An experimental method to determine the thermoacoustic properties of a gas turbine combustor using a lean-premixed low emission swirl stabilized burner is presented. To model thermoacoustic oscillations, a combustion system can be described as a network of acoustic elements, representing for example fuel and air supply, burner and flame, combustor, cooling channels, suitable terminations, etc. For most of these elements, simple analytical models provide an adequate description of their thermoacoustic properties. However, the complex response of burner and flame (involving a three-dimensional flow field, recirculation zones, flow instabilities, and heat release) to acoustic perturbations has-at least in a first step-to be determined by experiment. In our approach, we describe the burner as an active acoustical two-port, where the state variables pressure and velocity at the inlet and the outlet of the two port are coupled via a four element transfer matrix. This approach is similar to the black box theory in communication engineering. To determine all four transfer matrix coefficients, two test states, which are independent in the state vectors, have to be created. This is achieved by using acoustic excitation by loudspeakers upstream and downstream of the burner, respectively. In addition, the burner might act as an acoustic source, emitting acoustic waves due to an unsteady combustion process. The source characteristics were determined by using a third test state, which again must be independent from the two other state vectors. In application to a full size gas turbine burner, the methods accuracy was tested in a first step without combustion and the results were compared to an analytical model for the burner's acoustic properties. Then the method was used to determine the burner transfer matrix with combustion. An experimental swirl stabilized premixed gas turbine burner was used for this purpose. The treatment of burners as acoustic two-ports with feedback including a source term and the experimental determination of the burner transfer matrix is novel.


Governments and big business tout the affordances of new technologies, but there is little research available that tells us why wireless connectivity should be or is desirable, or shows that its benefits have fully been established. In our minds, wireless technologies and cultures have not been given the sustained attention they deserve. Informed by these concerns, our hope is that this special issue, which follows on from a 2006 workshop sponsored by the 'Cultural Technologies' node of the ARC Cultural Research Network, will promote debate and further research into wireless technologies and cultures in the Australian and New Zealand regions.


Abstract Planktonic larvae of spionid polychaetes are among the most common and abundant group in coastal meroplankton worldwide. The present study reports the morphology of spionid larvae collected mainly from coastal waters of northeastern Japan that were identified by the comparison of adult and larval 18S and 16S rRNA gene sequences. The molecular analysis effectively discriminated the species. Adult sequences of 48 species from 14 genera (Aonides Claparède, 1864; Boccardia Carazzi, 1893; Boccardiella Blake & Kudenov, 1978; Dipolydora Verrill, 1881; Laonice Malmgren, 1867; Malacoceros Quatrefages, 1843; Paraprionospio Caullery, 1914; Polydora Bosc, 1802; Prionospio Malmgren, 1867; Pseudopolydora Czerniavsky, 1881; Rhynchospio Hartman, 1936; Scolelepis Blainville, 1828; Spio Fabricius, 1785; Spiophanes Grube, 1860) and larval sequences of 41 species from 14 genera (Aonides; Boccardia; Boccardiella; Dipolydora; Laonice; Paraprionospio; Poecilochaetus Claparède in Ehlers, 1875; Polydora; Prionospio; Pseudopolydora; Rhynchospio; Scolelepis; Spio; Spiophanes) of spionid polychaetes were obtained; sequences of 27 of these species matched between adults and larvae. Morphology of the larvae was generally species‐specific, and larvae from the same genus mostly shared morphological features, with some exceptions. Color and number of eyes, overall body shape, and type and arrangement of pigmentation are the most obvious differences between genera or species. The morphological information on spionid larvae provided in this study contributes to species or genus level larval identification of this taxon in the studied area. Identification keys to genera and species of planktonic spionid larvae in northeastern Japan are provided. The preliminary results of the molecular phylogeny of the family Spionidae using 18S and 16S rRNA gene regions are also provided.


Most blast-related injuries happen as a result of complex pressure waves generated by the explosion. In this paper, we model the explosion from detonation and examine the blast propagation in air using Arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) finite element formulation. The results of the simulation agree well with those of physical data obtained from blast wave experiments. Such results set the circumstances necessary for an examination of brain injury exposed to such situations. Thus the model will be coupled with a Fluid/Structure Interaction (FSI) algorithm to implicitly examine the blast wave interactions with a human head and to study the creation of high regions of biomechanics pressure and stress gradients.© 2007 ASME


We report further evidence of the difference in execution costs between Nasdaq and the NYSE before and after the 1997 market reforms. We find that informed trading costs are consistently higher on Nasdaq both before and after the reforms. In the pre-reform period the Nasdaq-NYSE disparity in bid-ask spreads cannot be completely attributed to the difference in informed trading costs. However, in the post-reform period the spread difference between these two markets becomes insignificant with the effect of informed trading costs controlled. Our findings are consistent with the contention that the reforms have largely reduced noninformation trading costs and dealers' rents.


This chapter explores the still largely uncharted territory of administrative justice in the private sector. The chapter presents a theoretical and empirical account of the extension of administrative justice norms and institutions into the private sphere. It does so by mapping and analysing the different paths by which administrative justice is diffused in privatized and contracted out services and in originally private services. It draws upon illustrative examples of such diffusion for each of these private realms. The chapter concludes with insights into the convergence of public and private models of decision-making and dispute resolution and the hybrid nature of this field.


After the wing plane revolution on racing cars that began in 1966 (1968 in Formula 1) and the appearance of ground effect in 1977, aerodynamics took on a front line role on the track with winged cars, switching from traditional studies of resistance to advancement to the exploitation of negative lift in order to increase speed through the corners. In this new edition of the first book to appear on the subject in 1991 by Enrico Benzing, one of the best known engineers in the world of Formula 1, this complex subject is explained with completeness and simplicity of expression, so that it can be read and understood by everyone. The motor racing wing is at the centre of the story, while the picture is completed by the entire aerodynamic behaviour of the racing car, especially the single seater, touching on particular aspects such as the Magnus effect, ground effect, calculation of power resistance and matters related to the wind tunnel. The volume also includes a specific chapter on CFD (fluid dynamics computation). Hundreds of illustrations enhance this work, which is an indispensable starting point for people who want to know all about this complex but fascinating subject.


The East Continental Shelf (ECS) of Brazil is a hotspot of endemism and biodiversity of reef biota in the South Atlantic, hosting a number of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Connectivity of MPAs through larval dispersal influences recruitment, population dynamics, genetic structure and biogeography in coral reef ecosystems. Connectivity of protected reef ecosystem in the ECS was investigated with a hydrodynamic model (ROMS) forcing an Individual Based Model (IBM—Ichthyop), and used groupers (genus Mycteroperca) as functional group. The hydrodynamic output from ROMS was compared with satellite data and showed good agreement with observed surface fields. Eggs were released, in IBM experiments, from April to September along six years (2002–2007) in five MPAs along the ECS. Intrannual variability in recruitment and self-recruitment of grouper larvae was observed, as well as a negative correlation of these population parameters with total Kinetic Energy (KE) used as a metric of the physical environment. Higher KE leads to increased offshore advection of larvae, reduced total recruitment and connectivity of MPAs. Our results indicate high and uni-directional connectivity between MPAs from north to south influenced by the Brazil Current flowing in the same direction. Results also showed that some MPAs act predominantly as "sink" while others are mainly "source" areas.


Objective Prediction models can be useful tools for monitoring patient status and personalizing treatment in health care. The goal of this study was to compare the relative strengths and weaknesses of two different approaches for predicting functional recovery after knee arthroplasty: a neighbors-based People Like Me (PLM) approach and a linear mixed model (LMM) approach. Materials and Methods We used two distinct datasets to train and then test PLM and LMM prediction approaches for functional recovery following knee arthroplasty. We used Timed Up and Go (TUG), a commonly used test of mobility, to operationalize physical function. Both approaches used patient characteristics and baseline postoperative TUG values to predict TUG recovery from days 1-425 following surgery. We compared the accuracy and precision of PLM and LMM predictions in the testing dataset. Results A total of 317 patient records with 1379 TUG observations were used to train PLM and LMM approaches, and 456 patient records with 1244 TUG observations were used to test the predictions. The approaches performed similarly in terms of mean squared error and bias, but the PLM approach provided more accurate and precise estimates of prediction uncertainty. Discussion and Conclusion Overall, the PLM approach more accurately and precisely predicted TUG recovery following knee arthroplasty. These results suggest PLM predictions may be more clinically useful for monitoring recovery and personalizing care following knee arthroplasty. However, clinicians and organizations seeking to use predictions in practice should consider additional factors (e.g., resource requirements) when selecting a prediction approach.


Animal manure is rich in absorbable plant nutrients and an appropriate addition of manure into the soil respond to high crop productivity than use of commercial fertilizer. But volatilization of ammonia due to high temperature and leaching of nitrate, phosphorous and potassium into the soil due to rainfall results in the loss of manure nutrients. The objective of this study was to assess manure nutrient loss and gaseous emissions due to inappropriate manure management. The study was conducted in central Ethiopian highland, east of the capital Addis Ababa. The study included laboratory analysis for manure nutrients contents from sampled units and the manure management type was captured through focus group discussions. Storage age has impacted on nutrient losses as a result the highest loss of N, P and K occurred in 2 to 3 years at the rate of 84%, 19 % and 42 % , respectively. The analysis of variance showed that at P<0.05, there was a significant difference in storage age for N and K, but there was no significant difference for P across different storage ages. Shade type and manure heap height has no significant impact on nutrient losses. The total carbon equivalent (CO2e) gas emitted per household per annum was estimated at 11, 276 kg CO2e (i.e. 8 200 kg CO2e came from methane directly released by livestock plus their manure, 2 694 CO2e came from N2O emissions from manure management and 381.48 kg CO2e came from CO2 released from manure burning) that is about 2 tons CO2e per capita per year, twice the value reported for Ethiopia emission in 2005. The largest emissions were from methane (72.6%), nitrous oxide (24%) and carbon (3.4%), this result appeal for a need to improve livestock and manure management systems under smallholders' agriculture in order to curb the challenges of global carbon release.


