The aim of the present systematic review was to investigate whether placements in Aboriginal health affect the self-perceived skill in working in Aboriginal health settings and career aspirations of health students, and in particular, aspects of the placement that had the greatest impact. The Embase, Cinahl, ProQuest, Scopus, Informit, Ovid MEDLINE, PsychINFO, and PubMed databases were searched in April/May 2016. Placements of at least 1 week duration in an Aboriginal health setting involving Australian students of medical, nursing, dentistry, or allied health disciplines, with outcomes relating to changes in students' knowledge, attitudes, and/or career aspirations, were included. The search retrieved 1351 papers. Fourteen studies were eligible for inclusion in this review. Narrative synthesis found that work placements in Aboriginal health increased understanding and awareness of Aboriginal culture, promoted deeper understanding of Aboriginal health determinant complexity, increased awareness of everyday racism toward Aboriginal Australians, and enhanced desire to work in Aboriginal health. There is a need for improved teaching and learning scholarship to understand whether placements improve students' skill working with Aboriginal people in health care or increase the likelihood of future employment in these settings.


This paper presents a concept for improving National Airspace System (NAS) operations through the adoption of a flexible, combination of time-based traffic flow management, trajectory-orientation, and airborne separation assistance elements. Time-based traffic flow management on a NAS-wide and local level assures that local airspace areas are not overloaded at any given time. Trajectory-based operations are used to plan and execute conflict free flight paths for upcoming flight segments. Together, these operations put flight crews in a position to utilize Airborne Separation Assistance Systems (ASAS) to deal with local separation issues, if instructed or permitted by the controller to do so. The concept outlined here is derived from a broad ATM research base, along with first-hand experience and results gathered from within the framework of Distributed Air/Ground - Traffic management (DAG-TM) research conducted over the last three years. The unique NAS traffic flow management concept proposed here draws on several existing concepts, by combining and modifying them to leverage on their particular strengths. This paper addresses the tools and technologies required and/or desirable for near-tern implementation and examines the longer-term implications.


In this paper, we propose the replacement of widely used models of geo-information systems with a new conception based on network proximity. Geo-information systems have attracted great attention and demonstrated big progress in recent times, especially for mobile services. We can point out many objective reasons for this. On the one hand, users require services, mainly at their location, and on the other hand, location determination has become easy, especially due to the proliferation of smartphones. But at the same time, the actual geo-calculation are not needed by most of these services. For the majority of geo-services, geo-coordinates are used only for searching and organizing data. And the meaning of the service is to search for information tied to the current location of the requesting party. In other words, in most cases, service refers to data near the current location. So, our idea is to build services directly on assessing to proximity and completely bypass geo-calculations. It also opens the way for completely new services that were impossible or difficult to implement with geo-computations.


Hospital managers are already turning patients away in preparation for Gulf casualties, despite Government claims to the contrary, Shadow Health Secretary Robin Cook warned last week.


Despite more than a decade of effort, the genetic underpinnings of many complex traits and diseases remain largely elusive. It is increasingly recognized that a purely additive model, upon which most genome-wide association studies (GWAS) rely, is insufficient. Although thousands of significant trait-associated loci have been identified, they often explain little of the inferred genetic variance. Several factors have been invoked to explain the 'missing heritability', including epistasis. Accounting for all possible epistatic interactions is computationally complex and requires very large samples. Here, we propose a simple two-state epistasis model, in which individuals show either high or low variant penetrance with respect to a certain trait. The use of this model increases the power to detect additive trait-associated loci. We show that this model is consistent with current GWAS results and better fits heritability observations based on twin studies. We suggest that accounting for variant penetrance will significantly increase our power to identify underlying additive loci.


Abstract Women are an important mainstay of agricultural production in China, though their access to land is characterized by even greater ambiguity than that of their male counterparts. As part of its path toward liberalization, China undertook agricultural land management policy reforms that were aimed at increasing the security of land tenure rights, but these reforms have paradoxically exacerbated the uncertainty surrounding women's claims to land. Utilizing sample survey data collected from 412 rural households in Shaanxi and Hunan provinces in 2002, this paper documents and analyzes gender differences in land allocations. The findings of this study shed light on the degree to which community characteristics coupled with current local practices (such as frequency of reallocation) influence gender disparities. Results suggest that a growing number of women experience loss of contract land coincident with marrying, and this trend may be expected to increase given the current direction of land policy.


Extra-thick-walled tubes, hollow rods, in which wall thickness to outside diameter ratio is 25% or more, are produced at steel rod rolling mills at large, as they cannot be manufactured into seamless tubes at any existing mill plant. They are currently produced by a process in which a square billet with an inserted mandrel of manganese steel is passed through a bar mill. Then, the hollow billet is finished to the desired diameter and wall thickness. After that, the mandrel is removed from the hollow billet. The unit tool requirement of this process is costly and uneconomical, and the dimensionally accuracy is low. In this paper, the reduce rolling characteristics of hollow piece by rotary rolling mill have been studied in detail. This process, in which a rotary rolling mill with three rolls has been used for reducing the outside diameter of hollow piece, makes it possible both to obtain hollow rods with high dimensional accuracy and to produce hollow rods efficiently. This rotary rolling makes it possible to reduce the outside diameter of hollow pieces and to control the wall thickness of hollow pieces with no internal sizing tool by only setting rotary rolling mill conditions. Hollow pieces having the desired dimensions can be produced with high accuracy.


The development and implementation of risk response strategies contributes to effective risk management processes in construction organizations. Risk response strategies need to be developed and implemented as follows: first, all possible risk responses for each given risk event of a project are identified; next, each risk response is evaluated to determine its effectiveness; then, for each risk event of the project, the optimal risk response is identified and implemented; and finally, the risk events and responses are consistently monitored. The existing literature confirms that there is a lack of research on evaluation criteria for risk responses, making it difficult to determine their effectiveness. This paper presents research that fills this gap by developing a way to evaluate the effectiveness of risk response strategies using a fuzzy rule-based system (FRBS) that consists of three inputs and one output. The inputs of the FRBS are the affordability and the achievability of risk responses and the controllability of risk events; the output is the effectiveness of the risk response. The application of fuzzy ranking methods instead of crisp ranking methods allows the model to mimic three human attitudes towards risk: risk averse, neutral, and risk taking. The proposed model lays the foundation for an automated evaluation of risk response strategies and provides a decision support tool for experts in the field.


For ultralight scalar particles like axions, dark matter can form a state of the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) with a coherent classical wave whose wavelength is of order galactic scales. In the context of an oscillating scalar field with mass $m$, this BEC description amounts to integrating out the field oscillations over the Hubble timescale ${H}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ in the regime $m\ensuremath{\gg}H$. We provide a gauge-invariant general relativistic framework for studying cosmological perturbations in the presence of a self-interacting BEC associated with a complex scalar field. In particular, we explicitly show the difference of BECs from perfect fluids by taking into account cold dark matter, baryons, and radiation as a Schutz-Sorkin description of perfect fluids. We also scrutinize the accuracy of commonly used Newtonian treatment based on a quasistatic approximation for perturbations deep inside the Hubble radius. For a scalar field starting to oscillate after matter-radiation equality, we show that, after the BEC formation, a negative self-coupling hardly leads to a Laplacian instability of the BEC density contrast. This is attributed to the fact that the Laplacian instability does not overwhelm the gravitational instability for self-interactions within the validity of the nonrelativistic BEC description. Our analysis does not accommodate the regime of parametric resonance, which can potentially occur for a large field alignment during the transient epoch prior to the BEC formation.


With the help of four years (2002–2005) of CHAMP accelerometer data we have investigated the dependence of low and mid latitude thermospheric density on the merging electric field, Em, during major magnetic storms. Altogether 30 intensive storm events (Dstmin <?100 nT) are chosen for a statistical study. In order to achieve a good correlation Em is preconditioned. Contrary to general opinion, Em has to be applied without saturation effect in order to obtain good results for magnetic storms of all activity levels. The memory effect of the thermosphere is accounted for by a weighted integration of Em over the past 3 h. In addition, a lag time of the mass density response to solar wind input of 0 to 4.5 h depending on latitude and local time is considered. A linear model using the preconditioned Em as main controlling parameter for predicting mass density changes during magnetic storms is developed: ? =0.5Em+?amb, where ?amb is based on the mean density during the quiet day before the storm. We show that this simple relation predicts all storm-induced mass density variations at CHAMP altitude fairly well especially if orbital averages are considered.


An analytical algorithm for the determination of land surface temperature and soil moisture from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission/Microwave Imager (TRMM/TMI) remote sensing data has been developed in this study. The error analyses indicate that the uncertainties of the enrolled parameters will not cause serious errors in the proposed algorithm. By applying the proposed algorithm to TRMM/TMI remote sensing data collected during the Global Energy and Water Experiment (GEWEX) Asian Monsoon Experiment (GAME)/Tibet Intensive Observation Period field campaign in 1998 (IOP'98), the temporal and regional distributions of land surface temperature and volumetric soil moisture are evaluated over the central Tibetan plateau area. To validate the proposed method, the ground-measured surface temperature and volumetric soil moisture are compared to TRMM/TMI-derived land surface temperature and soil Fresnel reflectivity respectively. The results show that the estimated surface temperature is in good agreement with ground measurements; their difference and correlation coefficient are 0.52 ± 2.41 K and 0.80, respectively. A quasi-linear relationship exists between estimated Fresnel reflectivity and ground-measured volumetric soil moisture with a correlation coefficient 0.82. The land surface thermal status can also be clearly identified from the regional distribution of the estimated land surface temperature; the mountainous area and water bodies have a very lower surface temperature, while the river basin shows a higher surface temperature compared to the mountainous area. The southeastern part of the selected area has lower soil moisture, while the river basin exhibits high soil moisture. It is therefore concluded that the proposed algorithm is successful for the retrieval of land surface temperature and soil moisture using TRMM/TMI data over the study area.


