Background: Precise fitting of scattering observables suggests that the nucleon-nucleus interaction is l dependent. Such l dependence has been shown to be S-matrix equivalent to an undulatory l-independent potential. The undulations include radial regions where the imaginary term is emissive.

 Purpose: To study the dynamical polarization potential (DPP) generated in proton-16O and neutron-16O interaction potentials by coupling to pickup channels. Undulatory features occurring in these DPPs can be compared with corresponding features of empirical optical model potentials (OMPs). Furthermore, the additional inclusion of coupling to vibrational states of the target will provide evidence for dynamically generated nonlocality.

 Methods: The FRESCO code provides the elastic channel S-matrix Slj for chosen channel couplings. Inversion, Slj -> V(r)+ 1 ⋅ s VSO (r), followed by subtraction of the bare potential, yields an l-independent and local representation of the DPP due to the chosen couplings.

 Results: The DPPs have strongly undulatory features, including radial regions of emissivity. Certain features of empirical DPPs appear, e.g., the full inverted potential has emissive regions. The DPPs for different collective states are additive except near the nuclear center, whereas the collective and reaction channel DPPs are distinctly nonadditive over a considerable radial range, indicating dynamical nonlocality. Substantial differences between the DPPs due to pickup coupling for protons and neutrons occur; these imply a greater difference between proton and neutron OMPs than the standard phenomenological prescription.

 Conclusions: The onus is on those who object to undularity in the local and l-independent representation of nucleon elastic scattering to show why such undulations do not occur. This work suggests that it is not legitimate to halt model-independent fits to high-quality data at the appearance of undularity.


Regular expressions are omnipresent in database applications. They form the structural core of schema languages for XML, they are a fundamental ingredient for navigational queries in graph databases, and are being considered in languages for upcoming technologies such as schema- and transformation languages for tabular data on the Web. In this paper we study the usage and effectiveness of the counting operator (or: limited repetition) in regular expressions. The counting operator is a popular extension which is part of the POSIX standard and therefore also present in regular expressions in grep, Java, Python, Perl, and Ruby. In a database context, expressions with counting appear in XML Schema and languages for querying graphs such as SPARQL 1.1 and Cypher. We first present a practical study that suggests that counters are extensively used in practice. We then investigate evaluation methods for such expressions and develop a new algorithm for efficient incremental evaluation. Finally, we conduct an extensive benchmark study that shows that exploiting counting operators can lead to speed-ups of several orders of magnitude in a wide range of settings: normal and incremental evaluation on synthetic and real expressions.


OBJECTIVE
This study examined the timing of acute dystonic reactions in 200 patients taking neuroleptic medication for the first time.

METHOD
Two hundred patients received a twice-daily regimen of low-dose neuroleptic.

RESULTS
Over 80% of the episodes of acute dystonia occurred between 12:00 noon and 11:00 p.m. The observed circadian variation was not accounted for by sleep, fatigue, or time elapsed from the last dose of medication.

CONCLUSIONS
The finding of a diurnal pattern in one of the recognized side effects of neuroleptic medication suggests that the therapeutic efficacy of neuroleptics might similarly vary over the course of the day.


The demand of energy, fuels and chemicals is increasing due to the strong growth of some countries in the developing world and the development of the world economy. Unfortunately, the general picture derived sparked an exponential increase in crude oil prices with a consequent increase of the chemical, by-products and energy, depleting the global market. Nowadays biomass are the most promising alternative to fossil fuels for the production of chemicals and fuels.
In this work, the development of three different catalytic processes for the valorization of biomass-derived has been investigated.
5-hydroxymethylfurfural oxidation was studied under mild reaction condition using gold and gold/copper based catalysts synthetized from pre-formed nanoparticles and supported onto TiO2 and CeO2.
The analysis conducted on catalysts showed the formation of alloys gold/copper and a strong synergistic effect between the two metals. For this reason the bimetallic catalysts supported on titania showed a higher catalytic activity respect to the monometallic catalysts.
The process for the production of 2,5-bishydroxymethyl furan (BHMF) was also optimized by means the 5-hydroxymethylfurfural hydrogenation using the Shvo complex. Complete conversion of HMF was achieved working at 90 °C and 10 bar of hydrogen. The complex was found to be re-usable for at least three catalytic cycles without suffering any type of deactivation.
Finally, the hydrogenation of furfural and HMF was carried out, developing the process of hydrogen transfer by using MgO as a catalyst and methanol as a hydrogen donor. Quantitative yields to alcohols have been achieved in a few hours working in mild condition: 160 °C and at autogenous pressure. The only by-products formed were light products such as CO, CO2 and CH4 (products derived from methanol transformation), easily separable from the reaction solution depressurizing the reactor.


In the article we present data collected from 50 people who lost their motor ability in accidents. Analyses of narrative interviews conducted with the accident victims suggest that a positive affective tone of narratives about the accident itself and the accident's influence on later life is connected to higher levels of posttraumatic growth. Other factors facilitating the experience of posttraumatic growth were hope and basic trust, as well as the theme of agency present in the narratives.


Objective: To determine the rate and risk factors of allogeneic red blood cell transfusions (ABT) in elderly patients with femoral neck fracture (FNF) after hemiarthroplasty (HA). Methods: We conducted a study on elderly patients (≥65 years old) who were admitted to the geriatric trauma orthopedics ward of Beijing Jishuitan Hospital for HA treatment from March 2018 to February 2019 due to FNF. The perioperative data were collected retrospectively, and univariate and multivariate stepwise logistic regression analysis were performed to determine the postoperative ABT rate and its risk factors. Results: 445 patients were included in the study, of which 177 (39.8%) received ABT after surgery. Multivariate stepwise logistic regression analysis showed that preoperative low hemoglobin (Hb), high intraoperative blood loss (IBL), advanced age, and low body mass index (BMI) are independent risk factors of ABT after HA in elderly FNF patients. Conclusion: ABT after HA is a common phenomenon in elderly patients with FNF. Their postoperative ABT needs are related to preoperative low Hb, high IBL, advanced age, and low BMI. Therefore, ABT can be reduced from the above aspects.