The effects of two requests for repetition by aided listeners on talker intensity were compared. On average, the simple repetition request "What did you say?" was as effective as the statement "I have a hearing loss, what did you say?" However, the effect of the second statement was more consistent across talkers. In addition to increasing intensity, several talkers used additional strategies to enhance the reception of their message. The data suggest that use of repetition requests by persons with hearing loss is effective, and support the notion that informing the talker that hearing loss is present may be beneficial.


Biotechnology has an increasingly extensive use for military purposes. With the upcoming age of biotechnology, military operations are depending more on biotechnical methods. Judging from the evolving law of the theory of command, the command of biotechnology is feasible and inevitable. The report discusses some basic characteristics of modern theories of command, as well as the mature possibility of the command theory of military biotechnology. The evolution of the command theory is closely associated with the development of military medicine. This theory is expected to achieve successes in wars in an ultramicro, nonlethal, reversible, and merciful way and will play an important role in biotechnological identification and orientation, defense and attack, and the maintenance of fighting powers and biological monitoring. The command of military biotechnology has not become a part of the virtual military power yet, but it is an exigent strategic task to construct and perfect this theory.


A new method is developed to measure Rayleigh- and Love-wave phase velocities globally using a cluster analysis technique. This method clusters similar waveforms recorded at different stations from a single event and allows users to make measurements on hundreds of waveforms, which are filtered at a series of frequency ranges, at the same time. It also requires minimal amount of user interaction and allows easy assessment of the data quality. This method produces a large amount of phase delay measurements in a manageable time frame. Because there is a strong trade-off between the isotropic part of the Rayleigh-wave phase velocity and azimuthal anisotropy, we include the effect of azimuthal anisotropy in our inversions in order to obtain reliable isotropic phase velocity. We use b-splines to combine these isotropic phase velocity maps with our previous group velocity maps to produce an internally consistent global surface wave dispersion model.


The objective of this study was to assess rangeland rehabilitation community based projects in Sahelian Sudan with specific focus on Giriegikh scheme in north Kordofan in order to verify the important role of such projects into environmental conservation and rural community development. Fieldwork surveys were conducted during 2005 and 2006 into human population and flora community including protected and non- protected rangelands. Results depict that annual xerophytes contribute by 65.2% into vegetative cover. Protected rangelands rank first into flora biodiversity and similarity. Highest values of relative density, abundance and frequency for perennial grasses are 49%, 46% and 70% flora/m 2 respectively while they were 83%, 69% and 61% flora/m 2 respectively for annual grasses. Oldenlandia virgata and Eragrosis tremula are the densest annual grasses while A. mutabtis are most abundant grasses. Perennials relative frequency accounted highest in individually owned protected rangelands dominantly by Cenchrus biflorus and Aristida pallida and lowest in open rangelands inside the scheme. Average qualitative density in protected rangelands is 8 plant/m 2 and 11.2% plant/m 2 in nonprotected rangelands. Trees density measurements ranked Leptadenia pyrotenica first in all types of rangelands. From 1997 through to 2006 there is improvement into tree relative density (0.3% to 8% flora/m 2 ), abundance (5.4% to 12.3% flora/m 2 ), coverage (14.3% to 28.5% flora/m2) and frequency (0.1% to 9.3% flora/m 2 ). People shifted from old direct sun drying forage conservation technique to shadow drying technique. In some protected rangelands fodder production is fivefold that in non protected rangelands. The population of Goats declined by 33.1% in 2006; The number of sedentary nomads increased from 11,4% to 20.7%. In addition, 73.8% of the population has stopped tree logging, reduced daily consumption of wood and charcoal by 1.7 kg and 50% of them use mud as building material instead of complete dependence on trees. The authors suggest the promotion of rangelands in Sahelian Sudan.


This study explores gendered and age-graded effects of key theoretical predictors of fear of crime among a panel of approximately 4,000 public middle and high school students in Kentucky. Theoretically, fear of school crime is presumed to be driven by individual-level indicators of vulnerability, as well as by school-level indicators of crime/disorder and social integration. Multilevel analysis revealed little effect of school-level contextual factors, whereas the key individual-level indicators of vulnerability were quite robust in their effects across male and female students. Further analysis, however, revealed that school context in the form of school-level delinquency significantly moderated the effect of individual-level perceived risk of victimization on fear for female students especially. Results provided little evidence of age-dependent correlates. In one exception, the positive effect of perceived risk of victimization on both male and female student fear declined, as students moved from the 7th grade to the 10th grade.


In 1997, the IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) reevaluated its quartz classification from a class 2 carcinogen, to that of a class 1, stating sufficient evidence for carcinogenicity in both humans and experimental animals. However, tumor development did not occur across all occupational settings. It is probable that this is due to the considerable differences in toxicity between workplace quartz in comparison to quartz used in experimental studies. We therefore hypothesized that workplace quartz samples differ in toxicity from standard experimental quartz samples at equal mass. To test this hypothesis we compared 2 workplace quartz samples (RH1 and OM) with standard experimental quartz (DQ12) in several assays commonly used in particle toxicology. The sizes of the quartz samples were as closely matched as possible. The endpoints of this study were inflammation in the rat lung following intratracheal instillation (1000 microg or 250 microg for 3 or 14 days), release of soluble iron, cytotoxicity to cells in culture, and surface reactivity as assessed by hemolysis and ESR. The workplace samples did not cause inflammation at any dose or time point. DQ12 quartz caused marked inflammatory responses, as measured by an increased number of neutrophils in the lungs of instilled animals for both time points and doses. Protein in the bronchoalveolar lavage also increased in animals exposed to DQ12 but not the workplace samples. In vitro, DQ12 had the greatest hemolytic activity but only RH1 released substantial amounts of soluble iron. The increased inflammogenicity of DQ12 was not wholly explained by a greater surface area, by diameter, or by releasable iron. The hemolytic activity of DQ12, while not being informative in terms of understanding the mechanism of carcinogenicity, was the best in vitro predictor for in vivo activity. Therefore the surface reactivity of DQ12 appears to drive its inflammogenicity.


In computer and network security, standard approaches to intrusion detection and response attempt to detect and prevent individual attacks. However, it is not the attack but rather the attacker against which our networks must be defended. To do this, the information that is being provided by intrusion detection systems (IDS) must be gathered and then divided into its component parts such that the activity of individual attackers is made clear. Our approach to this involves the application of Bayesian methods to data being gathered from distributed IDS. With this we hope to improve the capabilities for early detection of distributed attacks against infrastructure and the detection of the preliminary phases of distributed denial of service attacks.


The grinding process can be considered as micro-cutting processes with irregular abrasive grains on the surface of grinding wheel. Single grain cutting simulation of AISI D2 steel with a wide range of cutting parameters is carried out with AdvantEdgeTM. The effect of cutting parameters on cutting force, chip formation, material removal rate, and derived parameters such as the specific cutting force, critical depth of cut and shear angle is analyzed. The formation of chip, side burr and side flow is observed in the cutting zone. Material removal rate increases with the increase of depth of cut and cutting speed. Specific cutting force decreases with the increase of depth of cut resulting in size effect. The shear angle increases as the depth of cut and cutting speed increase. This factorial analysis of single grain cutting is adopted to facilitate the calculation of force consumption for each single abrasive grain in the grinding zone.


Background: The vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia is divided into two groups: usual type and differentiated type. The differentiated vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia which is frequently seen together with the invasive squamous cell carcinoma can be confused with some benign lesions. To analyse p16, p53, and Ki-67 expression characteristics of different histological types of invasive squamous cell carcinoma of the vulva and vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia is aimed in this study. Methods: In this study, immunohistochemical analysis of 18 vulvectomy cases with p16, p53, and Ki-67 was performed. Results: Of 18 patient who underwent vulvectomy, 9 had invasive squamous cell carcinoma and 9 vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia. 3 additional vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia lesions were found accompanying the invasive squamous cell carcinomas. Mean Ki-67 PI was 32,3% in usual type (human papilloma virus-related) vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia cases (n:9), and 26,4% in differentiated vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia cases (n:3)(p>0,05). Mean p16 staining degree was 2,6 for usual type vulvar intraepithelial neoplasias. No p53 expression was present in squamous cell hyperplasia or lichen sclerosis lesions. Conclusions: Ki-67 PI does not have significant value in recognizing vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia usual type and differentiated vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia. p53 positivity can be of value in distinguishing especially differentiated type vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia from benign lesions.


The trophic structure and role of chemosynthesis remain unexplored in deep-sea whale-fall communities in areas other than the California margin. This gap limits the understanding of these communities and their ecological relationships with other chemosynthetic ecosystems, such as vents and seeps. Here, we studied 3 different whale skeleton microhabitats with hypothesized high, intermediate and low reducing conditions as well as the sediments surrounding an abyssal whale fall (4204 m depth, SW Atlantic Ocean). We analyzed trophic structures (δ13C and δ15N) and the contribution of chemosynthetically derived carbon to heterotrophic species. The high and intermediate reducing microhabitats harbored food webs dominated by consumers of chemosynthetic production, similar to those of diffusive areas of hydrothermal vents and seeps. Both the low reducing microhabitat and the sediments harbored food webs with greater trophic complexity, dominated by higher consumers mainly relying on whale and/or photosynthesis-derived organic matter, a type of food web commonly reported in small whale, wood and kelp falls. The main whale-fall ecosystem engineer, the bone-eating worm Osedax, appeared to produce unique food web effects not observed in other chemosynthetic habitats. We conclude that whale falls provide the deep sea with a mosaic of microhabitats that supports assemblages with different chemosynthesis reliance levels and trophic structures, similar to those found at vents and seeps. Such a mosaic allows species-rich communities with numerous trophic levels to develop in a very small area of the food-limited deep sea.


This paper presents a novel approach for recognizing and interpreting dimensions in engineering drawings. It starts by detecting potential dimension frames, each comprising only the line and text components of a dimension, then verifies them by detecting the dimension symbols. By removing the prerequisite of symbol recognition from detection of dimension sets, our method is capable of handling low quality drawings. We also propose a reconstruction algorithm for rebuilding the drawing entities based on the recognized dimension annotations. A coordinate grid structure is introduced to represent and analyze two-dimensional spatial constraints between entities; this simplifies and unifies the process of rectifying deviations of entity dimensions induced during scanning and vectorization.