Predicting the timing of overland flow in burned watersheds can help to estimate debris‐flow timing and the location of debris‐flow initiation. Numerical models can produce flow predictions, but they are limited by our knowledge of appropriate model parameters. Moreover, opportunities to test and calibrate model parameters in post‐wildfire settings are limited by available data (measurements of debris‐flow timing are rare). In this study, we use a unique data set of rainfall and flow‐timing data to test the extent to which model parameters can be generalized from an individual watershed to other watersheds (0.01 km 2 to >1km 2) within a burned area. Simulations suggest that a single, low, saturated hydraulic conductivity value can be used in post‐wildfire landscapes with reasonable results. By contrast, we found that watershed‐scale effective Manning roughness parameter values decrease as a power‐law function of basin drainage area. Thus a Manning roughness parameter calibrated for a single basin within a burned area may not provide adequate results in a different watershed. However, when flow velocity is modeled independently for hillslopes and channels, and different roughness parameters are used for those morphometric units, there is no drainage‐area dependence on the roughness parameters. Moreover, we found that it was possible to use field‐measured grain size data to parameterize the roughness for both hillslopes and channels. Thus our results show that, employing this generalizable approach, it is possible to use field measurements to fully parameterize a model that produces peak flow timing to within a few minutes in storms lasting several hours. Further, we demonstrate how model simulations can be leveraged to identify areas within a watershed that are most susceptible to debris flows. This modeling approach could be used for decision making in hazardous burned areas and would be especially useful in ungaged basins. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The purposes were to determine if explanatory style (i.e. tendency toward optimism versus pessimism) (a) is a collective team belief that (b) differentiates between more and less successful sport teams. Team success was operationalised by winning percentage. For explanatory style, athletes (n = 442) from a heterogeneous sample of sport teams (k = 39) estimated the controllability, universality, stability, and globality of a number of hypothetical negative events. Statistical analyses indicated teams do have an explanatory style that varies along a continuum of optimism/pessimism. Also, more successful teams (winning percentage of .501 or above, k = 21) were significantly (p < .05) more optimistic than less successful teams (winning percentage of .500 or below, k = 18) on controllability ("we can fix this") and universality ("every team has this happen"). The results are discussed in terms of their relation to previous literature examining consensus (shared beliefs) in sport teams, the reformulated learned helplessness theory, and the research on individual athlete explanatory style and success.


Wetlands are susceptible to invasion by both flora and fauna due to their availability of differing habitat. This induces the enactment of treatments either for prevention or management of introduced species. Many invasive management practices are done with a focus on single taxa, especially with concern to wetlands. Wetlands offer a dynamic habitat for several species, and being aware of how these habitats are used by all species can offer a beneficial knowledge base for those enacting management techniques to ensure minimal consequences. This thesis investigated the influence of invasive species on herpetofauna in a wetland. The majority of this study focused on habitat use and the effects of the para grass Urochloa mutica. By trapping along the ecotone gradient, abundance and location were used to determine primary habitat. It is concluded that the majority of herpetofauna species are more abundant in the woodland than in the margin or floodplain. This benefits the management treatments done to the floodplain by alleviating loss through the confirmation of larger populations in adjacent woodlands. A few species, however, associated mostly with the floodplain were identified such as Lampropholis delicata and Litoria fallax. These species could face greater consequences from management techniques.

QPWS/CSIRO are experimenting with management techniques to control the spread of the invasive para grass. The effect of these treatments (burning and grazing) on the keelback snake (Tropidonophis mairii) during the wet season was studied by setting up aquatic traps in the floodplain in paddocks each with a different para grass treatment. The results found that snakes are more abundant in undisturbed, or control sites. This presents questions concerning the consequences of the weed vs. those of the management practice.

A final study was done on the relation between Tropidonophis mairii and cane toads Bufo marinus, finding that despite the availability of cane toads, keelbacks selectively avoid them in their diet. Keelbacks are known to consume the toxic cane toad, but this defined preference for other individuals, shows that they are not a viable biological control method for the quickly expanding cane toad population.


This guide assembles a selection of UCLA Library's primary source holdings in Chicana and Chicano history and is intended as a starting place to point researchers to significant collections that cover the history of Mexicans in North America.


The equilibrium shape and stability of menisci formed at the contact line between two vertically aligned cylinders were investigated by developing a general bifurcation analysis from the classic equation of Young-Laplace. It was found that the maximum amount of liquid that can be held at the contact line is determined by the existence of a bifurcation of the equilibrium solutions. The onset of instability is characterized by a translationally symmetric bifurcation that always precedes the instability to asymmetric perturbations. The maximum stable liquid retention is a strong function of the ratio of gravitational to surface-tension forces, indicating that gravity acts as a destabilizing force. The effect of contact angle on the maximum liquid retention is more complex: when the gravitational effects are small, an increase in contact angle results in a decrease in liquid retention; on the other hand, when the gravitational effects are appreciable, a maximum value of the liquid retention is obtained for intermediate values of the contact angle.


Historically, many sonification designs that have been used for data analysis purposes have been based on data characteristics and have not been explicitly based on the listener's task. These sonification designs have often been described as annoying, confusing, or fatiguing. In the absence of a generally accepted theoretical framework for sonification design, there is a need for improvements in sonification design as well as a need for empirical evaluation of taskbased sonification designs. This research focuses on surface electromyography (sEMG) sonification and two sEMG data analysis tasks: determining which of two muscles contracts first and which of two muscles exhibits a higher exertion level. Both of these tasks were analyzed using a task analysis technique known as GOMS (Goals, Operators, Methods, Selection Rules) and two sonification designs were created based on the results of these task analyses. Two Data-based sEMG sonification designs were then taken from the sEMG sonification literature, and the four designs (2 Task-based and 2 Data-based) were empirically compared. Significant effects of sonification design on listener performance were found, with listeners scoring more accurately using the Task-based sonification designs. Based on these results, we argue for wider application of task analysis methods to sonification design and for the inclusion of task analysis methods into a generally accepted theoretical framework for sonification design.


Background. The effects of climate change are increasingly altering patterns of precipitation, temperature increase and longer droughts, which directly impacts the quality of habitat and resources for the maintenance of wildlife populations. Objective. To design and test a management area that will help to reduce wildlife vulnerability during the critical dry season. Methodology. In Wildlife Management Unit (UMA) "Cano Cruz", in Campeche, Mexico, was evaluated a management plot for wildlife maintenance during dry season (December 2014- June 2015). The management plot had an area of three hectares, providing a water troughs and food resources such as corn, sorghum, pumpkin, among others. At the same time, he worked at an adjacent area of preserved vegetation (control site), five camera traps at both sites were installed for the monitoring of birds and mammals. To establish differences in the presence and use of water and food resources, the Relative Abundance Index was estimated monthly and several statistical tests were applied (Shapiro-Wilk, t-Student, Mann-Whitney U and Square Chi). Results. In the site of preserved vegetation, 74 individuals of three species of birds and 135 individuals of eight mammal's species were registered, while management plot, 2,575 individuals of 24 bird species and 1,033 individuals of 14 mammal species were recorded. The management plot proved to be an important site during dry season, to maintenance of wildlife species, such as Ocellated Turkey (Meleagris ocellata), White-winged Dove (Zenaida asiatica), Melodious Blackbird (Dives dives), Yucatán Brown Brocket (Mazama pandora), White-nosed Coati (Nasua narica) and Raccoon (Procyon lotor). Conclusion. In the face of higher temperatures and increasingly prolonged droughts in the Yucatan Peninsula, the management plot constitutes an important alternative to implement in community territories, managed under the UMA scheme, since it reduces vulnerability of priority species of birds and mammals.


This study explores the determinants of income diversification using a sample of 200 farm-level data collected from households in the Garu-Tampane district, Ghana. The Simpson Index of Diversification was used to determine the extent of income diversification while Fractional Response Model, particularly Generalized Linear Model (GLM) was employed to identify the determinants of income diversification. Results from the Simpson Index of Diversification showed that the average income diversification index was 0.65 with the minimum and maximum of 0.13 and 0.83, respectively. No farm household was found to depend solely on a single source of income for its survival. The results from the Generalized Linear Model revealed that extension services, attendance to demonstration fields, membership of Farmer-based Organizations (FBOs), farmer accessibility to credit, the number of days spent on on-farm activities per month and the number of years in maize farming significantly influence income diversification. The study, therefore, concludes that farm-level policies geared towards alternative sources of income for the rural farm household should focus on improving extension services, the formation of farmer-based organizations, use of demonstration fields as well as ensuring farmers' accessibility to credit.


Binding free energy calculation of a ligand to a protein receptor is a fundamental objective in drug discovery. Molecular mechanics/Generalized-Born (Poisson-Boltzmann) surface area (MM/GB(PB)SA) is one of the most popular methods for binding free energy calculations. It is more accurate than most scoring functions and more computationally efficient than alchemical free energy methods. Several open-source tools for performing MM/GB(PB)SA calculations have been developed, but they have limitations and high entry barriers to users. Here, we introduce Uni-GBSA, a user-friendly automatic workflow to perform MM/GB(PB)SA calculations, which can perform topology preparation, structure optimization, binding free energy calculation and parameter scanning for MM/GB(PB)SA calculations. It also offers a batch mode that evaluates thousands of molecules against one protein target in parallel for efficient application in virtual screening. The default parameters are selected after systematic testing on the PDBBind-2011 refined dataset. In our case studies, Uni-GBSA produced a satisfactory correlation with the experimental binding affinities and outperformed AutoDock Vina in molecular enrichment. Uni-GBSA is available as an open-source package at https://github.com/dptech-corp/Uni-GBSA. It can also be accessed for virtual screening from the Hermite web platform at https://hermite.dp.tech. A free Uni-GBSA web server of a lab version is available at https://labs.dp.tech/projects/uni-gbsa/. This increases user-friendliness because the web server frees users from package installations and provides users with validated workflows for input data and parameter settings, cloud computing resources for efficient job completions, a user-friendly interface and professional support and maintenance.