Long-term ringing data are useful for understanding population trends and migration strategies adopted by migratory bird species during migration. To investigate the patterns in demography, phenology of migration and stopover behaviour in Wood Sandpipers Tringa glareola trapped on autumn migration at Ottenby, southeast Sweden, in 1947 − 2011, we analysed 65 years of autumn ringing data to describe age-specific trends in annual trappings, morphometrics and phenology, as well as fuel deposition rates and stopover duration from recapture data. We also analysed the migratory direction of the species from recovery data. Over the years, trapping of both adults and juveniles has declined significantly. Median trapping dates were 10 July for adults and 6 August for juveniles. Average migration speed of juvenile birds was 58.1 km d−1. Adults stayed on average 3.5 days and juveniles 5.2 days, with average fuel deposition rates of 2.5 and 0.7 g day−1 respectively. Juvenile birds probably vary their strategy according to time of season and prevailing conditions. Both adults and juveniles followed the Mediterranean Flyway, but juveniles displayed significantly more southerly and significantly more scattered migratory directions.


A total of 287 females of a local Kabylian population of rabbits were studied at the University of Tizi-Ouzou (Algeria) over 6 years. The females were mated for the first time at the age of 4.5 months and remated 10-12 days after parturition. The females were characterized by a medium to small adult weight (2.81±0.38 kg) and a rather low prolificacy at birth and weaning (7.2±2.5 total born, 6.1±3.0 born alive and 5.4±2.3 weaned). Based on the registration of 1377 mating attempts, acceptance of mating and conception rates were 74.3±3.8% of presented does and 73.3±4.3% of mated does respectively. The Algerian hot summer season did not seem to affect parameters of practical importance such as fertility or litter size at weaning. The only significant effect (P<0.01) was a reduction of litter weight at weaning (-13%) compared with the average of the 3 other seasons (2070 vs 2368 g at 28 days). Acceptance and conception rates were not significantly affected by mating number. At first parturition, total number of kits (6.6/litter) was significantly lower than that of multiparous does (7.3 to 7.4), and individual birth weight of first litter kits was 10% lower than that observed for subsequent litters (51.4 g on average). On the other hand, it must be emphasised that for this sample of the Kabylian population, the kit?s individual weight at weaning did not vary significantly with parturition number. Birth to weaning mortality was the lowest for parturition of rank 4 and more (9.8% vs 14.4 to 16.9% for previous ones).


This PhD research challenges current scholarly debate on religion and religious architecture during the Roman Empire by offering a new understanding on the role of rural sanctuaries and a new approach on the subject. It re-evaluates the socio-economic significance of rural sanctuaries, and of the society that they represent, to a regional level and in a wider context of the Near East.
This research can be seen as innovative because scholarly work on Syrian sanctuaries from the Roman period has, up to the present day, mainly discussed their religious connotations, including their architecture and deities, with no reference to their potential socio-economic significance. Furthermore, these studies have mostly focused on sanctuaries in cities rather than rural centres, and a comprehensive analytical overview is still lacking.
This thesis demonstrates that a comprehensive analysis of archaeological, iconographic and written evidence placed within a historical and socio-economic context and landscape can provide us with a different perspective on rural cult centre, i.e. their central social and economic role in their region and within the Near East. The rural cult centres that this study looks at are from the pre-provincial to the provincial period (c.100BC-AD300) from the northern Phoenicia and the Hauran, both in Syria. Their location at cross points between neighbouring and more distant cultures makes these areas an interesting and revealing object of study to fully comprehend the social significance of rural cult centres and the connections of the study areas with other cultures. Furthermore, both study areas present direct and indirect evidence of economic activities associated with rural sanctuaries. The central socio-economic role of rural cult centres is argued because of the following aspects revealed in this study. They are: their independency from the nearby cities and from political authorities that controlled the study areas, the plurality and diversity of worshippers, their economic self-sufficiency and their organization (with personnel in charge of temple's administrative and economic affairs), and the connections of the society of the study areas with distant cultures of the Near East.


The aim of this article is to highlight a conceptual framework of a well-balanced personality in the light of an Islamic point of view. The article begins with an explanation on the nature of human beings as the underlying concept on which the entire assumption of human personality is based. Further discussion will focus on the types of personality ‒ that is, nafs al-ammārah, nafs al-muţmainnah, and nafs al-lawwāmah. In this regard, the spiritual development process is about thecontinuous effort of the animal soul to subordinate itself to the power of the rational soul.1 Meanwhile, the educational process ‒ in particular, its methods and the curriculum content ‒ is discussed as an element of intervention in developing good personality traits. The exposition of this article's writing is derived from scholarly and original sources of knowledge ‒ that is, the Holy Qur'ān and the tradition of the Prophet (ṢAAS), as well as the writings of Muslim scholars to verify and elucidate some of the relevant matters.


In the author's opinion, the recent taxonomic revision of the genus Trichinella Railliet, 1895 (Pozio et al., 1992 and others) seems to be hasty and insufficiently substantiated. The proposed criteria for identification of new species, such as production of new-born larvae (PNBL) by Trichinella females in vitro, periods of development of nurse cells (DNC), index of reproductive capacity (IRC), resistance to freezing (RF), firstly, have a sufficient dispersion and are frequently very close (PNBL) to T. britovi, T. nativa, T. nelsoni, and T. pseudospiralis, DNC for these species. Secondly, these criteria are not always precise (one cannot agree with the fact that T. spiralis are not resistant to freezing). And, finally, it is impossible to be guided seriously by such criteria as the low or high significance of IRC or RF. According to the fifth criterion--the number of unique allozymic markers--two species are obviously distinguished: T. spiralis (6 markers) and T. pseudospiralis (12 markers). If the absence of capsule formation in case of T. psuedospiralis and the participation of birds in the life cycle of this parasite will be added to the above-mentioned, two species are again clearly distinguished: T. spiralis and T. pseudospiralis. Presently, it is necessary to classify the remaining species as varieties of subspecies of T. spiralis and to designate T. spiralis nativa, T. spiralis nelsoni, T. spiralis britovi, as recommended by the "Guidelines on Surveillance, Prevention, and Control of Trichinellosis" published by the WHO in 1988.