Novel photon counting Al0.8Ga0.2As, GaAs and SiC X-ray photodiodes were investigated through experiments and Monte Carlo computer simulations for their suitability as spectroscopic soft (≤ 25 keV) X-ray detectors in high temperature (up to 90 °C) environments. Photon counting Al0.8Ga0.2As and GaAs non-avalanche p + -i-n + mesa X-ray photodiodes were shown to operate at temperatures as high as 90 °C. The temperature dependences of their spectral resolutions (FWHM at 5.9 keV) are reported. Analyses of the noise sources contributing to the devices" measured performances are presented which suggest that efforts to improve the spectral resolutions would be well targeted at reducing the noise contributions from the packaging of the detectors. For the GaAs diodes, the X-ray characterisation of the devices was extended to higher energies (25 keV). Internal detector X-ray fluorescence was demonstrated and Monte Carlo computer simulations were compared with the experimental results. Prior to the research presented in this thesis, the only Al0.8Ga0.2As photon counting X-ray avalanche photodiodes reported in the literature (Lees et al., 2008, Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A, Vol. 594, pp. 202-205) had shown anomalies in the obtained spectra. Through new experimental measurements and computer simulations, the anomaly is explained. A new method was developed which uses the phenomenon to extract measurements of the electron and hole ionisation coefficients of Al0.8Ga0.2As at a typical operating field and the first report of their temperature dependence is made. Measurements characterising the X-ray spectroscopic performance of Semi-Transparent SiC Schottky Diodes over an energy range ~6 keV to 25 keV at temperatures up to 80 °C are presented and discussed, along with relative efficiency measurements and data showing the temperature dependence of the leakage current in such devices. The research presented in this thesis shows that Al0.8Ga0.2As, GaAs and SiC X-ray detectors are promising devices for high temperature soft X-ray spectroscopy. Wide Band Gap Compound Semiconductor Detectors for X-ray Spectroscopy in Harsh Environments


The alkali and alkali ethanolysis were used for pretreatment and delignification of rice straw. The combined hydrothermal- alkali method presented the high efficiency for removing the lignin. The pretreatment condition was optimized and achieved the highest of delignification (92.5%) under 30% (w/v) NaOH at a ratio of rice straw to alkali solution of 1 : 10 (w/v) at 121°C for 20 min. The highest yield of the remaining cellulose was 81.5% (w/w). The enzymatic hydrolysis of the rice straw cellulose was optimized for enhancement the digestibility via Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The cellulase activity, buffer solution, and hydrolysis time were evaluated. The optimum condition was cellulase activity at 935.18 U, 10 mL of buffer solution 10% (w/v) with hydrolysis time for 120 h, represented the maximum sugar yield with 136.6 g/L (0.54 g/g rice straw). The rice straw hydrolysate was further used as carbon source for microbial oil production by oleaginous yeasts.


Abstract Six dual-flow continuous culture fermenters were used over a 10-day experimental period to compare the digestibilities of dry matter (DM) and fiber, ruminal fermentation profile, and nitrogen metabolism of rumen microbial populations obtained from an inoculum of chamois (Rupicapra pyrenaica pyrenaica) and cattle (Bos taurus). The aim of this work was to test the fermenters with inoculum from chamois and to compare the function of ruminal microbial population of chamois and cattle under the same conditions of diet and passage rate. Fermenters were fed 56 g DM daily of a diet consisting of 75% Italian ryegrass hay (Lolium multiflorum Lam. var. westerwoldicum) and 25% alfalfa hay (Medicago sativa L.). Both inocula were adapted to the in vitro conditions after 6 days. There were no differences in DM and fiber digestibilities, and total volatile fatty acids concentration (VFA) between cattle and chamois inocula. The proportion of propionate was higher (25.8 vs. 17.9 mol/100 mol), and that of butyrate was lower (9.9 vs. 13.8 mol/100 mol) in chamois inoculum than in cattle inoculum. Ammonia nitrogen concentration was greater (10.6 vs. 6.7 mg/100 ml), but microbial protein synthesis was lower (41.1 vs. 55.3% of total nitrogen flow) in chamois inoculum than in cattle inoculum. These results suggest that microbial populations from chamois and cattle inocula, maintained under the same conditions of diet and passage rate, have a similar degradation capacity, producing the same amounts of VFA, but with a different fermentation profile, and different microbial protein synthesis. The dual-flow continuous culture fermenters could be a useful tool to study ruminal fermentation in wild species such as Pyrenean chamois.


The fourteenth century Breton lai Sir Launfal, written by Thomas Chestre, has been approached from several different direction: honour, gender, knightly ideals, just to name a few; trust, however, has not yet been employed to look at the lai. As a category of historical analysis, trust is very promising, as it is inherent in all human relationships. In Sir Launfal, Chestre uses trust – expressed through wealth and the lack of it – to highlight Launfal's inherent worth. By formulating a context-based definition of trust, and then applying it to the text of Sir Launfal, this article shows that trust can be a useful category for historical analysis.


Origanum vulgare essential oil (EO) is traditionally well-known for its aromatic properties and biomedical applications, including anticancer. This was the first report where oregano essential oil-based nano emulsion (OENE) was synthesized for studying its effects on prostate cancer cell lines (PC3). At first, we have synthesized OENE and characterized using various spectroscopic analyses. The toxicity and inhibitory concentration (IC50) of OENE toward prostate cancer by MTT analysis were performed. The lipid biogenesis mediated, molecular target pathway analyses were performed using fluorescence cellular staining techniques, real-time RT-PCR, or western blotting analysis. OENE showed IC50 at 13.82 µg/mL and significantly induced distinct morphological changes, including cell shrinkage, cell density, and cell shape reduction. In addition, OENE could also significantly decreased lipid droplet accumulation which was confirmed by studying mRNA transcripts of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA reductase (HMGCR) (0.31-fold), fatty acid synthase (FASN) (0.18-fold), and sterol regulatory element-binding protein (SREPB1) (0.11-fold), respectively. Furthermore, there is a significant upregulation BAX (BCL2 associated X) and caspase 3 expressions. Nevertheless, OENE decreased the transcript level of BCL2 (B-cell lymphoma 2), thus resulting in apoptosis. Overall, our present work demonstrated that OENE could be a therapeutic target for the treatment of prostate cancer and warrants in vivo studies.


This paper analyzes the impact of GAAP-mandated adjustments to deferred tax accounts when corporate income tax rates change. Using hand-collected data from the tax footnotes of the Fortune 50, we estimate that a reduction in the corporate tax rate from 35% to 30% would substantially affect the accounting earnings, capital, and effective tax rate of many companies. For the 18 publicly-traded Fortune 50 companies with a net deferred tax asset position, the total drop in accounting earnings would be $12 billion, with the banking industry experiencing some of the largest earnings decreases. For the 31 publicly-traded Fortune 50 companies with a net deferred tax liability position, the total jump in accounting earnings would be $28 billion, with the energy industry enjoying many of the largest increases. Although these large, one-time adjustments to the deferred tax accounts do not affect cash taxes paid, users of the financial statements should be aware that the deferred tax accounts may be significantly altered if and when tax rates change and that these effects will be reflected in net income.


Hyperpigmentation, such as melasma, postinflammatory melanoderma and dermatitis caused by increased production and accumulation of melanin are the major problems today. Ascorbyl Palmitate (AP) and Sodium Ascorbyl Phosphate (SAP), derivatives of ascorbic acid, having the inhibitory effect on skin melanin production and also has anti-inflammatory activity. Aim of this study was to investigate the synergistic effects of ascorbyl palmitate and sodium ascorbyl phosphate loaded in three multiple emulsion formulations i.e. ME1, ME2, and ME3 on facial skin melanin and erythema contents of Asian human females over 12-week treatment course. Thirty three female volunteers were enrolled to singleblinded, placebo-controlled, split-face trial, 3 groups of 11 volunteers each were treated with active treatments versus control/placebo for a period of 12 weeks. Evaluation was performed with non-invasive bioengineering techniques. Patch testing showed no side effects. Control multiple emulsion showed insignificant results while active multiple emulsion formulations showed a significant decrease in skin melanin and erythema content after statistically applied ANOVA (p <0.05). Ascorbyl palmitate and sodium ascorbyl phosphate are potent antioxidants. Treatments of human skin with active formulations; ME1, ME2, and ME3 containing Ascorbyl palmitate and sodium ascorbyl phosphate significantly reduces facial skin melanin and erythema thus could be explored further for the treatment of pigmentation disorders and dermatitis.


The study of consciousness in organisations is still in its early stages and there is immense scope for future research in numerous directions, which may be better directed as our knowledge in this area grows. Analysis using artificial neural networks has revealed patterns in the dataset generated from our sample. The responses received, pertaining to certain axes of the questionnaire, appear to be more coherent, while those pertaining to other axes appear to be fairly de-coherent. This distinction appears to be quite discreet. From available conventional management data, it is apparent that although the organisation appears to deliver good results in terms of operational efficiency, it operates in a demanding environment with stretched resources, shows significant staff turnover and leave utilization, and there are some critical areas of dissatisfaction amongst the staff, namely internal communication, staff cohesion and feeling under-valued by the organisation. This study seems to suggest an association between organisational consciousness and functionality, which should be investigated further in future research. Part I of this two-part article includes: Introduction; Literature Review; Methodology; and Results.