Introduction: Various methods have been described for intermaxillary fixation (IMF) for treatment of faciomaxillary injuries. Many studies have been described to evaluate the efficacy of different methods. Hanger plate method has not been commonly used. The aim of the present study was to compare the advantages and disadvantages of this method over Erich arch bar in mandibular fracture. Materials and Methods: Sixty patients of only mandibular fracture presenting to trauma center requiring open reduction and internal fixation under general anesthesia were randomly allocated to Group A and Group B comprising thirty patients in each. Group A included patients who received IMF with Erich arch bar. Group B included patients who received IMF with hanger plate method. The two groups were compared for time duration of intermaxillary procedure, total duration of surgery, oral hygiene score, postoperative occlusion, and complications. Results: The average time of intermaxillary procedure, total duration of surgery, and wire prick injuries were more in Group A. Oral hygiene score was significantly better in Group B. Postoperative occlusion was comparable between the two groups. There was screw loosening in four patients in Group B, but none had tooth root injury. The cost of material for IMF was more in Group B. Conclusion: IMF with hanger plate method is more safe and efficacious compared to Erich arch bar in the treatment of mandibular fractures.


The aim of this research was to develop and evaluate gastric floating tablets of salbutamol sulphate. The oral delivery of anti-asthmatic salbutamol sulphate tablets were facilitated by preparing floating dosage form which could increase its absorption in the stomach by increasing the gastric residence time of the drug. Floating tablets were formulated by using different polymers like carbopol, xanthan gum, HPMC-K4 MCR and HPMC- K100 MCR with different proportions. A comparative study of normal effervescent tablets of salbutamol sulphate had also been done. The prepared tablets were evaluated for all their physicochemical properties and in vitro buoyancy study. In vitro dissolution studies of the formulations were done in pH 6.8 phosphate buffer using USP apparatus 2 (paddle method) at 50 rpm. Percent drug release of the formulations (F-1 to F-11) was from 87.34%- 99.12% after 12 hours. From the results, F-11 was selected as an optimized formulation based on 12 h drug release which showed minimal floating lag time and maximum floating time. On the other hand, 100% drug was released within 2 hours from the F-12 of effervescent salbutamol sulphate tablets in which polymer was absent while gas generating sodium bicarbonate and citric acid were present. The results of the study were consistent and may encourage formulating similar dosage form with other drugs. Dhaka Univ. J. Pharm. Sci. 15(2): 203-208, 2016 (December)


UDP-GlcNAc:alpha3-D-mannoside beta-1,2-N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase I (GnTI; EC 22.214.171.124) is a medial-Golgi enzyme that is essential for the processing of oligomannose to hybrid and complex N-glycans. On the basis of highly conserved sequences obtained from previously cloned mammalian GnTI genes, cDNAs for two closely related GnTI isoenzymes were isolated from a Xenopus laevis ovary cDNA library. As typical for glycosyltransferases, both proteins exhibit a type II transmembrane protein topology with a short N-terminal cytoplasmic tail (4 amino acids); a transmembrane domain of 22 residues; a stem region with a length of 81 (isoenzyme A) and 77 (isoenzyme B) amino acids, respectively; and a catalytic domain consisting of 341 residues. The two proteins differ not only in length but also at 13 (stem) and 18 (catalytic domain) positions, respectively. The overall identity of the catalytic domains of the X. laevis GnTI isoenzymes with their mammalian and plant orthologues ranges from 30% (Nicotiana tabacum) to 67% (humans). Isoenzymes A and B are encoded by two separate genes that were both found to be expressed in all tissues examined, albeit in varying amounts and ratios. On expression of the cDNAs in the baculovirus/insect cell system, both isoenzymes were found to exhibit enzymatic activity. Isoenzyme B is less efficiently folded in vivo and thus appears of lower physiological relevance than isoenzyme A. However, substitution of threonine at position 223 with alanine was sufficient to confer isoenzyme B with properties similar to those observed for isoenzyme A.


We explore electronic transport in a nanotube quantum dot strongly coupled with vibrations and weakly with leads and the thermal environment. We show that the recent observation of anomalous conductance signatures in single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) quantum dots can be understood quantitatively in terms of current driven `hot phonons' that are strongly correlated with electrons. Using rate equations in the many-body configuration space for the joint electron-phonon distribution, we argue that the variations are indicative of strong electron-phonon coupling requiring an analysis beyond the traditional uncorrelated phonon-assisted transport (Tien-Gordon) approach.


Abstract Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the relative contribution of physical symptoms and physical functioning to depression in adult patients with heart failure during hospitalization and the early postdischarge period. Design: An exploratory, correlational longitudinal design was used. Patients: The sample included 170 subjects with heart failure. Results: Subjects' mean scores on the depression scale indicated that subjects were not depressed on average; however, 30% of the sample (n = 52) had scores indicative of clinical depression. Both physical symptoms (r = 0.48) and physical functioning (r = –0.32) were moderately correlated with depression. Physical symptoms contributed 13% uniquely to the variance in depression while physical functioning contributed only 2% uniquely to the variance in depression. Multiple regression analyses indicated that physical symptomatology is more closely related to depression than is physical functioning in adults with heart failure. Conclusions: This study showed the patients with heart failure who had increased physical symptoms and poorer physical functioning reported increased symptoms of depression. Physical symptoms explained a greater portion of the variance in depression than did physical functioning. Thus, it appears that patients with heart failure are affected emotionally by both their physical symptoms and their limitations in their physical functioning, but depression is more strongly related to having more physical symptoms than having greater limitations in physical functioning. (Heart Lung® 2001;30:98-104.)


Objectives: First, to assess patient-relevant outcomes of delivered cardiovascular care by focusing on disease management as determined by a multidisciplinary Heart Team. Second, to establish and share best practices by comparing outcomes. Third, to embed value-based decision-making to improve quality and efficiency in Dutch heart centers. Methods: In 2014, twelve Dutch heart centers pooled patient-relevant outcome data, which resulted in transparent publication of the outcomes, including long-term followup up to five years, of approximately 86 000 heart patients. This study presents the results of both diseaseand treatment patient-relevant outcome measures for coronary artery disease (CAD) and aortic valve disease (AVD). The patients included were presented to a Heart Team and underwent invasive or operative treatment. Inhospital and out-of-hospital patient-relevant outcome measures were collected as well as initial conditions. Quality of life was assessed using the Short Form (SF)-36 or SF-12 health survey. Results & Discussion: In the Netherlands, patient-relevant and risk-adjusted outcomes of cardiovascular care in participating heart centers are published annually. Data were sufficiently reliable to enable comparisons and to subtract best practices. The statistically lower risk-adjusted mortality rate after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) resulted in a voluntary roll-out of a peroperative safety check. The in-depth analysis of outcomes after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) resulted in process improvements in several heart centers, such as pre-hydration for patients with renal insufficiency and the need of target vessel revascularizations within a year. Conclusion: Annual data collection on follow-up of patient-relevant outcomes of cardiovascular care initiated and organized by physicians, appears feasible. Transparent publication of outcomes drives improvement of quality within heart centers. The system of using a limited set of patient-relevant outcome measures enables reliable comparisons and exposes the quality of decision-making and operational process. Transparent communication on outcomes is feasible, safe and cost-effective and stimulates professional decision making and disease management.


Abstract. In this study, five on-board microcosm experiments were performed in the subtropical gyre, the Kuroshio Extension region of the northwest Pacific Ocean (NWPO), and the Yellow Sea (YS) in order to investigate phytoplankton growth following the addition of artificially modified mineral dust (AM dust) and various nutrients (nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), iron (Fe), N + P, and N + P + Fe). The two experiments carried out with AM-dust addition in the subtropical gyre showed a maximum chlorophyll a (Chl a) concentration increase of 1.7- and 2.8-fold, while the cell abundance of large-sized phytoplankton ( >  5 µm) showed a 1.8- and 3.9-fold increase, respectively, relative to the controls. However, in the Kuroshio Extension region and the YS, the increases in maximum Chl a and cell abundance of large-sized phytoplankton following AM-dust addition were at most 1.3-fold and 1.7-fold larger than those in the controls, respectively. A net conversion efficiency index (NCEI) newly proposed in this study, size-fractionated Chl a, and the abundance of large-sized phytoplankton were analysed to determine which nutrients contribute to supporting phytoplankton growth. Our results demonstrate that a combination of nutrients, N–P or N + P + Fe, is responsible for phytoplankton growth in the subtropical gyre following AM-dust addition. Single nutrient addition, i.e., N in the Kuroshio Extension region and P or N in the YS, controls the phytoplankton growth following AM-dust addition. In the AM-dust-addition experiments, in which the increased N–P or P was identified to determine phytoplankton growth, the dissolved inorganic P from AM dust (8.6 nmol L−1) was much lower than the theoretically estimated minimum P demand (∼ 20 nmol L−1) for phytoplankton growth. These observations suggest that additional supply augments the bioavailable P stock in incubated seawater with AM-dust addition, most likely due to an enhanced solubility of P from AM dust or the remineralization of the dissolved organic P.