Objective: We sought cognitive event-related potential (ERP) biomarkers of disease progression and subsequent conversion to dementia in mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Background: Two ERP components, the P600 and N400, are sensitive to abnormal episodic/declarative memory and semantic processing. When congruous category-exemplars are repeated, smaller P600s (relative to initial presentation) are normally elicited. Repetitions of semantically incongruous words yield smaller N400 amplitude. In mild Alzheimer disease (AD), abnormalities of both the N400 and P600 repetition effects are present, suggesting a widespread failure of synaptic plasticity. Methods: Patients with amnestic MCI (n = 32) were longitudinally studied annually with an ERP paradigm in which semantically congruous (50%) and incongruous target words are repeated 10 to 140 seconds after initial presentation. ERP data were analyzed to contrast MCI-to-AD converters (within 3 years) vs nonconverters, using split-plot analyses of variance. Results: A statistically significant P600 congruous word repetition effect was found only in the nonconverter group (F = 9.9, p = 0.005 vs MCI converters). This effect correlated with verbal memory measures. Repetition of incongruous words produced a significant N400 amplitude attenuation (across right-hemisphere sites) in nonconverters, but not in converters. Patients with MCI with abnormal/reduced N400 or P600 word repetition effects had an 87 to 88% likelihood of dementia within 3 years while those with normal/spared N400 and P600 repetition effects had only an 11 to 27% likelihood. Conclusions: Abnormalities of the P600 or N400 in mild cognitive impairment are associated with an increased risk of subsequent conversion to Alzheimer disease (AD). These event-related potential components may offer useful biomarkers for the detection and staging of very early AD.


The ability to respond to emergency is one of the significant indicators to measure the level of enterprise administration. Enterprise emergency response capability assessment can be the elements of emergency management and provide credible warrant for emergency preparative. It is of great significance to establish a set of evaluation system to identify the achievements and deficiency in the enterprise emergence management work. This paper presents a grey AHP approach to the enterprise emergency response capability evaluation. The weight of each index is derived by AHP and the weight among its indicators is derived by grey theory. Finally, the simulation example is presented.


The excavation of residual seam parts should be justified by positive assessment of the purposefulness, technical feasibility and economic effectiveness. The results of the profitability evaluation are crucial in a decision making process. The excavation of residual seam parts, even if it is possible from a technical point of view, should not be implemented if it is economically inefficient or when accompanied by a very high risk of non-recovery of invested capital resources. The article presents the evaluation method of possibilities of excavating hard coal from residual seam parts, and the example of its use in one of collieries in the Upper Silesian Coal Basin. Working in line with the developed method, allows to indicate the variant of residual seam part exploitation, which is feasible to implement from a technical point of view, and which is characterized by the highest economic effectiveness and lowest risk.


Summary
A bovine enterovirus (serotype VG-5-27) was iodinated with [125I] by treatment with either chloramine T or lactoperoxidase. Virus particles were degraded in steps by either procedure. Initially, RNA and VP4 were released to give an unstable component which sedimented at 75S. This was degraded eventually to slowly sedimenting mateial. When treated for less than 2 min, virus particles were iodinated in only VP1, whereas all three polypeptides were labeled in the artificial top components produced by prolonged iodination. The patternof labelling of the polypeptides in procapsids (natural empty particles) was different from that in mature virus particles.With lactoperoxidase, in particular, VP0 and VP3 were predominantly labelled in contrast to the virus particles, in which only VP1 was labelled. The observations suggest that during maturationof virus particles a substantial conformational change occurs among the proteins present in the procapsid.


A study was made of the proliferative capacity of myelokariocytes of the rat bone marrow after freezing and thawing under protection of the oxyetyl derivative of the tetratomic alcohol; experiments were conducted on mouse-rat radiation chimerae. The rat bone marrow cells proved to retain their proliferative capacity.


TaN-Cu nanocomposite thin films used as materials for thin-film resistors (TFR) were prepared by magnetron pulsed dc reactive sputtering. Structural and morphological properties of films deposited on (100) Si as a function of nitrogen flow rate and substrate temperature is investigated. With the introduction of N2 gas flow indicated with different phases of nanocrystalline h-Ta, Ta2N, TaN, Ta4N5 and Cu. XRD analysis of the films deposited with increasing substrate temperature at constant flow rate of nitrogen 10 sccm indicated that the nanocrystalline with bi-phasic (fcc-TaN and fcc-Cu). The microstructure of the films was investigated by scanning electron microscopy and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy.


In order to lower the high prices of individual feedstock, extend the life of a more limited feedstock and to improve the fuel properties of biodiesel it imperative to optimize process parameters for biodiesel derived from mixed feedstocks. Samples of castor seeds were collected from Jimma zone, southwest Ethiopia while sample of wet microalgal biomass was obtained from wastewater stabilization ponds using a 60µm filter screen. The castor seeds and algal biomass were sun-dried before further dried at 80 0 C in an oven and ground to pastes. Oils were extracted from dried and milled castor seeds and micro-algae pastes with a Soxhlet apparatus using methanol. The extracted oil was purified and characterized before converted to biodiesel. A transesterification process designed using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) based on central composite design (CCD) experimental design was used to optimize the biodiesel production process parameters from mixed oil using alkaline catalyst. The Design Expert® 12 software was used to analysis experimental results. The effects of catalyst concentration, ethanol to mixed oil molar ratio and reaction temperature on the biodiesel yield were investigated using the experimental results. Accordingly, the optimum conditions for biodiesel production from mixed oil were a catalyst concentration of 1.23% w.t of the oil, alcohol to mixed oil molar ratio of 5.94 :1 (v/v) and reaction temperature of 51.30 0 C. The yield of biodiesel under these conditions was 93.88% . Experiment was conducted under the specified optimum conditions to validate the result predicted by the software. The yield of biodiesel from the experiment was 93.36 % which is very close to the value predicted by the software. The fatty acid composition of the biodiesel from mixed oil was analyzed using Gas chromatograph. The various fuel properties of biodiesel were determined using standard methods and results were compared with ASTM D6751 and EN 14214 standards. The physicochemical properties fulfill both standards.