1. The pH-dependences of the second-order rate constant (k) for the reactions of papain (EC 220.127.116.11) with 2-(acetamido)ethyl 2'-pyridyl disulphide and with ethyl 2-pyridyl disulphide and of k for the reaction of benzimidazol-2-ylmethanethiol (as a minimal model of cysteine proteinase catalytic sites) with the former disulphide were determined in aqueous buffers at 25 degrees C at I 0.1. 2. Of these three pH-k profiles only that for the reaction of papain with 2-(acetamido)ethyl 2'-pyridyl disulphide has a rate maximum at pH approx. 6; the others each have a rate minimum in this pH region and a rate maximum at pH 4, which is characteristic of reactions of papain with other 2-pyridyl disulphides that do not contain a P1-P2 amide bond in the non-pyridyl part of the molecule. 3. The marked change in the form of the pH-k profile consequent upon introduction of a P1-P2 amide bond into the probe molecule for the reaction with papain but not for that with the minimal catalytic-site model is interpreted in terms of the induction by binding of the probe in the S1-S2 intersubsite region of the enzyme of a transition-state geometry in which nucleophilic attack by the -S- component of the catalytic site is assisted by association of the imidazolium ion component with the leaving group. 4. The greater definition of the rate maximum in the pH-k profile for the reaction of papain with an analogous 2-pyridyl disulphide reactivity probe containing both a P1-P2 amide bond and a potential occupant for the S2 subsite [2-(N'-acetyl-L-phenylalanylamino)ethyl 2'-pyridyl disulphide [Brocklehurst, Kowlessur, O'Driscoll, Patel, Quenby, Salih, Templeton, Thomas & Willenbrock (1987) Biochem. J. 244, 173-181]) suggests that a P2-S2 interaction substantially increases the population of transition states for the imidazolium ion-assisted reaction. 5. The overall kinetic solvent 2H-isotope effect at pL 6.0 was determined to be: for the reaction of papain with 2,2'-dipyridyl disulphide, 0.96 (i.e. no kinetic isotope effect), for its reaction with the probe containing only the P1-P2 amide bond, 0.75, for its reaction with the probe containing both the P1-P2 amide bond and the occupant for the S2 subsite, 0.61, and for kcat./Km for its catalysis of the hydrolysis of N-methoxycarbonylglycine 4-nitrophenyl ester, 0.67.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


Abstract. We calculated the seismic properties of 47 mantle xenoliths from 9 kimberlitic pipes in the Kaapvaal craton based on their modal composition, the crystal-preferred orientations (CPO) of olivine, ortho- and clinopyroxene, and garnet, the Fe content of olivine, and the pressures and temperatures at which the rocks were equilibrated. These data allow constraining the variation of seismic anisotropy and velocities within the cratonic mantle. The fastest P and S2 wave propagation directions and the polarization of fast split shear waves (S1) are always subparallel to olivine [100] axes of maximum concentration, which marks the lineation (fossil flow direction). Seismic anisotropy is higher for high olivine contents and stronger CPO. Maximum P wave azimuthal anisotropy (AVp) ranges between 2.5 and 10.2% and the maximum S wave polarization anisotropy (AVs), between 2.7 and 8%. Changes in olivine CPO symmetry result in minor variations in the seismic anisotropy patterns, mainly in the apparent isotropy directions for shear wave splitting. Seismic properties averaged over 20 km-thick depth sections are, therefore, very homogeneous. Based on these data, we predict the anisotropy that would be measured by SKS, Rayleigh (SV) and Love (SH) waves for five endmember orientations of the foliation and lineation. Comparison to seismic anisotropy data from the Kaapvaal shows that the coherent fast directions, but low delay times imaged by SKS studies, and the low azimuthal anisotropy with with the horizontally polarized S waves (SH) faster than the vertically polarized S wave (SV) measured using surface waves are best explained by homogeneously dipping (45°) foliations and lineations in the cratonic mantle lithosphere. Laterally or vertically varying foliation and lineation orientations with a dominantly NW–SE trend might also explain the low measured anisotropies, but this model should also result in backazimuthal variability of the SKS splitting data, not reported in the seismological data. The strong compositional heterogeneity of the Kaapvaal peridotite xenoliths results in up to 3% variation in density and in up to 2.3% variation of Vp, Vs, and Vp / Vs ratio. Fe depletion by melt extraction increases Vp and Vs, but decreases the Vp / Vs ratio and density. Orthopyroxene enrichment due to metasomatism decreases the density and Vp, strongly reducing the Vp / Vs ratio. Garnet enrichment, which was also attributed to metasomatism, increases the density, and in a lesser extent Vp and the Vp / Vs ratio. Comparison of density and seismic velocity profiles calculated using the xenoliths' compositions and equilibration conditions to seismological data in the Kaapvaal highlights that (i) the thickness of the craton is underestimated in some seismic studies and reaches at least 180 km, (ii) the deep sheared peridotites represent very local modifications caused and oversampled by kimberlites, and (iii) seismological models probably underestimate the compositional heterogeneity in the Kaapvaal mantle root, which occurs at a scale much smaller than the one that may be sampled seismologically.


This paper analyzes the development of China's rare earths industry, emphasizing the role of state technological initiatives in the country's transition from rare earth exporter to large industrial consumer of these raw materials. Like other industrial powers before it, China takes advantage of low-cost domestic supplies of strategic raw materials to promote higher value-added manufacturing. We argue that, in the case of rare earths, this strategy has been largely successful, disrupting a classic international division of labor that existed prior to 2000, in which China exported most of its rare earth output to wealthy countries, and transforming Chinese firms into exporters of more sophisticated down-


There is a large inter-subject variability in the capacity to oxidise fat (MFO) during exercise and this could have important implications for metabolic health. Chapter 3 of this thesis was designed to explore the relationship between MFO with 24-h fat oxidation and insulin sensitivity. This study showed that MFO during exercise is significantly and positively associated with 24-h fat oxidation and insulin sensitivity. Chapter 4 investigated relationships between selected plasma metabolites, hormones and overnight-fasted resting fat oxidation rates, with MFO. Plasma lipolytic markers, plasma insulin, resting fat oxidation and aerobic capacity were important modulators of the inter-subject variability in MFO. Chapter 5 explored the influence of meal timing around exercise on substrate utilisation, lipolytic markers and insulin, and intra-muscular triglyceride (IMTG) use in obesity. This study found that Fasted- as compared with Fed-state exercise augments exercise fat oxidation, and the circulating concentration of plasma glycerol and NEFA during exercise. This thesis generates new data that contributes to our understanding of the links between MFO and metabolic risk, as well as the factors that influence the inter-subject variability in MFO during exercise. It also shows that fasted exercise augments exercise fat oxidation, which could have meaningful implications for optimising metabolic health.


Purpose : This study was to examine the frequency, distribution and characteristics of researches using biological measurement published from 2000 to 2004 in 10 major nursing journals in Korea.
 Design: Literature analysis
 Method: Journals including papers using biological measurements, publishing year, research design and outcome variables were analyzed.
 Results:
 1. Researches using biological measurement were 318(13.3%).
 2. Researches using biological measurement in the Korean Academy of Nursing were highest(97papers, 17.5%) among the nursing journals. The proportion of papers using biological measurement to total number of papers was the highest in the Journal of Korean Biological Nursing Science as 77.3% (51papers).
 3. The 233 papers(73.3%) were experimental researches among 318 papers using biological measurement which showed the highest proportion.
 4. Patients were highest subjects of researches using biological measurement(197papers, 61.9%).
 5. Blood test was most frequently used as physiological variables from 2001 to 2004.
 Conclusion; Researches using biological measurement of 10 Korean Nursing Journals in year 2000-year 2004 were very low. We need more researches using biological measurement to provide more objective evidence for nursing practice.


This paper analyses the effect of foreign ownership on female employment using micro-level data from the Chilean Manufacturing Survey. Particularly, it examines whether foreign-acquired firms hire proportionately more female workers than domestic firms. To control for the possible endogeneity of the foreign acquisition decision, we use propensity score matching combined with a difference-indifferences approach. In addition, we compare firms operating in the same industry-year. Our results show that foreign ownership increases the share of female workers within the firm. One year after acquisition the share of female workers is 1.64 percentage points higher in acquired firms than in non-acquired firms, and this figure increases to 3.55 percentage points two years after acquisition. When we separate female workers into skilled and unskilled categories, we observe that the positive effect of foreign acquisition is present only for skilled women. One year after acquisition, the share of skilled women is 4.60 percentage points higher in acquired firms than in non-acquired ones, and two years after acquisition this figure increases to 6.63 percentage points. We also present evidence that foreign acquisition increases the share of skilled women only when the acquired firm was not an exporter before its acquisition, supporting Becker's (1957) theory on taste-based discrimination.


Little information is available concerning the pelvic visceral afferent system, in view of its terminal location in the spinal cord and its associated transmitter substances in the rat. By utilizing an immunostaining method to examine the transneuronal neurotransmitter depletion resulting from peripheral sensory nerve injury, the spinal projections of primary afferent fibers containing calcitonin gene‐related peptide (CGRP) and originating from pelvic viscera were studied in the lumbosacral spinal cord of the rat. After unilateral or bilateral pelvic nerve section, CGRP immunoreactivity in the lumbosacral spinal cord was decreased greatly in the sacral parasympathetic nucleus (SPN), the dorsolateral fasciculus, the medial border of the dorsal horn, the dorsal gray commissure (DGC), and the intermediate gray connecting the SPN and DGC. Fine structural analysis showed that the CGRP‐immunoreactive terminals made synaptic contact with dendrites and, rarely, with somata. Although there was some incidence of a synaptic contact between a CGRP‐IR terminal and a vesicle‐containing profile, definite evidence of axo‐axonal synapse has not been confirmed. These data indicate that CGRP‐containing pelvic visceral primary afferent fibers project to autonomic areas of the lumbosacral spinal cord by way of the pelvic nerve and make synaptic contact with dendrites and somata. © 1993 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Glioblastoma represents the deadliest tumors of the central nervous systems and their bleak prognosis remains unchanged over the past few decades and requiring new treatments that curb the tumor progression. Cancer cells possess high reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels when compared to their normal control counterparts. We have earlier characterized the ROS-scavenging annexin protein, BjAnn1 from Brassica juncea and demonstrated its peroxidase activity. Since annexins are widely conserved across evolutionary lines with involvement in stress alleviation, we attempted to verify the effect of ectopic expression of ROS-scavenging BjAnn1 in human glioblastoma cell lines. The multiple sequence alignment revealed that BjAnn1 showed homology to human annexin A13 (73.18%), annexin A2 (70.66%), annexin A3 (72.53%) and annexin A8 (70.03%). Stable expression of BjAnn1 in U251 and U87 cells inhibited proliferation, migration and invading abilities in correlation with significant decrease in ROS levels in comparison to the empty vector (EV)-expressing controls. Multiple gene-profiling using cDNAPCR arrays revealed a prominent transcriptional upregulation of oxidative stress responsive genes including CCS, CYB, DUOX2, FOXM, GSS, MBL2, MT3, MTL5, NME5, PXDN, SOD2 and SOD3 in BjAnn1-expressing glioblastoma cells. Western blotting confirmed the significant increase in the expression of antioxidant enzymes SOD2 (MnSOD) and SOD3 (Cu/ZnSOD) in BjAnn1-expressing cells. We also observed a significant inhibition in nuclear translocation of p65 and p50, NF-κB reporter activity and expression of NF-κB-target genes in BjAnn1 expressing cells. In summary, our study shows a prominent tumor-suppressive role of ROS-scavenging BjAnn1 in glioblastoma cell lines suggesting it as a novel candidate for efficient gene therapy in glioblastoma.