Congestion pricing (CP) ensures that travelers recognize the true travel-time costs of their trip- making by accounting for the cost of delays imposed on fellow road users. Credit-based congestion pricing (CBCP) is a novel strategy which seeks to overcome the negative equity impacts of CP by allocating monthly budgets to eligible travelers to spend on congestion tolls. Previous works on CBCP have surveyed public opinion and examined the traffic and travel-welfare impacts of an Austin, Texas, application. This paper develops the CBCP policy further, examining expert opinions and system cost prediction. Transport economists, toll technology experts, administrators, policymakers, and commercial interests were surveyed for feedback on credit distribution, revenue uses, public reaction, appropriate technology and configuration, enforcement issues, and system-wide economic, land use, and business impacts. The results of this work are detailed recommendations for CBCP implementation, including estimates of administrative and technology costs for implementation of a CBCP policy in the Austin region.


This paper presents a study of the reaction wheel momentum desaturation and attitude control under actuator failure using thrusters torque for rigid earth pointing microsatellite. In order to solve the both problems reaction wheels saturation and attitude control, we propose a new fuzzy logic damping and attitude controller using pulse width modulation (PWM) cold-gas thruster (FDACT) and compared to the optimal controller based on infinite linear quadratic regulator (ILQR). Comparison of these approaches are performed to evaluate the performance of the control system during accurate nadir pointing control in terms of attitude error, minimum time and less energy consumption. The simulation results prove and illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller and its robustness under actuator failure.


Findings of previous studies have shown that the identification of the responsible nerve when removing a parapharyngeal space neurinoma and the preservation of nerve functions are difficult. These processes are however crucial for both surgeons and patients during parapharyngeal space neurinoma surgery. The Nerve Integrity Monitoring System (NIM-Response ® 3.0 -, Medtronic, USA) has been recognized as a useful tool for surgery of parotid and thyroid glands, and for detecting and preserving the facial nerve and recurrent laryngeal nerve or superior laryngeal nerve. In the present study, we used the NIM system in the treatment of 3 cases of parapharyngeal space neurinomas. Two vagal neurinomas were successfully removed and the vagal nerve function was preserved by an intracapsular resection of the neurinoma using the NIM system, and one sympathetic neurinoma was resected for the contamination of the nerve in the tumor: the sympathetic nerve was repaired with a greater auricular neuronal graft. The NIM system showed good results in identifying the responsible nerve and assisting with preserving the functions of both the responsible and surrounding nerves in these 3 parapharyngeal space neurinoma surgeries.


Higher education institutions are the places from where the societies base the information, deliver and apply it. Moreover, it is the place where the people who are required to bring innovations with required abilities, skills and attitudes are trained. Forming a network between the small and middle sized companies (SMSC) and higher education institutions in Turkey might present some opportunities which are not easily available for economy, society and higher education. However, to implement such a social structure the government and some of the institutions need to have some changes in their attitudes. This study has aimed to develop some solutions for the problems and incompetency of higher education and the SMSC in Turkey. The project named "Acquiring Enterprising Skills Project" can be started in one region at first, and then it can be applied throughout the country by having coordination between the institutions. That kind of coordination might be a solution for the students in higher education to have some experience related to the sector in their major, and it might be a solution for the SMSC for the problems related to creativity, research and development planning, management, manufacturing, marketing, efficiency, effectiveness, and experts.


Background: CD4+CD25+ forkhead box P3 (FOXP3)+ regulatory T cells (Tregs) accumulate in malignant tumors and negatively regulate antitumor immunity. However, the clinical significance of Tregs in HCC remains unclear. To determine the prognostic value of Tregs, we conducted a retrospective study on 264 patients with Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) stage B hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) who underwent transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE). Methods: We measured the proportion of peripheral blood Tregs in 105 healthy donors and 264 HCC patients (stage B) prior to and following TACE between 2005 and 2007. All HCC patients were followed up until December 2012. The correlations between the proportion of Tregs and clinicopathologic factors were analyzed, and long-term survival rate after TACE according to the percentage of Tregs was assessed by univariate and multivariate analyses. Results: The 1-, 2-, 3-, 4and 5-year cumulative survival rates were 62.1%, 32.6%, 16.5%, 10.4% and 6.9%, respectively, and the median survival time was 19.0 months. The cumulative survival rate was significantly lower in patients with higher levels of peripheral blood Treg cells compared to those with lower Treg levels (p < 0.001). Furthermore, we found that both preand post-TACE peripheral blood Treg levels showed significant negative association with overall survival time (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Elevated peripheral blood CD4+CD25+FOXP3+Treg levels are an independent predictive factor of poor survival after TACE for HCC (stage B) patients. These results suggest that targeting Tregs may improve patient outcomes, and provide a strong rationale for testing these approaches in future immunotherapy-based clinical trials.


STAT3 plays a protective role against ischemic brain injury; however, it is not clear which brain cell type mediates this effect, and by which mechanism. We tested the hypothesis that endothelial STAT3 contributes to protection from cerebral ischemia, by preserving cerebrovascular endothelial function and blood–brain barrier (BBB) integrity. The objective of this study was to determine the role of STAT3 in cerebrovascular endothelial cell (EC) survival and function, and its role in tissue outcome after cerebral ischemia. We found that in primary mouse brain microvascular ECs, STAT3 was constitutively active, and its phosphorylation was reduced by oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD), recovering after re-oxygenation. STAT3 inhibition, using two mechanistically different pharmacological inhibitors, increased EC injury after OGD. The sub-lethal inhibition of STAT3 caused endothelial dysfunction, demonstrated by reduced nitric oxide release in response to acetylcholine and reduced barrier function of the endothelial monolayer. Finally, mice with reduced endothelial STAT3 (Tie2-Cre; STAT3flox/wt) sustained larger brain infarcts after middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) compared to wild-type (WT) littermates. We conclude that STAT3 is vital to maintaining cerebrovascular integrity, playing a role in EC survival and function, and protection against cerebral ischemia. Endothelial STAT3 may serve as a potential target in preventing endothelial dysfunction after stroke.


The origin of sustained current oscillations at the Si/electrolyte contact is not fully understood. Oscillatory functions are regarded which describe the oscillating oxide thickness at the silicon electrode. We consider an initially vanishing two-dimensional time dependent function which oscillates between a minimum and a maximum oxide thickness at each location of the electrode. The function is continuous except at single points of the electrode at which the oxide thickness drops deeply due to the formation of nanopores in the oxide. The oscillatory function is represented by a set of infinite (infinitesimal) oscillators. The mathematical model is based on the fact that it is sufficient to register the oscillators only one time per i-th cycle at their minimum or when the phase of the oscillator equals i 2π. In phase-space representation, the passing of the phase trough the i 2π planes leads to oscillator density functions pi(t) which define the (differential) number of oscillators passing their minimum at the i-th time at the time t. Two consecutive oscillator density functions are connected by an integral equation representing a Markov process. Together with a local model for the oxide microstructure, a fit of the model parameter to the measured current is possible. The result is that the existence of two types of oxides (with different nanopore densities) can explain sustained current oscillations and, further, it is possible to calculate the mean nanopore distance in both types of oxide.


The growth and photosynthetic characteristics of cherry tomato seedlings were investigated under seven light irradiations such as dysprosium lamps (white light; control, C), red light emitting diodes (LEDs) (R), blue LEDs (B), orange LEDs (O), green LEDs (G), red and blue LEDs (RB) and red, blue and green LEDs (RBG) with the same photosynthetic photon flux density (about 320 μmol m-2 s-1) for 30 days. Morphological appearances of seedlings were significantly different between light treatments, that is, the plants under RB and RBG were shorter and stronger than those under C, while those under O, G and R were higher and weaker. The higher carbohydrate contents were in plants containing blue treatment, B, RB and RBG. Photosynthetic pigments were shown to have significant difference under respective light irradiations of LEDs. The higher photosynthetic pigments were in leaves of seedlings containing blue light treatment, RBG, RB, B, C and G treatments, the lower the pigments were in those with R and O treatments. Net photosynthesis (Pn) was the highest in leaves of seedlings with RB and RBG and the lowest in those with G. Compared with C treatment, light compensation point and light saturation point of seedlings with R, RB and RBG increased, but those with O and G decreased. Electron transport rate (ETR), quantum efficiency of photosystem II photochemistry (ΦPSII), photochemical quenching (qP) and efficiency of excitation energy capture by open PSII reaction centres (Fv′/Fm′) in seedlings with B, RB and RBG treatments were significantly greater than those of the other treatments. Taken together, RB and RBG of LEDs were shown to be beneficial factors for the growth and photosynthesis in cherry tomato seedlings. Key words : Light-emitting diode (LED), light quality, cherry tomato, growth, photosynthetic characteristics.


The purpose of this study was to assess NIRS method to classify mango cv Arumanis based on its internal quality during cold storage. Reflectances of mango at harvest date (H0), 12 days of storage (H12), and 22 days of storage were measured by using NIRflex Spectrometer at wavelengths of 1000-2500 nm, followed by measurement of physico chemical properties of mango (total soluble solid, total acid, TSS-acid ratio, firmness and weight loss). Unsupervised Principal component analysis (PCA) and pre treatment NIR spectra were performed on NIR spectra to classify mango (H0, H12, H22) and mahalanobis distance was used to validate the results. The result showed that reflectances of mango decreased during storage indicating the increase of NIR absorption by internal compounds of mango. TSS, TSS-acid ratio, and weight loss increased during storage as total acid and firmness decreased. NIRS and PCA analysis with pretreatment of quantile normalization and smoothing, and mahalanobis distance parameter could classify mango of 0, 12 and 22 days of storage based on its internal quality with accuracy of 87 %.