George Whitesides remarked, in his excellent perspective on the "right" size in nanobiotechnology, that "there already exists a highly developed science concerned with biologically relevant nanostructures: this science is called chemistry" (Whitesides, 2003). To this, one may add that there also exists a scientific discipline dealing with host responses to foreign objects on the nanoand microscale—it is called immunology (Shvedova et al., 2010). Whitesides goes on to explain that "biology also provides unparalleled examples of functional nanostructures to excite the imagination of nanotechnologists of all persuasions" (Whitesides, 2003). Indeed, as pointed out by Bruce Alberts in another visionary perspective, "the entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines" (Alberts, 1998). These protein "machines" are oftentimes of nanoscale dimensions (van den Heuvel and Dekker, 2007). Nanomedicine holds tremendous promise, yet despite the huge number of basic and preclinical studies, few nanomedicines have reached the clinic (Chan, 2017). Perhaps we have underestimated the complexity of biological systems, and that of human disease? Perhaps, as pointed out in a recent review, we need to view organs and cells in the body as complicit in the actions of nanomedicines: the chemistry of a material is altered upon contact with a biological system, and these changes determine its fate and function in the body (Chan, 2017). The reciprocal nature of so-called nano-bio interactions could be exploited for therapeutic gain if the underlying mechanisms are understood. However, the same features that may prove useful in the context of a disease may also turn out to be involved in the unwanted effects of a nanomaterial; toxicology and medicine may, in some respects, be viewed as two sides of the same coin.


Characteristics of Adults with Advanced HIV/AIDS Referred to Community Nurses Community nurses have a critical role in caring for people and families affected by HIV/AIDS in the home setting. Despite this, there is a dearth of Australian literature describing the health needs of these clients who are referred to them. This study identified the demographic, clinical and psychoemotional aspects of adult clients with HIV/AIDS in Sydney, Australia, who were referred to community nurses and died between 1993 and 1995. Retrospective data from the records of 73 clients identified on 171 Community Nursing Referral Forms completed within the study period from an inpatient HIV/AIDS Unit was analysed using descriptive statistics and content analysis. The sample was demographically similar to the general population of people with HIV/AIDS during the study period. The most commonly identified clinical aspects of clients included oral candida, mycobacterium avium complex, anaemia, drug intolerance, cytomegalovirus, pain, fever, diarrhoea, weight loss and cough. The most commonly identified psychoemotional variables were depressed mood, anxiety, grief and nonadherence to suggested interventions, with the most common emergent theme being the physical effects of HIV/AIDS illness. Emotional support, symptom monitoring and home assessments were the most common requests made of community nurses. The study sample represented 14% of people who died following AIDS in New South Wales during this known peak period of AIDS diagnoses and deaths following AIDS. As a result of this study, documentation exists describing the characteristics of clients with advanced HIV/AIDS referred to community nurses. Current and future clients with advanced HIV/AIDS referred to community nurses may experience a similar clinical picture to that identified in this study. The findings can be used to reveal relationships amongst the key variables; lay the foundation for further comparative, theory or hypothesis driven studies; and demonstrate how this influences the community nursing role, strategies, interventions and outcomes. Characteristics Of Adults With Advanced HIV/AIDS Referred To Community Nurses


This study was carried out in response to the policy attention directed at older people discharged from hospital with ill-defined conditions, or signs and symptoms related disease. In England there has been an increase in incidence of this type of hospital admission and policy suggests that patients with these codes have fewer medical/physiological and more 'social' conditions that could be better managed in community settings. Currently however, this population has not been characterised. Description of the functional and physiological status of these patients is essential for the planning of future health and social care services. Patients with ill-defined conditions were described via a cross-sectional study of 80 patients aged over 70 years admitted to hospital with collapse/falls. Number of chronic diseases and prescribed medications were obtained from the medical records. Routine blood tests were taken and serum cytokine concentrations (IL-1?, IL-6, TNF-?, IFN-?) were measured. Deprivation score, functional status, depression and the prevalence of frailty were ascertained. 35 patients received ill-defined condition codes, 45 received other codes. Patients with 'illdefined conditions' had normal routine blood results but very high serum concentrations of pro-inflammatory cytokines which did not correlate with number of chronic diseases indicating considerable medical problems. As the policy had suggested, they also had prevalent functional impairment (65.7%), high rates of frailty (77.1%) and pre-frailty (14.3%), and depression (42.9%). Patients with ill-defined conditions had poor outcomes evident in the high readmission (60%) and mortality (20%) rates. Patients were hospitalised for a statistically significantly shorter period than patients with other codes (p The association between functional limitations, frailty, chronic disease and depression add considerable complexity to the health of older people with ill-defined conditions. However, the prevalence of multiple morbidity, high serum concentrations of inflammatory markers and poor outcomes indicate that they also have considerable medical problems that may be largely unmet. These medical problems may result from chronic disease symptom crises and manifest as geriatric conditions for which there are no appropriate International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) codes. The results of this study indicate a need for reevaluation of the ICD-10 system to incorporate the health problems faced by older people and further research into the effect of a more comprehensive community-based chronic disease management that aims to enable frail older people to maintain health and independence at home and prevent readmission in patients with ill-defined conditions.


Pending changes in European legislation ban the use of wild-caught animals in research. This change is partly justified on the assumption that captive-breeding (or hand-rearing) increases welfare of captive animals because these practices result in animals with reduced fear of humans. However, there are few actual data on the long-term behavioural effects of captive-breeding in non-domestic species, and these are urgently needed in order to understand the welfare and scientific consequences of adopting this practice. We compared the response of hand-reared and wild-caught starlings to the presence of a human in the laboratory. During human presence, all birds increased their general locomotor activity but the wild-caught birds moved away from the human and were less active than the hand-reared birds. After the human departed, the wild-caught birds were slower to decrease their activity back towards baseline levels, and showed a dramatic increase in time at the periphery of the cage compared with the hand-reared birds. We interpret these data as showing evidence of a greater fear response in wild-caught birds with initial withdrawal followed by a subsequent rebound of prolonged attempts to escape the cage. We found no effects of environmental enrichment. However, birds in cages on low shelves were less active than birds on upper shelves, and showed a greater increase in the time spent at the periphery of their cages after the human departed, perhaps indicating that the lower cages were more stressful. In demonstrating reduced fear of humans in hand-reared birds, our results support one of the proposed welfare benefits of this practice, but without further data on the possible welfare costs of hand-rearing, it is not yet possible to reach a general conclusion about its net welfare impact. However, our results confirm a clear scientific impact of both hand-rearing and cage position at the behavioural level.


There has been growing concern during and since the 1990s about the effect that the toxicity and persistence of heavy metals will have on the biosphere. Consequently, these new environmental pressures have challenged analysts to find better experimental procedures for handling, recognition and evaluation of traces of heavy metals.

Moreover, the determination of low levels of heavy metals in seawater has received particular attention as a way of assessing the early impact of human activities on the marine environment. It is necessary to protect the marine and continental waters against contamination so as to allow suitable conditions for the maintenance of aquatic life and the various uses derived from aquatic life.