Organizations increasingly define their software development projects as "virtual project teams", where project members from within the organization cooperate with outside experts and therefore build a "community", which in many cases operates as a highly distributed team. Process modeling, -composition and -configuration are substantial ingredients for team activities. This paper analyses the needs for process awareness for virtual teams and derives the requirements for location-transparent distributed and mobile collaboration. It describes the design of virtual project teams that contain mobile users, their artifacts, and processes. The paper distills a framework for process aware virtual project teams that goes beyond current technologies such as peer-to-peer, multiple servers and clients, as well as Workflow Management and Groupware systems.


Experiments have been designed to demonstrate that the human accommodative system operates with an even-error signal mechanism under restricted monocular viewing conditions. Retinal blur is such an even-error input signal and, thus, these experimental results add to the evidence considering blur as the effective input signal in accommodation. The random 50 percent erroneous initial direction of movement is a null experimental result which should be robust to a variety of experimental artifacts that may have contaminated previously published results.


For energy crops (reed canary grass and timothy grass), it is important to evaluate the sulphur and carbon content, and the harvested dry matter dependency on the fertilizer norm. Sulphur and carbon are important elements of a combustible material, and carbon is directly important as it forms the burning component. On the other hand, sulphur is an unwelcome element in combustible materials as it promotes environmental pollution. The field trials were carried out in sod calcareous soils in 2011–2013. A research was conducted to investigate the chemical content of two grasses: reed canary grass var. 'Bamse' ( Phalaris arundinacea L.), and timothy grass 'Jumis' ( Phleum pratense L.). Fertiliser norms (kg ha -1 ) applied in the research were: N0P0K0 (control), N30, N60, and N90. The harvest yield is one of the most important factors to obtain biocombustible materials; however, it does not mean that the amount of the harvest yield guarantees also a good quality of grasses. The research showed that the trial year had the most significant influence on both the sulphur yield and content in dry matter, the fertiliser norm essentially influenced the sulphur (η=30.1%) and carbon (η=6.5%) yield, but for the sulphur yield, a 6% interaction effect was established between the trial year and the nitrogen fertilizer norm. Keywords: energy crops, fertilizer norms, carbon content, sulphur content Article DOI: http://doi.org/10.15544/RD.2017.143


Breast adenomyoepithelioma (AME) is a rare tumor with the published literature mainly in the form of case reports. Thus, there is currently only limited published data to guide evidence‐based management. We sought to use a large, contemporary US database to evaluate how these patients are managed and describe expected outcomes. The National Cancer Database was queried (2004‐2013) for women with AME. Statistics included multivariable logistic regression, Kaplan–Meier analysis to evaluate overall survival (OS) and Cox proportional hazards modeling. Overall, 110 patients were analyzed. At diagnosis, the median age was 67 years and the median tumor size was 2.0 cm. All but four patients had node‐negative disease. A majority (55%) of tumors were estrogen receptor negative, and only one was positive for HER2/neu. The most common surgical procedure was lumpectomy (60%); a minority (10.9%) of subjects underwent complete axillary nodal dissection, with one‐quarter not undergoing pathologic nodal sampling. Chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, and radiotherapy were utilized in a minority of patients (26%, 8%, and 36%, respectively), and none were associated with OS. At median follow‐up of 52 months, the 5‐year OS for the entire population was 74.4%. Disease‐related characteristics and practice patterns are described for AME, the largest study of this rare tumor to date. Resection is the most important aspect of management, and based on this dataset the low rate of nodal involvement suggests that in some cases nodal sampling could be safely omitted. Adjuvant therapy may be considered on a case‐by‐case basis. Taken together, these data provide valuable insight into a rare neoplasm that may better inform management of these patients.


We propose a promising hybrid quantum system, where a highly-excited atom strongly interacts with a superconducting LC oscillator via the electric field of capacitor. An external electrostatic field is applied to tune the energy spectrum of atom. The atomic qubit is implemented by two eigenstates near an avoided-level crossing in the DC Stark map of Rydberg atom. Varying the electrostatic field brings the atomic-qubit transition on- or off-resonance to the microwave resonator, leading to a strong atom-resonator coupling with an extremely large cooperativity. Like the nonlinearity induced by Josephson junctions in superconducting circuits, the large atom-resonator interface disturbs the harmonic potential of resonator, resulting in an artificial two-level particle. Different universal two-qubit logic gates can also be performed on our hybrid system within the space where an atomic qubit couples to a single photon with an interaction strength much larger than any relaxation rates, opening the door to the cavity-mediated state transmission.


Nowadays, Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is becoming a hot topic after the "Sensor China" concept proposed in 2009. Sensor nodes are deployed in a hostile or unattended environment to collect the data information. Therefore, network security has become a big problem. A new key management scheme of security network architecture for wireless sensor network is presented in this paper. The proposed key management mechanism combines trusted-server scheme and key pre-distribution scheme which meets the security requirements of WSN. We also illustrate the new network architecture for wireless sensor network and a typical communication process between two sensor nodes to describe the design idea and implementation. Finally, we analyses the system security and performance of WSN. The results demonstrate the proposed scheme could obtain more shared key and reduce large amount of computations.


Cystic echinococcosis (CE) is parasitic disease caused by cestode E. granulosus. Turkana in Northern Kenya carries one of the highest CE burdens in the world. Between 1983 and 2015 a control programme implemented there by African Medical Research Foundation (AMREF) using ultrasound screening for diagnosis evaluated CE prevalence. Several treatment options were available in the programme for those affected. This programme generated a vast amount of raw data as well as serum samples from infected patients was analysed in the first part of this project to assess the efficacy of treatments in Turkana. Data analysis showed that 7.9 % of untreated cases achieved spontaneous cure and 34% improved without intervention. Chemotherapy appeared to stabilise the cysts rather than cure and increasing dose to two was ineffective in inactive cysts. Surgical outcome was improved with chemotherapy from 85% to 91% cure. The project also sought to undertake a detailed analysis of serum antibody responses of individual patients and correlate them to gross ultrasound pathologies. Five recombinant antigens identified from literature to have different properties were purified and optimised. These were Echinococcus granulosus antigen B (EgAgB), Echinococcus granulosus elongation factor 1 beta/delta (EgEF-1β/δ), Echinococcus granulosus fatty acid binding protein 1 (EgFABP1), Echinococcus granulosus heat shock protein 70 (EgHSP70) and Echinococcus granulosus thioredoxin peroxidase (EgTPx). Crude hydatid cysts fluid was also used for comparison. The optimised antigens were then assessed for differential immunoreactive properties towards specific total IgG and sub-classes 1 and 4 serum antibodies. Significant differences in expression of IgG1 and IgG4 was found in response to some antigens. In simple cysts (CE1), IgG4 was highly expressed in comparison to IgG1, in response to HSP70 and EgEF-1β/δ while in cases where the characterised by cyst infiltration and calcification (CE4) cysts, IgG1 was the prominent antibody in response to HSP70, EgEF-1β/δ and HCF. The best diagnostic tool was found to be expression of IgG1 in response to TPx which showed sensitivity of 95%. In follow-up, responses of total IgG towards AgB was found to be useful. It increased in all recurring cases, decreased in all improved cases and remained relatively constant in unchanging cysts. Use of circulating antigens rather than antibodies in diagnosis showed better results in active cyst. In patients with CE1 cysts, antigen levels were seropositive for 91.1 % (31/34), in CE2 cases 81% (34/42) of the patients, in CE3 cases 42% (9/21) and in CE4 cysts and 59 % (16/27). Overall hydatid cyst antigens were detected in 72.6 % (90) of the cases.


Adipose tissue secretes a plethora of adipokines as evidenced by characterization of subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissue secretomes. However, adipose tissue composition and secretion pattern is depot and disease dependent, influencing the adipose tissue secretome. We investigated the secretome of cancer-associated adipose tissue (CAAT) explants from breast cancer patients and explored its role in breast cancer proliferation. CAAT proteins were identified by LC-MS/MS and human protein antibody arrays and stimulated proliferation of three breast cancer cell lines. Kinomics and transcriptomics of MCF-7 breast cancer cells treated with the secretome of CAAT revealed activation of Akt-, ERK- and JNK-pathways and differential expression of activator protein 1 (AP-1) and cAMP responsive element-binding protein (CREB) target genes. The cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK)4/6-inhibitor palbociclib significantly abrogated CAAT-enhanced breast cancer cell proliferation. Our work characterizes the specific breast CAAT protein secretome and reveals its pro-proliferative potency in breast cancer.


Introduction: Salivary pH plays an important role in maintaining oral health and in particular affecting dental caries. Studies have confirmed the antibacterial beneficial effects of chlorhexidine on dental health by increasing salivary pH (changing acidic pH to more neutral pH). Water, the most precious/omnipresent liquid also bears an effect on salivary pH. Materials and Methods: A double-blind concurrent parallel study design was employed on 40 individuals to evaluate changes in salivary pH before and after having meals. The study participants were divided into two groups with 20 each in Group A (those who rinsed with plain water) and Group B (those who rinsed with Chlorhexidine) who were assessed for the pH before and after meals. Results: On intragroup comparison, it was found that the mean pH of Group A was 5.56 ± 1.83 while the mean pH of Group B was 6.48 ± 1.49 after meals, which was statistically nonsignificant at P = 0.09. Conclusion: Water has a beneficial effect on salivary pH and in turn oral health, which is comparable with a standard mouth rinse.