Time-domain training criteria have proven to be very effective for the separation of single-channel non-reverberant speech mixtures. Likewise, mask-based beamforming has shown impressive performance in multi-channel reverberant speech enhancement and source separation. Here, we propose to combine neural network supported multi-channel source separation with a time-domain training objective function. For the objective we propose to use a convolutive transfer function invariant Signal-to-Distortion Ratio (CI-SDR) based loss. While this is a well-known evaluation metric (BSS Eval), it has not been used as a training objective before. To show the effectiveness, we demonstrate the performance on LibriSpeech based reverberant mixtures. On this task, the proposed system approaches the error rate obtained on single-source non-reverberant input, i.e., LibriSpeech test clean, with a difference of only 1.2 percentage points, thus outperforming a conventional permutation invariant training based system and alternative objectives like Scale Invariant Signal-to-Distortion Ratio by a large margin.


PURPOSE
To assess dose rates in volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) plans.

METHODS
For dose rate analysis, using Monte Carlo methods, dose distributions are calculated in sectors of consecutive DICOM control points and each multiplied with the MU-rate obtaining dose rate distributions for every voxel at every time-point during a treatment fraction. Dose rate distributions were calculated for a clinical head and neck, cranial (2 Gy fraction dose) and a SBRT liver treatment case (5 Gy per fraction). To assess optimizer influence on dose rate distributions, five conventionally fractionated head and neck cases were optimized using the progressive resolution optimizer (PRO) versions 2 and 3 (Varian Medical Systems, Palo Alto, CA).

RESULTS
Firstly, histograms of dose rates over the course of treatment delivery in volumes of interest were generated for the PTV and spine or brainstem of the clinical treatment plans. Secondly, dose rates were assessed as color wash overlay on top of CT slices, allowing the user to explore the dose rate variation over time. For the cases considered, dose rates were spread out over a continuous spectrum with a mean value in the lower half. PRO3 generated plans showed higher maximum dose rates compared to PRO2 (699.80 cGy/min vs. 543.46 cGy/min) and modulation of MU rates in blocks as opposed to gradual modulation.

CONCLUSION
Calculation and visualization of dose rate distributions in VMAT have been performed. Dose rates in clinical relevant VMAT cases are spread out over a continuous spectrum with a mean in the lower part for both conventional and SBRT test cases. Different optimization algorithms may lead to substantially different dose rate distributions in the same cases. The development of the Swiss Monte Carlo Plan framework has been partially supported by Varian Medical Systems.


Aristolochic acids (AAs) contained in herbal plants are implicated in multiple organ injuries and have a high mutational burden in upper tract urothelial cancers. The currently available techniques for monitoring AAs include LC (liquid chromatography) and LC/MS (mass spectrometry), but the application of these approaches are limited due to the complex sample preparation and derivatization steps. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop efficient methods for identifying and quantifying AAs. Here, we present a new dual-spectroscopic approach for the direct detection of AAs from blood and tissue samples; the detection of aristolochic acid I (AAI) is performed by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), and its bioproduct, aristololactam (AAT), is detected by fluorescence spectroscopy based on their distinctive spectral response. Furthermore, a graphene assisted enrichment coupled with a magnetic retrieval strategy was developed to enhance SERS sensitivity toward AAI. Our method was successfully applied to directly determine both AAI and AAT from the blood, liver, and kidney of rats. The potential for real-world application was demonstrated by continuously monitoring AAI and AAT in rat blood and tissues after AAI feeding. The results showed that AAI was gradually metabolized to AAT and transported to different organs. It was found that the metabolism of AAI took place in the kidney, but AAT residue was detected in both liver and kidney, which might be related to long-term toxicity and gene mutation. The proposed dual-spectroscopic strategy is applicable to long-term toxicology research and to the direct diagnosis of AAI-induced organ injury.


Attending to cultural diversity is important for products and technology intended for global placement, such as automobiles, yet many products (and associated interfaces) lack genuine cultural differentiation. For example, in-vehicle navigation systems are typically identical in form and function across world markets, differing only in the local language and map database. To capture and explore culturally-salient design factors, we utilised a scenario-based design methodology, involving 6 experienced drivers from the UK and Malaysia. Participants were asked to portray their ideal navigation system interface designs – by drawing pictograms and devising accompanying spoken messages – to direct drivers along 3 prescribed routes in the UK, Malaysia and Japan. Routes were presented using video and paper maps, with the order of presentation counterbalanced between groups; participants were not told in advance from which country each route was derived. Proposed designs highlight differences at a country level, which are consequently interpreted from a cultural perspective. For example, Malaysian drivers included a higher density of navigational elements in their designs, particularly in their home environment, compared to UK drivers. Malaysian drivers also created more incremental designs, particularly on the approach to a manoeuvre, suggesting a desire for greater navigational support at this point in the journey. Landmarks were consistently incorporated in designs, but differences were noted in cultural salience. Additionally, the phrasing of instructions (e.g. "go straight on"), nomenclature for road elements (e.g. 'roundabout') and distance declaration conventions (e.g. units) differed at a country level. The findings can be used to inform the design of culturally-attuned in-vehicle navigation systems.


Since the First World War the replacement of gasoline by sugarcane-derived ethanol was considered the preferred mechanism to resolve the chronic trade deficit problem in the Brazilian economy. The production of fuel was monopolized by the government and several short-term initiatives to mandate the blend of ethanol into gasoline had unsuccessful resulted, mainly due to the lack of quality of the gasohol produced and the inadequacy of engines designed to use gasoline only. Finally by 1975 the PROALCOOL program was launched. "PROALCOOL," which means "pro-alcohol," is considered to be the most successful biomass program worldwide. Crude oil price increases by OPEC worked as a powerful impetus in the push for fuel independence. When crude oil reached the level of $35.00 per barrel, the shift from gasoline to ethanol became economically justified. Part of the success of this breakthrough should be credited to society which financed the experimentation phases of the program's development. The study demonstrated why factors like social costs, biomass selection, climate, field productivity, past experience, and, above all, a serious political decision were key elements to reach crude oil independence, which can be used as benchmark to freedom other economies.


One of the most discussed effects of economic activity on the environment is climate change caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHG). Developing countries have increased their importance as emitters of GHG and increasingly, it has become necessary that these countries also contribute to curbing emissions. Brazil already has taken the first step in this direction at conferences in Copenhagen and Cancun, to confirm voluntary national targets to reduce GHG emissions. Brazil faces the dual challenge of promoting development and reducing GHG emissions. In this context, This paper aims to study alternatives to reduce price-induced emissions policies such as a carbon tax and its impact on the share of emissions related to the use fuels and productive activity. The distributive impact on households, for example, is a new result in Brazil's literature. There are many examples of national policies already in place that could serve as an example to the proposition of similar schemes in Brazil.

In methodological terms, we used a dynamic recursive general equilibrium model, built for the Brazilian economy, called "BeGreen." The model presents energy and environmental detail, specially trained for the analysis of GHG reduction policies on the economy. The model is innovative in many ways. It has a high breakdown of energy sectors and products. It incorporates recursive dynamic mechanisms and presents different energy and environmental specification.

The results indicate that ambitious emissions reduction should be associated with longer periods of time, with less ambitious goals for shorter periods. In terms of the effects on income classes, the carbon tax is moderately regressive, even when considering the return of revenue via subsidizing consumption of all households. If the aim is to make more progressive policy, then compensation policies via income for the poorest deciles may be the solution


The effect of selective metallation of free-base ionic porphyrin tectons on the structural, electronic, and optical properties of their crystalline self-assemblies is presented. Rod-like crystals were prepared under neutral pH conditions by combining meso-tetra(N-methyl-pyridyl)porphyrin, H2TMPyP, and meso-tetra(4-sulfonatophenyl)porphyrin, H2TSPP, with either a nickel or a copper ion contained in one of the synthons. These materials were characterized by optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction methods, thermogravimetric analysis, diffuse reflectance UV-visible and luminescence spectroscopies, and conductivity and photoconductivity measurements. All the porphyrin assemblies formed monoclinic P21/c crystals with pseudo-hexagonal cross-sections. Thermogravimetric experiments indicate that water molecules associated with crystals desorb at two different rates. In addition, temperature dependent XRD showed that the dehydration of the porphyrin solids causes modification in the crystals which is completely reversible up to 100 °C annealing (i.e., crystals return to their original structural geometry upon rehydration). All the metallated porphyrin crystals exhibit dark conductivity at moderately high temperatures and become more conductive upon photoexcitation. The photoresponse of the H2TMPyP:CuTSPP-substituted crystals is significantly higher than that of the CuTMPyP:H2TSPP and the Ni-substituted crystals. The Cu-substituted systems, like the parent free-base, exhibit persistent photoconductivity resulting from excitations into the Q and Soret bands. The primary charge carriers in these solids upon photoexcitation are electrons and the charge recombination mechanism follows monomolecular kinetics. Quantum mechanical calculations provide the electronic band structure and the density of states and explain the experimental prompt photoconductivity measurements of the porphyrin self-assemblies. This work provides evidence that optoelectronic properties of organic semiconductors can be effectively tuned by introducing transition metals into their crystal structures.


Cu-Catalyzed oxidative 1 : 2 couplings of arynes with nucleophilic terminal alkynes under aerobic conditions are described herein. A mechanistic investigation revealed a plausible involvement of an aryl-Cu(iii)-generating pathway. By this method, ubiquitous arenediynes can be efficiently assembled in a single step under mild conditions.


