arterial diameter was significantly increased in only the lactotripeptides group (P < 0.005). In addition, the change in maximal isometric force was significantly related to the change in brachial arterial diameter after adjusting for body weight and change in range of motion (P < 0.05). Conclusions The present results suggest that lactotripeptides supplementation alleviates the decrease in the maximal isometric force via an increase in brachial arterial diameter after ECC.


Abstract Currently, change in lichen community structure depends on a combination of several pollutants instead of just one. Consequently, alpha lichen diversity no longer represents an effective response variable for assessing trends in atmospheric pollutants over time. Here we investigated the value of the relationship between alpha diversity and different aspects of gamma diversity (similarity, replacement and differences in richness of species) together with that of beta diversity (calculated as the sum of replacement and difference in richness of species), for assessing complex variations in epiphytic lichen communities in response to a changing pollution scenario. We considered an area subjected to extreme variation in atmospheric pollution in recent decades and explored temporal and spatial aspects of lichen community succession over short-, intermediate- and long-term reference periods. We found that variation in lichen communities for long- and intermediate-term reference periods was strongly dependent on the alpha diversity of single trees at the beginning of the observation period. The occurrence of nitrophytic species, which responded to the decrease in SO2 concentrations, contribute to this trend. The effect of land use was observed only over long observation periods, with trees in urban areas showing less variation than those located in rural areas. In particular, the analysis of similarity, species replacement and differences in richness of tree pairs demonstrated that trends and patterns within lichen communities are neither always nor to the same extent associated with alpha diversity. Our results show that a thorough study of gamma diversity, including beta diversity and similarity, is required to detect changes in air quality in long-term biomonitoring surveys.


We recently described the synthesis and phase behavior of a new type of CECEC–P multiblock copolymer composed of glassy poly(cyclohexylethylene) (C), semicrystalline poly(ethylene) (E), and elastomeric poly(ethylene-alt-propylene) (P) with symmetric (equal volume) CECEC and P sequences (G. Fleury and F. S. Bates, Macromolecules, 2009, 42, 3598–3610). Here we report the formation and characterization of a multicontinuous structure based on the blending of CEC triblock copolymer and P homopolymer with such a hexablock copolymer along the 50 : 50 (CEC/P) isopleth. These materials produce a sequence of phases that are correlated with the volume fraction of CECEC–P as evidenced by SAXS and TEM measurements. A percolating bicontinuous mesostructure was identified at volume fractions of hexablock copolymer, fCECEC–P = 0.10 and 0.125, within the composition range known to result in a bicontinuous morphology in A–B/A/B systems. A solid product was formed by cooling the initially homogeneous ternary mixture from above the melting temperature of the E blocks to room temperature. Crystallization of E leads to microphase separation of C and E and simultaneous ejection of P from CEC (and CECEC) at a larger length scale. The mechanical properties of these materials are inferior to what is anticipated based on pure CEC triblock copolymer, attributable to the low molecular weight and irregular structure of the C/E region sequences. Nevertheless, this study establishes a procedure for producing bicontinuous yet structurally asymmetric materials based on the microemulsion process and extends the concept of a microemulsion to multiblock copolymers.


We study the problem of finding lower and upper bounds for the number of conjugacy clases in positive permutation braids. For such braids with associated type cycle (n), all possible values of their crossing numbers, the minimum and maximum crossing numbers and a more sharbend lower bound of the number of their conjugacy classes in S_{n}⁺ are given. Also for positive permutation braids with associate type cycle (n₁,n₂,…,n_{k}) the minimum crossing number is given.


[1] At late Quaternary timescales, offset fluvial terrace risers are among the most common landforms used to determine rates of strike-slip faulting. Although diachroneity in the age of riser segments on opposite sides of the fault has been noted previously, an unexplored source of uncertainty associated with deriving slip rates from these markers centers on quantifying the size of the displacement uncertainty such diachroneity introduces. To evaluate the impact of riser diachroneity, we investigated the Tuzidun site (37.73°N, 86.72°E) along the Cherchen He reach of the active central Altyn Tagh Fault. The east bank of the channel is flanked by a left-laterally offset terrace riser. While the measured offset is 54 ± 3 m, geochronologic measurements and analysis of riser topography indicate that the downstream riser segment formed between 6.0 ± 0.8 ka and 5.7 ± 0.4 ka, while the upstream riser segment may have been laterally refreshed as recently as 0.5 ± 0.2 ka. A valley wall on the west bank of the channel places a maximum limit of 38 ± 6 m on the amount of possible lateral erosion of the upstream riser. This bound, in turn, limits the total offset since formation of the downstream riser to range from 54 ± 3 to 89 ± 7 m. Together, these observations bracket the millennial Altyn Tagh Fault slip rate to range from 9.0 ± 1.3 to 15.5 ± 1.7 mm a−1. More generally, this investigation shows that the observed riser displacement does not necessarily correlate with the age of either riser segment (downstream or upstream of the fault) in cases where one segment is displaced while the other is subjected to lateral erosion. If this diachroneity goes undetected, erroneous slip rate measurements are likely to result.


Analyzing usability test videos is arduous. Although recent research showed the promise of AI in assisting with such tasks, it remains largely unknown how AI should be designed to facilitate effective collaboration between user experience (UX) evaluators and AI. Inspired by the concepts of agency and work context in human and AI collaboration literature, we studied two corresponding design factors for AI-assisted UX evaluation: explanations and synchronization. Explanations allow AI to further inform humans how it identifies UX problems from a usability test session; synchronization refers to the two ways humans and AI collaborate: synchronously and asynchronously. We iteratively designed a tool-AI Assistant-with four versions of UIs corresponding to the two levels of explanations (with/without) and synchronization (sync/async). By adopting a hybrid wizard-of-oz approach to simulating an AI with reasonable performance, we conducted a mixed-method study with 24 UX evaluators identifying UX problems from usability test videos using AI Assistant. Our quantitative and qualitative results show that AI with explanations, regardless of being presented synchronously or asynchronously, provided better support for UX evaluators' analysis and was perceived more positively; when without explanations, synchronous AI better improved UX evaluators' performance and engagement compared to the asynchronous AI. Lastly, we present the design implications for AI-assisted UX evaluation and facilitating more effective human-AI collaboration.