A direct current (DC) microgrid has become a superior power system in recent years due to the development of DC loads and higher efficiency of DC systems. One of the challenging problems on DC microgrids operation is protection, and it is still a particular concern associated with the challenges of developing a proper protection scheme owing to its characteristics and lack of standards in DC protection. Due to the significant increasing interest on DC microgrid; this study investigates protection problems and schemes that need to be addressed in modern power systems involving DC microgrids. This study analyses and presents a comprehensive review of the most recent growth in the DC microgrids protection. Additionally, the fault characteristics of DC microgrids, the impact of constant power loads, the protection devices and several proposed methods to overcome the protection problems are discussed. The differences between the proposed protection methods for the DC microgrids are also discussed.


Large amplitude internal waves (LAIW, or solitons) are known to change environmental factors affecting coral growth. Previous studies have been shown that LAIW have their greatest impact at greater depth. Therefore, we compared the impact of LAIW and monsoon on coral growth and skeletal density between sites exposed to and sheltered from LAIW and at two depths (7 and 20 m) in the Similan Islands near the Thai continental shelf break (Andaman Sea). Coral skeletons of Porites lutea were sampled at the exposed (west) and sheltered (east) sides of Ko Miang Island at the centre of the Similan Islands. X-radiography and fluorescence analysis were used to examine the linear extension rate due to the annual density banding in the coral skeletons. Measurements of skeletal micro-density, porosity and bulk density were based on the buoyant weighing technique, calculation of the total enclosed volume and measurement of matrix volume by Archimedean methods. We hypothesise that coral growth is reduced at the site exposed to LAIW as compared to the sheltered east. We further assume that coral growth is significantly reduced at 20 m compared to 7 m depth due to the higher impact of LAIW. In addition, the stronger intensity of internal waves and monsoon at the exposed site is expected to cause higher skeletal densities in P. lutea from the respective area.


Chemical modifications of histones play a pivotal role in the epigenome and regulation of gene expression, and their abnormality is tightly linked to numerous disease states in humans. Therefore, chemical tools to manipulate epigenome hold promise for both therapy and the elucidation of epigenetic mechanisms. We previously developed the chemical catalyst LANA-DSH, which binds to nucleosomes via a LANA peptide ligand, and selectively acylates proximal histone H2BK120 to the catalyst moiety by acti- vating acyl-CoAs. Thus far, however, histone acylation by a chem- ical catalyst system in living cells has not yet been demonstrated. Here, we report a chemical catalyst system, composed of a nucleo- some-binding catalyst (PEG-LANA-DSH) and a cell-permeable thioester acyl donor (NAC-acyl), that can promote regioselective lysine acylation of histones in living cells. Whereas LANA-DSH is rapidly decomposed in cells, attachment of polyethylene glycol (PEG) to the LANA moiety can prevent this undesired degradation. Increasing the size of PEG conferred LANA with greater in-cell stability, but reduced catalytic activity, indicating that there is an optimum PEG length balancing stability and catalytic activity. The optimized PEG-LANA-DSH catalyst 11 efficiently promoted H2BK120 acetylation in living cells, which subsequently sup- pressed ubiquitination of H2BK120, a mark regulating various chromatin functions, such as transcription and DNA damage re- sponse. Thus, our chemical catalyst system will be useful as a unique tool to manipulate the epigenome for therapeutic purposes or further understanding epigenetic mechanisms.


This paper focuses on data fusion, which is fundamental to one of the most important modules in any autonomous system: perception. Over the past decade, there has been a surge in the usage of smart/autonomous mobility systems. Such systems can be used in various areas of life like safe mobility for the disabled, senior citizens, and so on and are dependent on accurate sensor information in order to function optimally. This information may be from a single sensor or a suite of sensors with the same or different modalities. We review various types of sensors, their data, and the need for fusion of the data with each other to output the best data for the task at hand, which in this case is autonomous navigation. In order to obtain such accurate data, we need to have optimal technology to read the sensor data, process the data, eliminate or at least reduce the noise and then use the data for the required tasks. We present a survey of the current data processing techniques that implement data fusion using different sensors like LiDAR that use light scan technology, stereo/depth cameras, Red Green Blue monocular (RGB) and Time-of-flight (TOF) cameras that use optical technology and review the efficiency of using fused data from multiple sensors rather than a single sensor in autonomous navigation tasks like mapping, obstacle detection, and avoidance or localization. This survey will provide sensor information to researchers who intend to accomplish the task of motion control of a robot and detail the use of LiDAR and cameras to accomplish robot navigation.


One-bond coupling constants 1JXY are usually used as a measure of the corresponding XY interatomic distances. However, the physical nature of this correlation is not well understood and, in some cases, a counterintuitive behaviour of 1JXY upon hydrogen bonded complex formation has been reported. In this work, the behavior of 1JCH upon formation and strengthening of complexes with CHX hydrogen bonds and upon a proton transfer process is investigated by means of 1H NMR spectroscopy and quantum chemical calculations. 1H NMR spectra of 1,1-dinitroethane solution at room temperature in various solvents (carbon tetrachloride, chloroform, dichloromethane, acetone, dimethylformamide and dimethyl sulfoxide) illustrate the increase of 1JCH by several Hz upon an increase of the complex strength. Computational results (MP2/aug-cc-pVDZ) reproduce this observation and allow one to conclude that the increase of 1JCH is mainly caused by the change of the carbon hybridization (an increase of s-character), rather than by the change in interatomic distance rCH. The behavior of 1JCH was also examined computationally for a wide range of CHX hydrogen bond energies and geometries. For this purpose, quantum-chemical modeling of the partial proton transfer process for complexes formed by 1,1-dinitroethane and trinitromethane as hydrogen bond donors with acetone, pyridine and fluoride anion as hydrogen bond acceptors was performed. The obtained results have confirmed the above-mentioned idea - for rather weak complexes, the dominant impact on the change of 1JCH magnitude is the increase of the s-character of carbon atom hybridization, while for complexes with a significantly transferred proton, the exponential decrease of the Fermi-contact term dominates.


Lipreading is the task of looking at, perceiving, and interpreting spoken symbols. It has a wide range of applications such as in surveillance, Internet telephony, speech reconstruction for silent movies and as an aid to a person with speech as well as hearing impairments. However, most of the work in lipreading literature has been limited to the classification of speech videos into text classes formed of phrases, words and sentences. Even this has been based on a highly constrained lexicon of words which, then subsequently translates to restriction on total number of classes (i.e, phrases, words and sentences) that are considered for the classification task. Recently, research has ventured into generating speech (audio) from silent video sequences. In spite of non-frontal views showing the potential of enhancing performance of speech reading and reconstruction systems, there have been no developments in using multiple camera feeds for the same. To this end, this paper presents a multi-view speech reading and reconstruction system. The major contribution of this paper is to present a model, namely MyLipper, which is a vocabulary and language agnostic and a real-time model that deals with a variety of poses of a speaker. The model leverages silent video feeds from multiple cameras recording a subject to generate intelligent speech for that speaker, thus being a personalized speech reconstruction model. It uses deep learning based STCNN+BiGRU architecture to achieve this goal. The results obtained using MyLipper show an improvement of over 20% in reconstructed speech's intelligibility (as measured by PESQ) using multiple views as compared to a single view visual feed. This confirms the importance of exploiting multiple views in building an efficient speech reconstruction system. The paper further shows the optimal placement of cameras which would lead to the maximum intelligibility of speech. Further, we demonstrate the reconstructed audios overlaid on the corresponding videos obtained from MyLipper using a variety of videos from the dataset


Although assessment of hypertensive retinopathy signs has been recommended for determining end-organ damage and stratifying vascular risk in persons with hypertension, its value remains unclear. In this study, we examine whether hypertensive retinopathy predicts the long-term risk of stroke in those with hypertension. A total of 2907 participants with hypertension aged 50 to 73 years at the 1993 to 1995 examination, who had gradable retinal photographs, no history of diabetes mellitus, stroke, and coronary heart disease at baseline and data on incident stroke, were included from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study. Retinal photographs were assessed for hypertensive retinopathy signs and classified as none, mild, and moderate/severe. Incident events of any stroke, cerebral infarction, and hemorrhagic stroke were identified and validated. After a mean follow-up period of 13.0 years, 165 persons developed incident stroke (146 cerebral infarctions and 15 hemorrhagic strokes). After adjusting for age, sex, blood pressure, and other risk factors, persons with moderate hypertensive retinopathy were more likely to have stroke (moderate versus no retinopathy: multivariable hazard ratios, 2.37 [95% confidence interval, 1.39–4.02]). In participants with hypertension on medication with good control of blood pressure, hypertensive retinopathy was related to an increased risk of cerebral infarction (mild retinopathy: hazard ratio, 1.96 [95% confidence interval, 1.09–3.55]; and moderate retinopathy: hazard ratio, 2.98 [95% confidence interval, 1.01–8.83]). Hypertensive retinopathy predicts the long-term risk of stroke, independent of blood pressure, even in treated patients with hypertension with good hypertension control. Retinal photographic assessment of hypertensive retinopathy signs may be useful for assessment of stroke risk.


This paper presents a new collision warning (CW) algorithm for rear-end collisions. Considering the large number of traffic accidents that result due to driver errors or situations that are unpredictable for the driver, many CW Algorithms were developed in the past years. However, these algorithms did not adequately take into account vehicles with an adaptive cruise control (ACC) System. This paper aims to modify these algorithms assuming the presence of an ACC system and to develop a new algorithm considering human factors and maneuvers of vehicles with ACC in critical situations


We propose a diversity based relevance feedback approach for time series data to improve the accuracy of search results. We first develop the concept of relevance feedback for time series based on dual-tree complex wavelet (CWT) and SAX based approaches. We aim to enhance the search quality by incorporating diversity in the results presented to the user for feedback. We then propose a method which utilizes the representation type as part of the feedback, as opposed to a human choosing based on a preprocessing or training phase. The proposed methods utilize a weighting to handle the relevance feedback of important properties for both single and multiple representation cases. Our experiments on a large variety of time series data sets show that the proposed diversity based relevance feedback improves the retrieval performance. Results confirm that representation feedback incorporates item diversity implicitly and achieves good performance even when using simple nearest neighbor as the retrieval method. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study on diversification of time series search to improve retrieval accuracy and representation feedback.