It is not the metal concentration alone that enables an environmental diagnosis to be made but the way metal combines with other elements to form species. These species are responsible for the biological behavior of the heavy metal under consideration, as its bioavailability will determine the amount of harm it may cause. Thus, "speciation" studies should be conducted to assess the potential environmental impact of human activities.

From the analytical point of view, seawater and brines may be considered to be closely related systems in terms of matrix effects and analytical difficulties. Hence these two systems will be included in this article although the aims of heavy metal detection and determination might be diverse in each case.

Analytical inaccuracies that arise from the high salt content of the seawater or brine solutions are exacerbated by the low levels of trace metals, which require careful control of contamination during sample collection and analysis and very sensitive analytical techniques.

Different techniques for the determination of trace metals in seawater, such as spectroscopic and electroanalytical methods, will be discussed here in terms of their performance in dealing with the problem of trace metal detection and determination.

Even the term "trace" has had different meanings over the years, normally being associated with the detection limit of the technique employed ("traces", "footprints" or "trails" have a lot to do with the way they are observed). Amounts that would have been considered traces in the 1960s are probably no longer considered as such in the 1990s, as detection limits for most heavy metals have been lowered by three to six orders of magnitude (using "state of the art" techniques) since the late 1960s.

Special attention has been paid to the preconcentration of the analyte and its isolation from the matrix constituents which might obscure its accurate determination. A variety of separation–preconcentration methods will be presented, with a strong bias towards those procedures leading to some kind of automation, because pretreatment of the samples is often time-consuming and prone to contamination and may lead to an incomplete recovery of the analytes.

Flow injection analysis (FIA) has appeared as a solution to time-consuming and complicated separations and it will also be discussed in relation to alternative forms of analysis, especially in terms of its ability to perform speciation studies.


There is a problem with non-contact measurement and detection, which reduces its measurement accuracy. Methods developed for measuring and inspecting screw thread characteristic parameters usually using a camera, which is controlled to scan the projection of thread in the parallel optical field to obtain thread images. However, with the block of screw line on the projection of the real thread form, it is impossible to acquire the real thread form from images. The traditional way is adjusting the optical axis to a suitable angle with the thread axis to acquire the real thread form projection, which has some problems, such as time consuming, high skill of operator, high-precision equipment for adjustment, inaccuracy, and so on. Hence, a new method through digital image calibration is presented. The results of relevant simulation indicated the feasibility of this new method, which improves thread measurement and detection accuracy.


by DANIEL GAMMONS (Under the Direction of Michael T. Mengak) ABSTRACT Despite undergoing a rapid range expansion throughout the southeastern United States during the last 150 years, reliable data on nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus) space use patterns are lacking. In addition, although nuisance armadillos are often live-captured and translocated, no studies have compared movements between resident and translocated animals. Therefore, from June 2005 to June 2006 I used radiotelemetry to (1) investigate the home range and habitat use of resident armadillos, and (2) compare movements between resident and translocated individuals in order to evaluate the appropriateness of translocation. Armadillo home ranges differed seasonally, with the largest home ranges occurring during the summer. Armadillos avoided mature pine and agriculture habitats, so active conservation and restoration of longleaf pine forests may result in future decreases in armadillo populations. Release site fidelity of translocated animals was low suggesting that translocation of nuisance armadillos should be minimized.


Aalto University School of Economics May 20, 2012 Department of Economics Master's thesis Arto Huhta PROPERTY CRIME AND INCOME INEQUALITY IN FINLAND The goal of this thesis is to study the relationship of income inequality and property crime rates in Finland. While theoretical expectations for the relationship are strong, empirical evidence from previous within-country studies is mixed. My data set covers 337 Finnish municipalities during 1995-2009. The relationship of the Gini coefficient and crime rates was econometrically tested using an OLS model, a fixed effects panel data model and a dynamic generalized method of moments (GMM) model. The tests were conducted for property crimes in general, robbery, theft, embezzlement, fraud and violent crime. I find income inequality to correlate positively with theft crimes. For other property crimes the evidence of a positive relationship is somewhat weaker. No correlation is found between income inequality and violent crime. Other factors determining differences in Finnish crime rates are those expected by existing literature: population density, unemployment rate and the proportion of foreigners in a population. The results of my dynamic model support the hypothesis that criminal inertia is relevant in the study of determinants of crime. Static models may underestimate the effects of different regressors if their effect on crime rates is partly realized with a lag. Furthermore I find clear differences between crime types. On the basis of my work it seems clear that different types of crimes and their determinants should, whenever possible, be studied separately.


With the internet boom of early 2000 making access to trading the Foreign Exchange (FX) market far simpler for members of the general public, the growth of 'retail' FX trading continues, with daily transaction volumes as high as $200 billion. Potential new entrants to the retail FX trading world may come from the recent UK pension deregulations, further increasing the volumes. The attraction of FX trading is that it offers high returns and whilst it has been understood that it is high-risk in nature, the rewards are seen as being commensurately high for the 'skilled and knowledgeable' trader who has an edge over other market participants. This paper analyses a number of independent sources of data and previous research, to examine the profitability of the Retail FX trader and compares the results with that of a simulated random trading models. This paper finds evidence to suggest that whilst approximately 20% of traders can expect to end up with a profitable account, around 40% might expect their account to be subject to a margin call. This paper finds a strong correlation between the overall profitability of traders and impact of the cost of the bid-ask spread, whilst finding little if any evidence that retail FX traders, when viewed as a group, are achieving results better than that from random trading.


Field experiments investigated the relationship between a political campaigner's dress and appearance and his campaign effectiveness. In one study deviant, "freaky" appearing campaigners attempting to hand out innocuous leaflets in a shopping center had a lower acceptance rate than did more conventionally dressed campaigners. Those shoppers who did accept leaflets from "freaks" were more likely to throw them away unread. The first experiment suggested that deviant-appearing campaigners have difficulty communicating information to potential voters, but it was argued that, in another sense, they convey all too much information. Knowing only that the campaigners for one candidate were deviant and "hippy" in appearance as compared to the conventionally dressed campaigners supporting a second candidate, voters in a second experiment were willing to ascribe more radical opinions to the deviants' candidate. Voters then used their inferences as the basis on which to select a candidate. The rationality of inferring beliefs from appearances is discussed in terms of correspondent inference theory.