Hepatitis C virus (HCV) has been associated with acute and chronic posttransfusion and with sporadic non-A non-B (NANB) hepatitis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Cloning of the sequence encoding an antigenic component of HCV in 1989 led to the development of tests to detect antibody to HCV in serum. Viral HCV RNA can be detected and estimated with polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and branched-chain DNA (bDNA) signal amplification tests. The entire viral genome has been sequenced. The HCV envelope region varies considerably, and infections with mutant HCV have been described. Approximately 0.5-1.5% of healthy blood donors test positive, and HCV infection can be acquired by blood transfusion or i.v. drug abuse. Vertical and sexual transmission of the virus is rare, and the transmission mode remains obscure in a large group of patients. Acute hepatitis C is mild and often asymptomatic. Chronic hepatitis C has an indolent course but may progress to cirrhosis and HCC. Recombinant alpha interferon (IF) is used to treat chronic HCV disease, but no consensus has been reached on patient selection, dose, and duration of treatment. Approximately 50% of treated patients respond, but 50-80% of responders relapse over time. Liver transplantation in patients with end-stage, HCV-related liver disease is often followed by allograft infection. Short-term survival with reinfection is good, but the long-term consequences remain to be defined.


Microwave detection techniques based on the theory of perturbation of cavity resonators are commonly used to measure the permittivity and permeability of objects of dielectric and ferrite materials at microwave frequencies. When a small object is introduced into a microwave cavity resonator, the resonant frequency is perturbed. Since it is possible to measure the change in frequency with high accuracy, this provides a valuable method for measuring the electric and magnetic properties of the object. Likewise, these microwave resonators can be used as sensors for sorting dielectric objects. Techniques based upon this principle are in common use for measuring the dielectric and magnetic properties of materials at microwave frequencies for variety of applications. This thesis presents an approach of using Artificial Neural Networks to detect material change in a rectangular cavity. The method is based on the theory of the perturbation of cavity resonators where a change in the resonant frequencies of the cavity is directly proportional to the dielectric constant of the inserted objects. A rectangular cavity test fixture was built and excited with a monopole antenna. The cavity was filled with different materials, and the reflection coefficient of each material was measured over a wide range of frequencies. An intelligent systems approach using an artificial neural network (ANN) methodology was implemented for the automatic material change detection. To develop an automatic detection model, a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) was designed with one hidden layer and gradient descent back-propagation (BP) learning algorithm was used for the ANN training. The network training process was performed in an off-line mode, and after the training process was accomplished, the model was able to learn the rules without knowing any algorithm for automatic detection.


Abstract Power is the most important variable in world politics, but scholars and policy analysts systematically mismeasure it. Most studies evaluate countries' power using broad indicators of economic and military resources, such as gross domestic product and military spending, that tally their wealth and military assets without deducting the costs they pay to police, protect, and serve their people. As a result, standard indicators exaggerate the wealth and military power of poor, populous countries, such as China and India. A sounder approach accounts for these costs by measuring power in net rather than gross terms. This approach predicts war and dispute outcomes involving great powers over the past 200 years more accurately than those that use gross indicators of power. In addition, it improves the in-sample goodness-of-fit in the majority of studies published in leading journals over the past five years. Applying this improved framework to the current balance of power suggests that the United States' economic and military lead over other countries is much larger than typically assumed, and that the trends are mostly in America's favor.


The Brazilian Group for Computer Music Research (NUCOM) has become renowned for its annual Brazilian Symposium on Computer Music. The author recounts the group's proto-history-the period of the 1970s and 1980s-with particular reference to the early works of Aluizio Arcela and Eduardo Miranda. The author continues his discussion to focus on NUCOM, which began to take shape in 1993 when Miranda and Geber Ramalho (one of Arcela's students) met in Paris and decided to launch a discussion list on the Web. The following year, Maurcio Loureiro chaired the First Brazilian Symposium on Computer Music, affiliating NUCOM to the Brazilian Computer Society (SBC).


A pot experiment was conducted to investigate the boron (B) bioavailability to corn seedlings (Zea mays L) in an artificial soil mix produced from alkaline coal fly ash and sewage sludge under greenhouse conditions. Sludge was amended with ash at an application rate of 0, 5, 10, 35, and 50% (w/w), and each mixture was then mixed with a loamy soil at either 1:1 or 1:5 (v/v). Both water soluble B (WS-B) and hot water soluble B (HWS-B) increased with an increase in the fly ash amendment rate. Plant tissue B contents also increased according to the rate of ash amendment, and at high ash application rates, more than 70% of the tissue B content was accumulated in leaves. Among the plant organs, B contents of young leaves showed a better correlation with HWS-B contents than with WS-B, and HWS-B gave a better indication on soil B availability. Boron toxicity symptoms in leaf margins were observed in 50% and 35% ash-amended sludge at 1:1 soil-mixing ratio, with shoot [B] reaching 225 mg kg -1 . However, a significant yield reduction was observed only at 50% ash-amended sludge at 1:1 v/v, indicating that factors in addition to B might affect plant growth.


Within the universality class of ferromagnetic vector models with O(n) symmetry and purely dissipative dynamics, we study the non-equilibrium critical relaxation from a magnetized initial state. Transverse correlation and response functions are exactly computed for Gaussian fluctuations and in the limit of infinite number n of components of the order parameter. We find that the fluctuation–dissipation ratios (FDRs) for longitudinal and transverse modes differ already at the Gaussian level. In these two exactly solvable cases we completely describe the crossover from the short-time to the long-time behaviour, corresponding to a disordered and a magnetized initial condition, respectively. The effects of non-Gaussian fluctuations on longitudinal and transverse quantities are calculated in the first order in the ϵ-expansion (ϵ = 4−d) and reliable three-dimensional estimates of the two FDRs are obtained.


Since 1993, in response to a movement sponsored by the Southern Baptist Church, over 2.5 million adolescents have taken public "virginity" pledges, in which they promise to abstain from sex until marriage. This paper explores the effect of those pledges on the transition to first intercourse. Adolescents who pledge are much less likely to have intercourse than adolescents who do not pledge. The delay effect is substantial. On the other hand, the pledge does not work for adolescents at all ages. Second, pledging delays intercourse only in contexts where there are some, but not too many, pledgers. The pledge works because it is embedded in an identity movement. Consequently, the pledge identity is meaningful only in contexts where it is at least partially nonnormative. Consequences of pledging are explored for those who break their promise. Promise breakers are less likely than others to use contraception at first intercourse.


Although several excellent reviews of how focal dermal hypoplasia (FDH) syndrome may affect various organs and organ systems such as the eyes, the bones, the teeth, and the skin have been published, the last comprehensive review of this disorder appeared more than 20 years ago. 1 In the meantime, a number of new clinical manifestations have been recognized and considerable knowledge has accumulated regarding the methods of inheritance and pathogenetic mechanisms. The purpose of this review is to gather together this more recent information. More than 200 cases of FDH have been reported in the literature or are otherwise known. Thus, the disorder is not a particularly rare one, and new cases regularly come to light in medical journals, at meetings of the American Academy of Dermatology, at local society meetings, at medical school grand rounds, and in private office practices. Most cases are seen in female subjects, but more


Aim: The aim of this longitudinal study was to analyze the relationship between sleep disorder and intimamedia thickness. Method: Baseline measurements included carotid intima-media thickness, assessed by an ultrasound device; questionnaires about sleep and other behavioral variables; physical activity was measured by pedometer; body fatness was estimated by Dual-Energy X-ray Absorptiometry; fasting glucose, lipid profile and C-reactive protein were collected. Results: The occurrence rate of sleep-related disorders was 47% (95%CI= 37.2%-56.7%). Carotid intimamedia thickness was related to symptoms of insomnia (r= 0.328 [0.141 to 0.493]) and, after adjustments for potential confounders, the relationship between carotid intima-media thickness and insomnia remained statistically significant (β= 0.121 [95%CI= 0.017; 0.225]). Conclusions: In young adults, sleep disorder was significantly related to premature increase in carotid intima-media thickness.


Ceramics samples of La1–xSrxMn0.5Ni0.5O3 (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.2) with perovskite structure have been studied by neutron diffraction method, magnetometry and magnetoresistance measurements. Structural data testify a partial order of the Ni and Mn ions in all the compounds in spite of chemical substitution of the La3+ ions by Sr2+ ones and an increase of the oxidation state of the Ni ions from 2+ towards to 3+ one. Magnetic structure of the compounds changes from ferromagnetic one (specific for the compound with x = 0) to antiferromagnetic (compounds with x ≥ 0.1) while the temperature of a transition into paramagnetic state remains about 270 K for all the samples. Magnetoresistance gradually decreases with temperature increase and strontium content. The results are discussed assuming nearly equal ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic components of the superexchange interaction Ni2+–O–Mn4+ while the interaction between Ni3+ and Mn4 ions is considered to be strongly antiferromagnetic.


Molecular dynamics simulations of cellulose have recently become more prevalent due to increased interest in renewable energy applications, and many atomistic and coarse-grained force fields exist that can be applied to cellulose. However, to date no systematic comparison between carbohydrate force fields has been conducted for this important system. To that end, we present a molecular dynamics simulation study of hydrated, 36-chain cellulose Iβ microfibrils at room temperature with three carbohydrate force fields (CHARMM35, GLYCAM06, and Gromos 45a4) up to the near-microsecond time scale. Our results indicate that each of these simulated microfibrils diverge from the cellulose Iβ crystal structure to varying degrees under the conditions tested. The CHARMM35 and GLYCAM06 force fields eventually result in structures similar to those observed at 500 K with the same force fields, which are consistent with the experimentally observed high-temperature behavior of cellulose I. The third force field, Gromos 45a4, produces behavior significantly different from experiment, from the other two force fields, and from previously reported simulations with this force field using shorter simulation times and constrained periodic boundary conditions. For the GLYCAM06 force field, initial hydrogen-bond conformations and choice of electrostatic scaling factors significantly affect the rate of structural divergence. Our results suggest dramatically different time scales for convergence of properties of interest, which is important in the design of computational studies and comparisons to experimental data. This study highlights that further experimental and theoretical work is required to understand the structure of small diameter cellulose microfibrils typical of plant cellulose.