In this demo, we present a Virtual Reality (VR) Prototype that assists geoscientist in the task of seismic interpretation. The system renders a 3D seismic volume in a virtual reality environment where users may see semantic information and add annotations. The data integration is provided by a hybrid knowledge base that handles multimodal data like 3D models and multimedia content. The knowledge base can support other systems as well, which permits reasoning over the data. Therefore, our proposed system is intended to assist users in seismic interpretation by combining visual inspection with immersion, semantic information retrieval, and structured storage.


ADL is an Architecture Description Language that has been developed to model computer architectures at different levels of detail, as for instance, at the microarchitecture level. Target architectures described in ADL are processed by the support system of the language which generates an interpreter program related to the description of the target machine. The interpreter reproduces the behavior of the architecture being modeled, including the interpretation of the target code. In addition to a brief review of the language and the implementation details of its support system, this paper also shows some methods to deal with target machine parallelism, and the modeling of two microprogrammable machines.


It was hypothesized that differences in starch degradability account for observed differences in rumen vaccenic acid (t11-18:1) and milk rumenic acid (RA) concentrations. To test this hypothesis, starch degradability was varied through grain source and by processing. Eight Holstein cows in mid-lactation were assigned to two 4 × 4 Latin squares with four 21-day periods and four diets: dry rolled barley, ground barley, dry rolled corn and ground corn. Diets contained similar starch content and were supplemented with whole sunflower seed to provide similar total polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) (18:2n-6 + 18:3n-3) contents. Forage/concentrate ratios of all diets were 42 : 58. Rumen, plasma and milk samples were collected in the third week of each period. In situ degradation rates (%/h) for rolled corn, ground corn, rolled barley and ground barley were 5.4, 8.9, 17.0 and 19.4, respectively, for dry matter (DM) and 6.3, 10.8, 25.3 and 43.8, respectively, for starch. DM intakes were greater for corn-based diets (CBD) than for barley-based diets (BBD) with no difference between rolled and ground diets. Daily minimum rumen pH was less (5.2 v. 5.5) and pH duration <5.8 (h/d) was greater (7.4 v. 4.3) for BBD than for CBD. Milk fat content and yield were less for BBD than for CBD with greater values observed for rolling compared with grinding. Variability in milk fat yield was strongly related (R2 = 0.55; P < 0.01) to total starch intake (45%) and milk c9t11-CLA (10%) and none of the t-18:1 isomers or CLA isomers that are typically associated with milk fat depression entered the model. The concentrations (%) of t10-18:1 and t11-18:1 were greater for BBD than for CBD in rumen contents (t10-18:1, 3.5 v. 1.3; t11-18:1, 3.2 v. 1.9), plasma (t10-18:1, 1.2 v. 0.2; t11-18:1, 0.97 v. 0.58) and milk (t10-18:1, 3.8 v. 1.0; t11-18:1, 2.6 v. 1.7) despite greater total PUFA intakes for CBD. Milk RA concentration was greater for BBD than for CBD (1.46 v. 0.89) but was not influenced by the method of grain processing. This study clearly demonstrated that the milk content and profile of t-18:1 and CLA isomers were more strongly influenced by the source of grain starch (barley > corn) than by the method of grain processing indicating that factors inherent in the source of starch were responsible for the observed differences and these factors could not be modified by the processing methods used in this study.


Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) has been used in recent years as a powerful tool for diagnosing dangerous residues on a variety of surfaces. While not itself straightforward, the task becomes much simpler when scenarios are custom designed. A more difficult question then arises when the scenario is unknown. The inherent ambiguity within the spectral resources gathered from this type of scenario presents a challenge to the analytical power of LIBS. Since no tools are available for confident identification of the optical emissions of the surface, the residue, or both, a novel method is now proposed based on sieving the spectral data. The strategy is based on threshold splitting of the spectral responses in the dataset using linear correlation measurements. The output of such splitting allows the emission spectrum of the surface to be predicted, thereby identifying uncorrelated emission signals with the potential residue. The strengths and weaknesses of the methodology are critically discussed. The suggested method allows accurate identification of the emission spectrum of the surface in scenarios for which 60% of the spectral resources correspond exclusively to a 'clean' surface. In the case of scenarios that are complex, in that the chemical composition of the surface and the residue are similar, the use of emission intensity ratios instead of considering the entire spectrum improves the methodology. The results presented suggest that this approach gives greater selectivity to the LIBS technique in the assessment of unknown targets in the recognition of explosives.


Ballan wrasse (Labrus bergylta) is a new species in aquaculture, the newly initiated intensive production is a response to the increasing demands for wrasse as cleaner fish in salmon and trout farming. The dietary requirements of the ballan wrasse larvae are largely unknown. The nutritional quality of the live feed commonly used in the farming of marine larvae today, rotifers and Artemia sp., may be suboptimal to the dietary need of developing ballan wrasse larvae, and contribute to the problems with growth, survival and skeletal anomalies currently observed in the rearing of this species. Copepods are the natural feed for pelagic marine larvae. To use intensively cultivated copepod nauplii in the farming of marine species, either as a supplement to, or instead of rotifers or Artemia sp., have lead to improved growth and normal development, earlier onset of ossification, and less skeletal anomalies. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of four different feeding regimes from 4 to 30 days post hatch (dph), on larval growth, development and quality. The larvae in the Copepod and Cop7 treatments were fed cultivated copepod nauplii of the species Acartia tonsa from 4 to 30 dph, and from 4 to 10 dph, respectively. The larvae in the RotMG and RotChl treatments were fed enriched and unenriched rotifers (Brachionus ibericus Cayman), respectively. All groups were fed Artemia fransiscana nauplii from 24 to 51 dph, and formulated feed from 40 to 61 dph. The experiment was terminated on 61 dph. Growth and survival was recorded, and the quality difference between the larvae from the different treatments was assessed through several quality parameters; observations of larval behaviour, response to handling stress, bone ossification, and skeletal anomalies. The larvae fed copepods instead of rotifers showed better growth and stress tolerance, were more effective predators, showed earlier onset of ossification of the axial and fin ray skeleton, and had significantly less skeletal anomalies per larvae compared to the larvae fed rotifers, when the most common anomaly (twisted arches) was excluded. Larval size was consistently more related to degree of ossification than age. Growth was the parameter most notably affected by the diet, and significant differences in dry weight, standard length and myotome height was found already on 8 dph.


This paper presents an algorithm for transforming closed planar curves into a canonical form, independent of the viewpoint from which the original image of the contour was taken. The transformation that takes the contour to its canonical form is a member of the projective group PGL(2), chosen because PGL(2) contains all possible transformations of a plane curve under central projection onto another plane. The scheme relies on solving computationally an "isoperimetric" problem in which a transformation is sought which maximises the area of a curve given unit perimeter. In the case that the transformation is restricted to the affine subgroup there is a unique extremising transformation for any piecewise smooth closed curve. Uniqueness holds, almost always, even for curves that are not closed. In the full projective case, isoperimetric normalization is well-defined only for closed curves. We have found computational counterexamples for which there is more than one extremal transformation. Numerical algorithms are described and demonstrated both for the affine and the projective cases. Once a canonical curve is obtained, its isoperimetric area can be regarded as an invariant descriptor of shape. >


Malignant eccrine spiradenoma (MES) is an extremely rare cutaneous malignant tumour. An 86‐year‐old man presented at our hospital with an enlarging tumour on the dorsum of the left hand. An excisional biopsy was taken and histological examination showed a solid island of cells of two distinct types: cells with abundant cytoplasm and oval vesicular nuclei, and small round cells with less cytoplasm and hyperchromatic nuclei with a high frequency of mitosis. We diagnosed this tumour as MES. Although we did not perform further treatment because of the patient's age, there was no sign of recurrence or metastasis in the 2 years of follow‐up after excisional biopsy. We reviewed cases of malignant eccrine spiradenoma in the English and Japanese literature and found that 'sarcomatous' or 'squamous' change in histopathology was significantly correlated with a poorer prognosis. It is therefore important for treatment planning to evaluate the entire specimen histologically.


High power supply rejection (PSR) with a wide rejection frequency band is becoming a critical requirement in linear low-dropout regulators (LDOs) used in complex systems-on-chip (SOCs). Typical LDOs achieve higher PSR within their loop-bandwidth; however, their supply rejection performance degrades with reduced loop-gain outside their loop-bandwidth. Typical LDOs with external filtering capacitors may also have spectral peaking in their PSR response, causing excess system-level supply noise. This work presents an LDO design approach, which achieves a PSR of higher than 68 dB up to 2 MHz frequency and over a wide range of loads up to 250 mA. The wide PSR bandwidth is achieved using a current-mode feedforward ripple canceller (CFFRC) amplifier which provides up to 25 dB of PSR improvement. The feedforward path gain is inherently matched to the forward gain of the LDO, not requiring calibration. The LDO has a fast load transient response with a recovery time of 6.1 $\mu \text {s}$ and has a quiescent current of 5.6 $\mu \text {A}$ . For a full load transition, the LDO achieves settling with overshoot and undershoot voltages below 27.6 and 36.36 mV, respectively. The LDO is designed and fabricated in a 180 nm bipolar/CMOS/DMOS (BCD) technology. The CFFRC amplifier helps to achieve low quiescent power due to its inherent current mode nature, eliminating the need for supply ripple summing amplifiers and adaptive biasing.