During the past years molecular biology has become increasing interesting for medical research. These techniques allow the identification of intra-, extra- and intercellular mechanisms, which are important for physiological and pathophysiological processes. Because healing takes place at the cellular level, molecular biology is also relevant for traumatological research. As of yet, there are only a few papers which deal with molecular biological and traumatological problems. For this reason, we only have little knowledge of the function of genes and proteins during wound and fracture healing, for example. To demonstrate the possibilities of molecular biology, we present an experimental strategy by which these techniques can help to answer special traumatological questions.


Tournament compensation systems are widely used in practice and have been extensively analyzed theoretically. However, one major problem has hardly been studied in a company context so far: Although it is theoretically well understood that tournament compensation systems are only effective when employees are homogeneous, it has rarely been analyzed what companies can do when they are confronted with employee heterogeneity. In our article, we derive hypotheses on the performance effects of tournament compensation systems in a context of employee heterogeneity based on tournament and expectancy theory. Using personnel records from incentive travel contests, we are able to show that performance is lower in a situation with employee heterogeneity, but that in heterogeneous tournaments, incentives may still work for a subgroup of employees whom we term the "threshold group." In addition, we also show how companies manage to design the information disclosure systems necessary to install effective "handicapping" or "league-building" systems in order to increase the effort-performance expectancy.


In this paper phase shift tuning of a 5.3 GHz quadrature LC oscillator is investigated. By varying the phase shift of the circuits that couple two LC oscillator stages, a 1.1 GHz: tuning range is achieved. Dependency of tuning range and phase noise on the quality factor of the LC resonators is explored on the behavioral level. Expressions are given for the tuning range and an effective quality factor, as a function of the resonator quality, its phase shift and its resonance frequency. The oscillator is realized in a mainstream 30 GHz f/sub T/ BiCMOS process and dissipates 45 mW (nominal) with 2.7 V supply voltage. The dependency of the tuning range on the resonator quality is measured by varying the quality factor of a varactor incorporated in the LC resonators of the I/Q oscillator. Measured /spl Lscr/(2 MHz) is -108 dBc/Hz at 5.6 GHz.


Capabilities Based Planning is a current concern in all modern defense systems. This concept has grown steadily in recent years, especially at the politic-military level. Although this concept is already over 10 years old, its implementation faces a series of challenges, related to the fact that a clear and comprehensive understanding of the process is not widespread within all the defense planners, being confined to a more restricted number of people who deal with it on a direct basis. In the same time, the concept of Capabilities Based Planning does not register a higher implementation dynamic because most of those involved in the process do not use the same terminology and do not understand the concept of Capabilities Based Planning in a unified way. All these challenges are enhanced by the fact that currently there is no organized system of education and training to effectively disseminate knowledge and best practices in the field. Through this article I wish to propose some variants for Advanced Distributed Learning to contribute to an increased dynamic and efficient implementation of Capabilities Based Planning through the development of education and training systems aimed at a quick and effective contribution to raising the level of understanding of the concept of Capabilities Based Planning and of the integration of those involved in this process. One of the main advantages of using Advanced Distributed Learning in the area of Capabilities Based Planning related training is derived from the fact that it offers a more flexible and accessible approach to the information and documents supporting the process.


This research examines the impact of public debt and financial instability on
the economic growth of selected West African countries. The effect of public
debt on an economy cannot be overemphasised. The amount of public debt that
a country owes can either help in increasing the growth rates or it can result in
situations that are detrimental to economic growth. Some scholars have argued
that when public debt is not properly managed, it can be carried on to future
generations by way of compound interest problems. Therefore, it is very
important to know how the amount of debt country owes can affect economic
activities. Financial stability on the other hand is an important aspect of the
economy because most of the decisions taken by policy makers are centred
around maintaining stability. This is because financial instability is
disadvantageous to the economy. It results in a weakening of investment and
economic activities; it leads to a rise in public debt and also affects economic
growth in a negative way. The study carried out an extensive literature review
on various school of thoughts on public debt and economic growth; it also
identified sources of financial stability. A quantitative research approach was
adopted for this study and the data was gotten from the World Development
Indicators for a period starting from 1970 to 2015. The selected countries were
Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote D'Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and
Togo. The econometric model for this study was adapted from the theories of
business cycle and the statistical tests used for estimation includes the unit root
test, leg length criteria, ARDL bounds test, Johansen Cointegration tests, error
correction models, granger causality tests, cumulative sum tests, and serial
correlation tests. The results revealed that there is a long run relationship
between public debt, financial stability and economic growth for the selected
West African countries, and the granger causality results mostly indicated a
unidirectional causality for the selected West African countries. The results
suggested that that government spending is the most effective policy
instrument in regulating the level of public debt and financial instability. Based
on the econometric findings, this research recommends that fiscal policy is
more effective in curtailing the effects of public debt and financial instability
on the economic growth of the selected countries.


We model the radiatively driven flow from IM Lup -- a large protoplanetary disc expected to be irradiated by only a weak external radiation field (at least 10$^4$ times lower than the UV field irradiating the Orion Nebula Cluster proplyds). We find that material at large radii ($>400$AU) in this disc is sufficiently weakly gravitationally bound that significant mass loss can be induced. Given the estimated values of the disc mass and accretion rate, the viscous timescale is long ($\sim10$Myr) so the main evolutionary behaviour for the first Myr of the disc's lifetime is truncation of the disc by photoevaporation, with only modest changes effected by viscosity. We also produce approximate synthetic observations of our models, finding substantial emission from the flow which can explain the CO halo observed about IM Lup out to $\geq1000$AU. Solutions that are consistent with the extent of the observed CO emission generally imply that IM Lup is still in the process of having its disc outer radius truncated. We conclude that IM Lup is subject to substantial external photoevaporation, which raises the more general possibility that external irradiation of the largest discs can be of significant importance even in low mass star forming regions.