What explains the differential growth rates that foster international income inequality? The leading sociological answers have taken conflicting positions on the assumptions of self-interest and diminishing returns that are taken for granted in the neoclassical literature. While modernization theorists traced the periphery9s inability to take advantage of diminishing returns in the core to "traditional" values that allegedly militated against savings, investment, and growth, and thus denied the universality of self-interest, their neo-Marxist successors traced underdevelopment less to the values of the poor than to the "cumulative" advantages of the rich, and thus denied the inevitability of diminishing returns. The result is a two-front assault that suffers from a serious coordination problem, and I therefore take issue with both the neoclassical accounts and their critics by, first, calling the validity of their assumptions—self-interest and diminishing returns—into question and, second, defending an alternative approach that treats the subordination of self-interest to norms of fairness, trust, and cooperation in the short run as the sine qua non of increasing returns and growth over the long run. The research challenge, therefore, is to unearth the roots of collaborative social norms in particular historical contexts—a challenge that will prove more tractable if development sociologists not only abandon the assumptions of self-interest and diminishing returns but embrace the tools and insights of the new economic sociology.


Tumor-stroma interactions play a crucial role in cancer progression by eliciting factors that promote proliferative, angiogenic, and invasive supports to the tumor microenvironment. Mesenchymal stromal/stem cells (MSC) contribute to stroma in part as cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAF), but a complete understanding of how MSC contribute to the tumor stroma is lacking. In this study, we show how CAF phenotypes rely upon MSC expression of the multifunctional cell surface glycoprotein CD44, a putative stem cell marker. Through bone marrow transplantation experiments in a transgenic mouse model of cancer, we determined that CD44 deficiency leads to a relative reduction in the contribution of bone marrow-derived cells to tumor stroma. CD44 attenuation in MSC limited their expression of CAF markers induced by tumor conditioning, and these MSC migrated poorly and provided weak angiogenic support compared with wild-type MSC. These defects were linked to deficiencies in the ability of CD44-attenuated MSC to transcriptionally upregulate Twist expression. Together, our results establish that CD44 expression contributes to critical functions in the tumor stroma.


Using the Heckscher–Ohlin–Samuelson–Vanek (HOSV) framework, this paper illustrates a relationship between corruption and the pattern of international trade that depends on the factor endowments of countries. The relationship between trade openness and corruption is empirically investigated by using a panel dataset on trade openness, corruption and capital–labor ratio, and applying estimation techniques developed for dynamic panels. The regression results provide strong support to the hypothesis that the effect of corruption on trade openness depends on relative factor abundance.


Soil contamination with radiocaesium (Cs) has a long-term radiological impact because it is readily transferred through food chains to human beings. Plant uptake is the major pathway for the migration of radiocaesium from soil to human diet. The plant-related factors that control the uptake of radiocaesium are reviewed. Of these, K supply exerts the greatest influence on Cs uptake from solution. It appears that the uptake of radiocaesium is operated mainly by two transport pathways on plant root cell membranes, namely the K(+) transporter and the K(+) channel pathway. Cationic interactions between K and Cs on isolated K-channels or K transporters are in agreement with studies using intact plants. The K(+) transporter functioning at low external potassium concentration (often <0.3 mM) shows little discrimination against Cs(+), while the K(+) channel is dominant at high external potassium concentration with high discrimination against Cs(+). Caesium has a high mobility within plants. Although radiocaesium is most likely taken up by the K transport systems within the plant, the Cs:K ratio is not uniform within the plant. Difference in internal Cs concentration (when expressed on a dry mass basis) may vary by a factor of 20 between different plant species grown under similar conditions. Phytoremediation may be a possible option to decontaminate radiocaesium-contaminated soils, but its major limitation is that it takes an excessively long time (tens of years) and produces large volumes of waste.


Isomerization process is considered one of the main processes used to produce high octane rating gasoline with improved environmental conditions and less emissions. The main keys of performance in isomerization units are the product yield, paraffin isomerization number (PIN) and octane number (RON). In this article we present a multi-response optimization strategy for an industrial naphtha continuous isomerization-process that aims to maximize RON, PIN and yield. Data of 53-runs including feed compositions as well as operating conditions; reactor temperature, benzene content, liquid hour space velocity, feed PIN, hydrogen to hydrocarbon ratio, feed octane number, C7+ content, inlet reactor temperature and iC5/C5P ratio are collected from a refinery company over a period of two months to test the effect of each variable and their interaction over each response individually using analysis of variance (ANOVA). Model reduction is applied for the three models in order to exclude any insignificant data and improve the model's accuracy. Finally, the optimum operating conditions for the process are selected using numerical optimization in Design Expert 11 by comparing with the real industrial data runs to give the maximum yield, PIN and RON which are 99.992, 122 and 86 respectively. Benzene content is selected to be 1.807 wt%, reactor temperature;143oC, LHSV; 0.882 h-1 , feed PIN; 64.611, H2 /HC; 0.07, feed RON; 74.408, C7+; 4.06 wt%, inlet reactor temperature; 116oC and iC5/C5P ratio 45.768.


Summary Competition policy has become an important topic in the context of the global trade and capital liberalization processes of the past decade. The average tariff rate on imports has decreased substantially and various non-tariff restrictions have been abolished. Barriers to trade erected by private parties have hardly been tackled, however, although these business practices can distort trade and investment flows and lead to conflicts between countries. Competition policy deals with anti-competitive business practices (sometimes called restrictive business practices). Competition laws were first introduced in the United States and later in European countries. Latin American countries have only recently adopted competition laws. The subject is complex and interdisciplinary. It combines the fields of international law, corporate law, industrial organization, innovation policy, transnational corporations, international trade and transport. Competition policy seeks to prevent companies from reducing the efficiency of market mechanisms. It is aimed at keeping firms from forming cartels or monopolies and from abusing a dominant market position and at ensuring that mergers and acquisitions and subjected to proper scrutiny. These practices often limit competition and take away incentives to excel, innovate, reduce prices and improve customer service. Anti-competitive practices mayalso act as trade barriers that distort trade and investment flows. They may reduce gl obal welfare and lead to conf l i ct s between countries. Hence, some sort of international agreement may be necessary to forestall or eliminate these new kinds of trade barriers. Such an agreement could, in addition, take the place of anti-dumping measures and thus avoid their detrimental effects. The United States was the first country to introduce competition policies. The European Union has a supranational system of competition policies that regulate anti-competitive practices, mergers and acquisitions having transborder effects. Competition laws in Latin American countries are relatively new, and their structure and wording resemble those of Western countries. Enforcement activity in these countries has, however, been less than energetic. There have been various unsuccessful attempts in the past to establish a multilateral agreement on competition policy. International organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) have studied and discussed the topic extensively. UNCTAD has been involved in many competition policy initiatives and has assisted developing countries with the introduction of suitable legislation. In addition, UNCTAD has made available a set of non-binding multilateral rules to control restrictive practices. OECD perceives competition policies as a step towards the creation of contestable markets at the international level. It recommends that all countries adopt competition policies and establish the required enforcement agencies. The OECD countries should cooperate to restrain anti-competitive practices that have effects on more than one country. Currently, competition policies are being discussed in various international organizations. The World Trade Organization (WTO) has a working group that is studying the subject, and some countries even want to establish a multilateral agreement on competition rules. Furthermore, the OECD are also studying the topic and have published several proposals. In Latin America, discussion groups are taking place on the theme. Various subregional groups, including the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), Group of Three, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) have formed working groups that are examining questions related to competition policy. The topic is also included in the preparatory work for the creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The United States does not support a new international agreement on competition policy. Instead, it advocates bilateral agreements whose scope would be confined to cooperation between national competition-policy enforcement agencies. Furthermore, the United States prefers to keep its domestic anti-dumping legislation. The European Union, on the other hand, is more enthusiastic about multilateral rules on competition policy. The European Union would also like other countries to make their courts accessible to foreign firms. The next step would be the adoption of common rules by all countries and international cooperation between enforcement agencies. The developing countries position on multilateral rules governing competition policy is more vague. Before Latin American countries commit themselves to international agreements on competition policy, they should carefully study the issue as it relates to their development needs. On the one hand, it is in their own interest to adopt competition policies. However, there are a number of as yet unanswered questions concerning the impact of competition policies on foreign direct investment. Nevertheless, certain modifications can be made in the legislation to address those concerns. For instance, exemptions for certain practices and sectors might be given. The authority of the enforcement agency might even be extended to such an extent that it could act as a general promoter of economic liberalization. It is sometimes argued that developing countries should adopt more lenient policies in order to build large, competitive domestic enterprises. This probably has a negative overall welfare effect, however, and should be avoided. The final point made in this study is that multilateral negotiations are more in the interest of Latin American countries than bilateral agreements with industrialized countries. This paper reviews the current debate on competition policy. It starts with an introduction to the subject, followed by a short survey of competition policy in the United States, Europe and Latin America. An overview of anti-competitive business practices is then provided. Subsequently, the paper examines the reasons for the adoption of multilateral rules on competition policy. Chapter II describes the different domestic competition policies in the United States, Europe and Latin American countries. The following chapter deals with the rationale for multilateral rules on competition policy and reviews previous attempts to establish multilateral rules, as well as the work of UNCTAD and OECD on competition policies. The current discussions at WTO are outlined in chapter IV, with emphasis on the negotiating positions of the United States, the European Union and developing countries. The paper closes with a discussion of issues that could be important to the formulation of a negotiating position for Latin American and Caribbean countries. It addresses questions such as (1) whether it is favourable or necessary for Latin American countries to adopt domestic competition laws, (2) whether these laws need a specific form (different from the laws in developed countries) to meet their development needs and (3) whether multilateral rules are in the interest of developing countries.