BACKGROUND: Rigid proctoscopy is considered essential for rectal tumor localization, although the current gold standard for detection of colorectal cancers is colonoscopy. The European Society for Medical Oncology Guidelines indicate that rigid and flexible endoscopies afford essentially identical results, although little evidence is yet available to support this. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine the accuracy of colonoscopy in identifying the location of rectal cancer and to compare the results with those of rigid proctoscopy and digital rectal examination. DESIGN: This was a retrospective analysis of a prospective database. SETTINGS: The study was conducted at a single tertiary colorectal surgery referral center. PATIENTS: A total of 173 patients scheduled for curative surgery for histologically verified rectal adenocarcinoma between December 2009 and February 2015 were entered into the study, after having given informed consent. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The main study measure was the mean difference and limits of agreement in assessment of the height of the distal edge of rectal cancer from the anal verge, using the Bland and Altman method. RESULTS: The mean difference between rigid proctoscopy and flexible colonoscopy was –0.2 cm (95% CI, –2.0 to 1.6 cm). The mean difference between rigid proctoscopy and digital rectal examination was 0.3 cm (95% CI, 1.9 to 2.4 cm). Intermethod variability larger than the 95% CI between rigid and flexible endoscopes was correlated to the tumor height (OR, 4.27 (95% CI, 1.84–3.10); p = 0.021). LIMITATIONS: This study was conducted in a single center. CONCLUSIONS: The limits of agreement (–2.0 and 1.6 cm) in identifying the height of rectal cancers from the anal verge are sufficiently small to support the view that flexible colonoscopy provides similar tumor locations to those measured by rigid proctoscopy, although the discrepancy occasionally exceeded 2 cm for tumors >5 cm above the anal verge. See Video Abstract at http://links.lww.com/DCR/A405.


Background: Mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) is a significant public health problem affecting approximately 1 million people annually in the USA. A total of 10–15% of individuals are estimated to have persistent post-traumatic symptoms. This study aimed to determine whether focused, scheduled telephone counselling during the first 3 months after MTBI decreases symptoms and improves functioning at 6 months. Methods: This was a two-group, parallel, randomised clinical trial with the outcome assessed by blinded examiner at 6 months after injury. 366 of 389 eligible subjects aged 16 years or older with MTBI were enrolled in the emergency department, with an 85% follow-up completion rate. Five telephone calls were completed, individualised for patient concerns and scripted to address education, reassurance and reactivation. Two composites were analysed, one relating to post-traumatic symptoms that developed or worsened after injury and their impact on functioning, the other related to general health status. Results: The telephone counselling group had a significantly better outcome for symptoms (6.6 difference in adjusted mean symptom score, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.2 to 12.0), but no difference in general health outcome (1.5 difference in adjusted mean functional score, 95% CI 2.2 to 5.2). A smaller proportion of the treatment group had each individual symptom (except anxiety) at assessment. Similarly, fewer of the treatment group had daily functioning negatively impacted by symptoms with the largest differences in work, leisure activities, memory and concentration and financial independence. Conclusions: Telephone counselling, focusing on symptom management, was successful in reducing chronic symptoms after MTBI. Trial registration number: ClinicalTrials.gov, #NCT00483444


Examples of aerosol retrieval results, derived from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) on the Earth Observation Science (EOS) Terra platform, are shown and the performance of the retrieval algorithms are discussed, following the first 18 months of operational data processing. A number of algorithm modifications were implemented, based on an analysis of aerosol retrieval results during this period, and these changes are described. Two cloud-screening algorithms, the angle-to-angle smoothness and angle-to-angle correlation tests, which were used in the preprocessing phase of the analyses are also described. The aerosol retrieval examples cover a wide variety of conditions, both over land and water. Particular aerosol types include dust clouds, forest fire and volcanic plumes, and localized dense haze. Finally, some ideas are discussed for additional improvement of the MISR aerosol data product, based on the experience gained in analyzing multiangle data and the associated geophysical products.


Five key principles for creating effective operations optimization-based patient care automation have now been established: (a) The old system architectures did not provide operations optimization; (b) primary patient care optimization (nurses and doctors) must be the central focus of any effective system; (c) the system must provide a platform that allows for eliminating both the retrospective and prospective (subterranean) paper records; (d) point-of-care data capture, including at the bedside, must be provided; and (e) integration around the patient is critical to success. Systems that ignore these principles will ultimately be doomed to repeat the problems of the manual system. Adherence to these principles opens a myriad of possibilities and provides a road map for how such a system should function. The next installment in this series of articles will address the ramifications of integration in system design and system use. The positive effects that such system designs can have on the realization of demonstrable benefits from system technology will also be reviewed.


Pastoral land use involves mobility in space and time in search of temporally variable rangeland resources for herds. Such movements are prohibited across privately registered cadastral objects, unless by consent from the land owner, leaving pastoralists marginalized by land rights. This study was undertaken in Isiolo area Kenya, an area characterized by diversified climatic conditions, land uses and land tenures. The overall aim of this study was to accommodate pastoral land use in land administration (LA) through seasonal land rights (SLR). Remote Sensing and GIS tools were used to investigate relationships between temporal pasture fluxes and pastoral seasonal migrations. To achieve the research objectives, multitemporal SPOT NDVI and GIS data were utilized together with field data which was obtained through semi structured questionnaires and participatory mapping. Unsupervised classification of SPOT NDVI data using ISODATA clustering algorithm delineated the land cover into 9 spatial mapping units. Time series analysis on the 9 mapping units realized spatiotemporal NDVI patterns which revealed the bimodal dry and wet climatic seasons that characterized the pastoral migration pattern to and from key dry and wet season grazing areas. GIS animal movement and tracking analyst tools simulated temporal movements of pastoralists based on the migratory routes whose ends defined the seasonal grazing areas using start and end dates of the migration. A GIS multi-criteria decision making method (MCDM) investigated most suitable locations for seasonal land sharing (SLS) among the non pastoral land uses where dry season grazing occurs. Soft systems methodology utilized unified modelling language (UML) to develop conceptual models which integrated the suitable areas for SLS and stakeholder behaviour with the cadastral system. Uniqueness of the developed models was the temporal aspect introduced through SLR which lacked in the existing cadastral system. Other driving forces that influenced the migratory pattern besides demand for herbaceous pastures were deduced from field findings as: access to water, land rights, proximity to grazing sites, security, diseases, pests and cost of grazing. Results of the study presented a strong correlation between the temporal NDVI fluxes in land cover and the spatiotemporal migration of pastoralists. The most suitable areas for SLS included specific locations within the farming, ranching and forestry land uses. The developed conceptual models demonstrated conditions for successful SLS between pastoralists and non pastoralists through SLR in space and time. Comparison of the conceptual models with the real world concluded that SLR would be achieved by public participation, documentation of the migratory corridor, sensitization of stakeholders on benefits of SLS, establishment of regulations to govern SLS and reengineering of land acts. Conclusively, pastoral seasonal migration was mainly influenced by seasonal variability of pastures and


BACKGROUND
Complementary feeding (CF) provides an opportunity to shape children's future dietary habits, setting the foundation for good nutrition and health.

OBJECTIVE
We estimated effects of 3 CF behaviors on early childhood diet quality using inverse probability (IP) weighting of marginal structural models (MSMs).

METHODS
Among 1,041 children from the Boston-area Project Viva cohort, we estimated effects on the mean Youth Healthy Eating Index (YHEI) score in early childhood of: 1) delayed (≥12mo, vs. early [<12mo]) introduction of sweets and fruit juice; 2) continued (vs. ceased) offering of initially refused foods; and 3) early (<12mo, vs. late [≥12mo]) introduction of flavor/texture variety. Mothers reported CF behaviors at 1y and completed food frequency questionnaires for children in early childhood (median age 3.1y). We estimated average treatment effects (ATEs) using IP weighting of MSMs to adjust for both confounding and selection bias due to censored outcomes and examined effect modification by child sex and breastfeeding (BF) vs. formula feeding (FF) at 6mo.

RESULTS
Twelve percent of mothers delayed introducing sweets/fruit juice, 93% continued offering initially refused foods, and 32% introduced flavor/texture variety early. The mean±SD YHEI score was 52.8±9.2 points. In adjusted models, we estimated a higher mean YHEI score with delayed (vs. early) sweets and fruit juice among BF children (ATE 4.5 points, 95% CI: 1.0, 7.4), as well as with continued (vs. ceased) offering of refused foods among females (ATE 5.4 points, 95% CI: 0.8, 9.1). The ATE for early (vs. late) flavor/texture variety was 1.7 points (95% CI: 0.3, 3.2) overall and stronger (2.8 points, 95% CI: 0.7, 5.1) among the FF group.

CONCLUSIONS
Delayed introduction of sweets/juice, continued offering of refused foods, and early flavor/texture variety may all result in higher childhood diet quality. Effects may depend on child sex and infant breastfeeding status. Clinical Trial Registry information: Project Viva is registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT02820402.


The cosmic abundance of hydrides depends critically on high-energy UV, X-ray, and particle irradiation. Here we study hydrides in star-forming regions where irradiation by the young stellar object can be substantial, and density and temperature can be much enhanced over interstellar values. Lines of OH, CH, NH, and SH and their ions OH(+), CH(+), NH(+), SH(+), H2O(+), and H3O(+) were observed in star-forming regions by the HIFI spectrometer onboard the Herschel Space Observatory. Molecular column densities are derived from observed ground-state lines, models, or rotational diagrams. We report here on two prototypical high-mass regions, AFGL 2591 and W3 IRS5, and compare them to chemical calculations by making assumptions on the high-energy irradiation. A model assuming no ionizing protostellar emission is compared with (i) a model assuming strong protostellar X-ray emission and (ii) a two-dimensional (2D) model including emission in the far UV (FUV, 6-13.6 eV), irradiating the outflow walls that separate the outflowing gas and infalling envelope material. We confirm that the effect of FUV in two-dimensional models with enlarged irradiated surfaces is clearly noticeable. A molecule that is very sensitive to FUV irradiation is CH(+), enhanced in abundance by more than 5 orders of magnitude. The HIFI observations of CH(+) lines agree with the two-dimensional FUV model by Bruderer et al., which computes abundances, non-LTE excitation, and line radiative transfer.20 It is concluded that CH(+) is a good FUV tracer in star-forming regions. The effect of potential X-ray irradiation is not excluded but cannot be demonstrated by the present data.