Abstract. We describe the development, tuning and climate of Planet Simulator (PLASIM)–Grid-ENabled Integrated Earth system model (GENIE), a new intermediate complexity Atmosphere–Ocean General Circulation Model (AOGCM), built by coupling the Planet Simulator to the ocean, sea-ice and land-surface components of the GENIE Earth system model. PLASIM–GENIE supersedes GENIE-2, a coupling of GENIE to the Reading Intermediate General Circulation Model (IGCM). The primitive-equation atmosphere includes chaotic, three-dimensional (3-D) motion and interactive radiation and clouds, and dominates the computational load compared to the relatively simpler frictional-geostrophic ocean, which neglects momentum advection. The model is most appropriate for long-timescale or large ensemble studies where numerical efficiency is prioritised, but lack of data necessitates an internally consistent, coupled calculation of both oceanic and atmospheric fields. A 1000-year simulation with PLASIM–GENIE requires approximately 2 weeks on a single node of a 2.1 GHz AMD 6172 CPU. We demonstrate the tractability of PLASIM–GENIE ensembles by deriving a subjective tuning of the model with a 50-member ensemble of 1000-year simulations. The simulated climate is presented considering (i) global fields of seasonal surface air temperature, precipitation, wind, solar and thermal radiation, with comparisons to reanalysis data; (ii) vegetation carbon, soil moisture and aridity index; and (iii) sea surface temperature, salinity and ocean circulation. Considering its resolution, PLASIM–GENIE reproduces the main features of the climate system well and demonstrates usefulness for a wide range of applications.


Once an intervention has been found to be effective, it is important to examine the processes and factors within the program that led to its success. The current study examined survivors' reflections on the Community Advocacy Project, an empirically supported intervention for women with abusive partners. The study examined the service delivery processes that survivors affirmed or identified as core components of the intervention. Qualitative analysis of interviews with 51 survivors indicated that 3 main service delivery elements contributed to positive outcomes: orientation to the whole person, unconditional validation and acceptance, and an orientation to information provision and action. These overarching themes are described and implications for domestic violence services and dissemination are discussed. Language: en


We study an extension of Duncan Watts' 2002 model of information cascades in social networks where edge weights are taken to be random, an innovation motivated by recent applications of cascade analysis to systemic risk in financial networks. The main result is a probabilistic analysis that characterizes the cascade in an infinite network as the fixed point of a vector-valued mapping, explicit in terms of convolution integrals that can be efficiently evaluated numerically using the fast Fourier transform algorithm. A second result gives an approximate probabilistic analysis of cascades on "real world networks", finite networks based on a fixed deterministic graph. Extensive cross testing with Monte Carlo estimates shows that this approximate analysis performs surprisingly well, and provides a flexible microscope that can be used to investigate properties of information cascades in real world networks over a wide range of model parameters.


As medical information system is popularized in more hospitals. Since it can collect more information about patientsÂ' disease, it is feasible to use data mining technology to assist disease diagnosis. Based on rough set (RS) theory and PageRank algorithm, a new method was proposed to extract the key attributes of relevant attributes of diseases, and a probabilistic neural network (PNN) model was established for disease diagnosis. The results showed that the diagnostic accuracies of the model for patients with benign tumor and malignant tumor reached 100% and 95.24%, respectively, proving that the established model was effective and efficient in disease diagnosis.


I have Crohn's disease. This essay is about how my experiences with this disease have shaped my perceptions of boundaries in medicine, particularly around the issue of self-disclosure. I became a pediatrician first, then a parent, and now a patient, and with each new role, I have become increasingly confused on where boundaries regarding self-disclosures in medicine lie. I'd like to make the case for more of a reframing and a blurring of personal and professional boundaries regarding physicians' disclosures about their own health. Although historically thought of as a way to strengthen the physician-patient relationship and therefore encouraged, physician disclosure has recently become more controversial, and boundary discussions that include it seem to increasingly begin from the edict, "Don't do it." But why not capitalize on the shared experience of physicians and patients? It offers an opportunity to deepen our therapeutic relationship with our patients, to build trust, to help understanding, and maybe even to improve patient outcomes.


PTCA alters the natural history of coronary artery disease and thus presents a challenge for the cardiologist to detect the variety of changes that may occur. Continuous electrocardiographic monitoring with automatic detection of ST segment changes has proved valuable during the immediate post-PTCA procedure. Radionuclide ventriculography and thallium-201 perfusion scans are most important in providing physiologic evidence of improved functional blood flow, particularly in patients with limited revascularization. Finally, the important unsolved problem with PTCA, that of restenosis, is best detected by repeat noninvasive testing in the first months after successful PTCA.


Electrocardiogram gated magnetic resonance imaging was performed in nine healthy volunteers, in four patients with pulmonary hypertension, and in 16 patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Fifty two short axis images in diastole were examined to assess the usefulness of magnetic resonance imaging for the measurement of the thickness of the free wall of the right ventricle and the degree of hypertrophy of the right ventricular free wall in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and pulmonary hypertension. Magnetic resonance imaging gave a clear image of 68% of the length of the right ventricular free wall, showing both the endocardial and epicardial margins. The mean (1 SD) thickness of the right ventricular free wall measured at a total of 512 points was 0 44 (0 12) cm in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, 0-29 (0 08) cm in healthy individuals, and 0 73 (0 27) cm in patients with pulmonary hypertension.


In this study, an intelligent approach is presented to help any simulation practitioner to evaluate simulation software alternatives and determine the best satisfying one based on his/her needs. On the other hand, this evaluation process is a typical multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) problem in the presence of evaluation criteria and a set of possible alternatives, and there are many methods in the literature, which have been used to successfully carry out this difficult and time-consuming process. In this paper, one of these methods, the analytic network process (ANP) method integrated with alpha-cut fuzzy logic is used because it can accommodate the variety of interactions, dependencies and feedback between higher and lower level elements, rather than analytic hierarchy process (AHP). In addition, an alpha-cut fuzzy extension of ANP uses uncertain human preferences as input information in the decision-making process. Instead of using the classical eigenvector prioritisation method in AHP, only employed in the prioritisation stage of ANP, an alpha-cut fuzzy logic method providing more accuracy on judgements is applied. The resulting alpha-cut fuzzy ANP enhances the potential of the conventional ANP for dealing with imprecise and uncertain human comparison judgements.


Chest radiographs are primarily employed for the screening of pulmonary and cardio-/thoracic conditions. Being undertaken at primary healthcare centers, they require the presence of an on-premise reporting Radiologist, which is a challenge in low and middle income countries. This has inspired the development of machine learning based automation of the screening process. While recent efforts demonstrate a performance benchmark using an ensemble of deep convolutional neural networks (CNN), our systematic search over multiple standard CNN architectures identified single candidate CNN models whose classification performances were found to be at par with ensembles. Over 63 experiments spanning 400 hours, executed on a 11.3 FP32 TensorTFLOPS compute system, we found the Xception and ResNet-18 architectures to be consistent performers in identifying co-existing disease conditions with an average AUC of 0.87 across nine pathologies. We conclude on the reliability of the models by assessing their saliency maps generated using the randomized input sampling for explanation (RISE) method and qualitatively validating them against manual annotations locally sourced from an experienced Radiologist. We also draw a critical note on the limitations of the publicly available CheXpert dataset primarily on account of disparity in class distribution in training vs. testing sets, and unavailability of sufficient samples for few classes, which hampers quantitative reporting due to sample insufficiency.