Vehicle re-identification (Re-ID) is a crucial task in smart city and intelligent transportation, aiming to match vehicle images across non-overlapping surveillance camera views. Currently, most works focus on RGB-based vehicle Re-ID, which limits its capability of real-life applications in adverse environments such as dark environments and bad weathers. IR (Infrared) spectrum imaging offers complementary information to relieve the illumination issue in computer vision tasks. Furthermore, vehicle Re-ID suffers a big challenge of the diverse appearance with different views, such as trucks. In this work, we address the RGB and IR vehicle Re-ID problem and contribute a multi-spectral vehicle Re-ID benchmark named RGBN300, including RGB and NIR (Near Infrared) vehicle images of 300 identities from 8 camera views, giving in total 50125 RGB images and 50125 NIR images respectively. In addition, we have acquired additional TIR (Thermal Infrared) data for 100 vehicles from RGBN300 to form another dataset for three-spectral vehicle Re-ID. Furthermore, we propose a Heterogeneity-collaboration Aware Multi-stream convolutional Network (HAMNet) towards automatically fusing different spectrum features in an end-to-end learning framework. Comprehensive experiments on prevalent networks show that our HAMNet can effectively integrate multi-spectral data for robust vehicle Re-ID in day and night. Our work provides a benchmark dataset for RGB-NIR and RGB-NIR-TIR multi-spectral vehicle Re-ID and a baseline network for both research and industrial communities. The dataset and baseline codes are available at: https://github.com/ttaalle/multi-modal-vehicle-Re-ID.


We synchronized two passively mode-locked erbium-doped fiber lasers using a phase lock loop with a large dynamic range and bandwidth, which is realized by using a novel acoustooptic-modulator-grating scheme. Cross-correlation of the two lasers shows the interlaser jitter is under 2 ps (same as the laser pulse width) for period as long as hours. To prove the quality of phase locking, we apply synchronized lasers in two all-optical network applications, one of which requires the lasers to have the same wavelength and the second requires the lasers to be at different wavelengths. In the single wavelength application, the synchronized lasers drive a cascade of two low-birefringence, polarization maintaining, optical logic gates with switching timing window of 4 and 5 ps, respectively. We obtain nonlinear transmission of /spl sim/50% at a switching energy of 8 pJ and contrast ratio of 16 dB, which are comparable performance as that obtained using a single laser. In the different wavelength application, we use 0.8 ps pulses to switch 2 ps pulses in a two-wavelength nonlinear optical loop mirror demultiplexer with timing window of 5.5 ps. Stable switching is reached at a efficiency as high as 90% at switching energy of 0.8 pJ, and a contrast ratio of 20 dB. Excellent agreement is found between the experimental data and the simulated results, which exclude the timing jitter.


A method for obtaining phases of low-order reflections is presented. It is based on four observations: (1) the electron density inside proteins is smooth and uniform at low resolution. (2) Since all proteins have almost the same density, the total volume of the protein is known if the molecular weight is known. (3) The overall shape of many proteins is fairly spherical. (4) The total scattering from a sphere of uniform density is in phase with a point scatterer at its centre of gravity, up to a well defined cross-over. After the first cross-over the total protein molecule scatters out of phase with its centre. If the centre of the protein can be found, the phases of typically the ten lowest resolution reflections can be very accurately determined. The method works, provided low-order reflections can be measured accurately and the centre of gravity can be well positioned from these data. The correctly phased lowresolution reflections may be used as a starting set for phase extension. By combining the measured amplitudes with these phases we believe that the size and lowresolution shape of an unknown protein, i.e. the envelope of the molecule, can be obtained.


We report ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulations of the (100) and (110) γ-Al2O3/water interfaces at 300 K, using two sets of supercell models for each surface and two time lengths of simulation (10 and 40 ps). We first show that the effect of liquid water on the vibrational frequencies of hydroxyl groups at the interface varies according to the type of surface. This trend is explained by two key parameters affecting the interaction of both surfaces with water: the nature of the OH groups (i.e., μ1-OH, μ1-H2O, μ2-OH, and μ3-OH) and H-bond network among surface OH groups. The hydroxylated (110) surface favors the local structuration of water at the interface and the solvation of its μ1-OH and μ1-H2O groups by water similarly as in bulk liquid water. By contrast, on the (100) surface, a stronger H-bond network among μ1-OH and μ1-H2O groups reduces the water/surface interaction. We illustrate also how the interfacial interacting sites are spatially organized on the surfaces by two-dimensional maps of...


This paper retrieves information and makes basic analysis about the participation of users involved in Cooperative MOOCs in Learning Communities supported by hypermedia environments like the social networks. In order to perform this study, the interaction of a set of users enrolled in a course within the iMOOC platform has been analyzed, in which MOOC courses are implemented based on concepts like connectivism, collaborative learning, gamification or adaptivity. Specifically, this study deals with obtaining information about the discussions that take place in learning communities created using social networks like Google+ and Twitter in parallel of the activities performed inside the iMOOC platform. Through this information, this paper tries to distinguish the types of learning that occurs in those discussions (non-formal and informal learning), estimating also how users interact with tagged content in social networks, and how that allows students -users- to continue or create conversations that help to expand or strengthen the content they treated during the MOOC course.