Simultaneous dual-isotope SPECT imaging has a number of applications, for example, cardiac, brain and cancer imaging. The major concern in simultaneous dual-isotop SPECT acquisition is the significant crosstalk contamination between the different isotopes used. The current study focuses on a method of crosstalk compensation between two isotopes in simultaneous dual isotope SPECT acquisition applied to cancer imaging using Tc/In and breast SPECT using Tc/I. Monte Carlo (MC), which is thought to offer the most realistic crosstalk and scatter compensation modelling, in typical implementations, has inherent long calculation times (often several hours or days) associated with it. This makes MC unsuitable for clinical applications. We have previously incorporated convolution based forced detection into SIMIND Monte Carlo program which have made MC feasible to use in clinical time frames. In order to evaluate the accuracy of our accelerated MC program a number of point source simulation results were compared to experimentally acquired data in terms of spatial resolution and detector sensitivity. We have developed an iterative MC-based image reconstruction technique that simulates the photon down-scatter from one isotope into the acquisition window of a second isotope. The MC based estimation of scatter contamination contained in projection views is then used to compensate for the photon contamination during iterative reconstruction. We used a iv modified ordered subset-expectation maximization (OSEM), named as simultaneous ordered subset-expectation maximization (Sim-OSEM), to perform this step. We have undertaken a number of simulation tests and phantom studies to verify this approach in case of both of the dual-isotope combinations (i.e. Tc/In and Tc/I). In breast SPECT studies three different breast sizes were simulated. For each of the breast sizes ten combinations of lesions with 3 lesions per combination, were selected randomly for acquisition and reconstruction of simulation data. The images reconstructed using Sim-OSEM showed crosstalk compensation when compared with images reconstructed using simultaneously (with crosstalk) acquired projection data using analytical attenuation based reconstruction. In case of Sim-OSEM the lesion to background ratios were much closer to actual values compared to images reconstructed for both separately (without crosstalk) and simultaneously (with crosstalk) acquired projection data using analytical attenuation based reconstruction. Activity estimation is also possible with Sim-OSEM and yielded accurate estimates of lesion activities with relatively small error compared to deposited activities. The proposed reconstruction technique also evaluated by reconstruction of experimentally acquired projection phantom data in case of Tc/In. Reconstruction using Sim-OSEM showed very promising results in terms of crosstalk and scatter compensation and uniformity of background compared to analytical attenuation based reconstruction after triple energy window (TEW) based scatter correction of projection data. In our case images obtained using Sim-OSEM showed better small angle scatter compensation and more uniform background even compared to the images reconstructed for separately acquired projection data using analytical attenuation based reconstruction.


Background:Corporate Social Responsibility has grown since the late 1950s to become an important and wide-ranging topic in todays businesses. The media industry slowly starts to integrate CSR practices intheir corporate vision and policies. Due to the numerous amount of different definitions, perceptions and concepts of CSR in media companies are divided, reaching from sustainable practices throughout public duties to ethical responsibilities. Also in Austria's media industry, where CSR has just begun to develop and take shape, efforts and activities in this field diversify while trying to find common ground.Problem:Although there is a comprehensive amount of literature about CSR in general, not as many publications and previous studies about CSR in media companies can be found. Especially Austria is a rather unexplored market when it comes to Corporate Social Responsibility, which makes research in this field more complicated. The media industry relies on governmental guidelines and restrictions made by the state and therefor does not see an urgent need for efforts that go beyond what is demanded and prescribed by law and what exceeds their own, personal interests.Purpose:The purpose of this study was to find out if and how Austrian media companies have already implemented CSR and sustainability in their corporate philosophy, further if and how their approaches are being communicated within as well as outside the company.Method:After the theoretical framework, where a comprehensive literature review was compiled and previous studies in the research field were collected, an exploratory research has been conducted with two chosen media companies and one media expert's view on this topic that has not been studied in Austria before. Therefor qualitative semi-structured interviews were used as empirical method and were complemented with secondary data, provided by the respondents. The collected data was then analyzed by comparing it to the theory.Findings:The findings in this thesis show that even though Corporate Social Responsibility is not a new topic, media companies, especially in Austria where this thesis draws its attention to, have not fully developed and elaborated a general valid understanding and concept of CSR but a clear movement towards this direction can definitely be perceived.


The paper is concerned with the problems of creating pulsed power sources for high-power microwave devices, using magnetron guns with metallic cold secondaryemission cathodes as electron sources. Consideration has been given to certain ways of generating specially shaped cathode voltage pulses, and experiments were made to initiate the secondary emission process and electron beam generation using these pulses.


When treating seriously ill patients, those working in the healing professions may be particularly vulnerable to their own stress symptoms. Left unattended, these professionals may go down the dark road leading to burnout, with impaired effectiveness as caregivers, diseases rooted in stress, as well as increased suicides, drug and alcohol addiction, and exacerbation of personality disorders. Early intervention may help reduce the associated problems. In this paper, we present an elementary debriefing system, a psychotherapeutic approach, to be used by the affected individual. While this methodology may be far more simplistic than those utilized in different schools of healing or caregiving, its appeal is its simplicity and practicality. We are proposing that the individual caregiver systematically consider the following: the Background of the situation; how it Affects thinking and feeling; the Troublesome element(s); how one is Handling element(s); and an Empathetic/empowering conclusion (BATHE). Ideally, these considerations may help alleviate caregivers' anguish in troublesome situations and may complement their awareness of their patients' suffering as well.


This work investigates the ultrafine component of the reject stream from West Cliff Colliery, near Appin, on the NSW South Coast. The tailings studied were less than 118|im in size. The tailings were characterised mineralogically and elementally, using analytical techniques such as XRD, SEM, y-Spectrometry and ICP. A series of standard and modified leaching tests, based on the BEOP-31 standard, was used on the tailings to determine the release of four of the primary elements, and ten heavy metal elements, under different leaching conditions. The tailings were found to consist mainly of kaolinite, siderite, including a magnesium-bearing siderite, calcite and quartz, with lesser amounts of illite and magnetite. Kaolinite was considered to be the primary source for aluminium in the leachates, siderite for iron, calcite for calcium, and the magnesium-bearing siderite for magnesium. The release of calcium and magnesium was relatively high, saturating the leachates, and accounting for the alkalinity. The pH of the leachates increased rapidly from 4 of the initial leaching solution to 9. The release of the heavy metals was very low. The leaching of manganese differed from the other heavy metal elements, and appeared to parallel that of magnesium and calcium for at least some of the leaching time. The release of the heavy metals from the tailings was generally much less than the concentrations recommended for potable water by the SPCC. Geochemical modelling of the leaching system was able to predict pH and magnesium and calcium concentrations in the leachates reasonably well. Modelling of the dissolution of siderite and kaolinite was not successful probably due to the complex behaviour of these minerals in aqueous systems.


In this study, a flexible multifunctional fibrous membrane for heterogeneous Fenton-like removal of organic and pathogenic contaminants from wastewater was developed by immobilizing zerovalent iron nanoparticles (Fe-NPs) on an amine/thiol grafted polyester membrane. Full characterization of the resulting polyester membranes allowed validation of successful grafting of amine/thiol (NH2 or SH) functional groups and immobilization of Fe-NPs (50–150 nm). The Fenton-like functionality of iron immobilized fibrous membranes (PET–Fe, PET–Si–NH2–Fe, PET–NH2–Fe, and PET–SH–Fe) in the presence of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) was comparatively studied in the removal of crystal violet dye (50 mg L−1). The effect of pH, amount of iron and H2O2 concentration on dye removal was systematically investigated. The highest dye removal yield reached 98.87% in 22 min at a rate constant 0.1919 min−1 (R2 = 95.36) for PET–SH–Fe providing 78% toxicity reduction assessed by COD analysis. These membranes could be reused for up to seven repeated cycles. Kinetics and postulated mechanism of colour removal were proposed by examining the above results. In addition, the resultant membranes showed substantial antibacterial activity against pathogenic bacteria (Staphylococcus epidermidis, Escherichia coli) strains studied through disc diffusion-zone inhibitory and optical density analysis. These findings are of great importance because they provide a prospect of textile-based flexible catalysts in heterogeneous Fenton-like systems for environmental and green chemistry applications.


From March 1991 to April 1992, 250 measles suspected cases were studied in the Municipality of Niterói, State of Rio de Janeiro. The median age found was 11 years and 76.0% of the cases were in school age children. Exposure histories were present in 149 patients and schools were the most frequent sites of transmission (45.0%). Vaccination status was known for 127 studied cases and 76.4% of them had received measles vaccine before their first birthday. One or more complications were reported for 68 cases and in 8.9% of the studied cases hospitalization was required. Frequency of complications varied according to each age group studied and were more commonly encountered among children < 1 year of age (55.6%). The history of previous vaccination did not diminish the number of complications of the cases studied. The results of this work show changes in age distribution of measles leading to sizeable outbreaks among teenagers and young adults.