Concrete as a versatile building material can provide physical and biological shielding against ionizing radiation. In addition to nuclear reactor covers, facilities requiring radiation protection are radiological and X-ray laboratories in hospitals or health centres. The function of radiation protection can be met by heavy-weight concrete, whose shielding properties are largely derived from the high-density aggregates. One of the possible construction methods of shielding walls in healthcare buildings is the use of pre-cast concrete blocks. For this purpose, research on a concrete having a density in the air-dry state of higher than 3200 kg/m 3 using barite, magnetite and basalt as coarse aggregate and copper slag waste (from by-product of the process of copper extraction by smelting) as fine aggregate has been performed. The copper slag waste has been used, among others, as an abradant in the surface sand-blasting process but after such usage it is considered to be a waste and as indicated by pilot research, it can be a good substitute for sand in concrete. Mechanical properties, water absorption and sorptivity of heavy-weight concrete so produced were compared with reference concrete prepared with crushed amphibolite as coarse aggregate and quartz sand as fine aggregate. The suitability of copper slag waste for making small pre-cast shielding concrete elements is confirmed. The compressive strength of heavy-weight concrete mixtures with copper slag waste was sufficient for the intended applications. The copper slag concrete had lower water absorption and sorptivity than concrete prepared with sand. An economic analysis of the costs of producing concrete with a density higher than 3200 kg/m 3 with or without copper slag waste showed that the copper slag concrete, regardless of the type of heavy-weight aggregate used, is clearly more economical than the concrete of the compositions reported in the literature containing similar coarse aggregates and sand as the fine aggregate. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sace.22.1.20006


Unsupervised pre-training strategies have proven to be highly effective in natural language processing and computer vision. Likewise, unsupervised reinforcement learning (RL) holds the promise of discovering a variety of potentially useful behaviors that can accelerate the learning of a wide array of downstream tasks. Previous unsupervised RL approaches have mainly focused on pure exploration and mutual information skill learning. However, despite the previous attempts, making unsupervised RL truly scalable still remains a major open challenge: pure exploration approaches might struggle in complex environments with large state spaces, where covering every possible transition is infeasible, and mutual information skill learning approaches might completely fail to explore the environment due to the lack of incentives. To make unsupervised RL scalable to complex, high-dimensional environments, we propose a novel unsupervised RL objective, which we call Metric-Aware Abstraction (METRA). Our main idea is, instead of directly covering the entire state space, to only cover a compact latent space $Z$ that is metrically connected to the state space $S$ by temporal distances. By learning to move in every direction in the latent space, METRA obtains a tractable set of diverse behaviors that approximately cover the state space, being scalable to high-dimensional environments. Through our experiments in five locomotion and manipulation environments, we demonstrate that METRA can discover a variety of useful behaviors even in complex, pixel-based environments, being the first unsupervised RL method that discovers diverse locomotion behaviors in pixel-based Quadruped and Humanoid. Our code and videos are available at https://seohong.me/projects/metra/


Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Interenet and E-Commerce Technology Assumption University.


As several countries were experiencing unprecedented economic slowdowns due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, small business enterprises started adapting to digital technologies to transact business. However, in Africa, particularly Nigeria, COVID-19 pandemic resulted to some financial crisis that impacted negatively on the sustainability of small and medium-sized (SMEs) businesses. Thus, this study examined the role of social media on selected SMEs in Nigeria in the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic that led to several lock downs in a bid to curtail the spread of the virus. Cross-sectional survey research design was used alongside convenience population sampling techniques. The population was categorised based on selected SMEs businesses, while a quantitative research approach was adopted, and primary data were collected using a questionnaire. The questionnaires were administered to owners and operators of SMEs in Ikotun and Ikeja areas of Lagos State, Nigeria. A total of 190 copies of the questionnaires were distributed and a total of 183 usable responses were analysed.  The findings of the study show that SMEs were aware of the usefulness of social media to their business as they largely leveraged it in doing their business during the national lockdowns. The study recommended that labour/trade unions should sensitise and encourage business owners on the benefits of continuous use of social media in carrying out their business transactions.


ABSTRACT Erythromycin-resistant isolates of Streptococcus pneumoniae from blood cultures and noninvasive sites were studied over a 3-year period. The prevalence of erythromycin resistance was 11.9% (19 of 160) in blood culture isolates but 4.2% (60 of 1,435) in noninvasive-site isolates. Sixty-two of the 79 resistant isolates were available for study. The M phenotype was responsible for 76% (47 of 62) of resistance, largely due to a serotype 14 clone, characterized by multilocus sequence typing as ST9, which accounted for 79% (37 of 47) of M phenotype resistance. The ST9 clone was 4.8 times more common in blood than in noninvasive sites. All M phenotype isolates were PCR positive for mef(A), but sequencing revealed that the ST9 clone possessed the mef(A) sequence commonly associated with Streptococcus pyogenes. All M phenotype isolates with this mef(A) sequence also had sequences consistent with the presence of the Tn1207.1 genetic element inserted in the celB gene. In contrast, isolates with the mef(E) sequence normally associated with S. pneumoniae contained sequences consistent with the presence of the mega insertion element. All MLSB isolates carried erm(B), and two isolates carried both erm(B) and mef(E). Fourteen of the 15 MLSB isolates were tetracycline resistant and contained tet(M). However, six M phenotype isolates of serotypes 19 (two isolates) and 23 (four isolates) were also tetracycline resistant and contained tet(M). MICs for isolates with the mef(A) sequence were significantly higher than MICs for isolates with the mef(E) sequence (P < 0.001). Thus, the ST9 clone of S. pneumoniae is a significant cause of invasive pneumococcal disease in northeast Scotland and is the single most important contributor to M phenotype erythromycin resistance.


The extant body of strengths literature largely involves the outcomes of identifying and using strengths. The few studies that examine strength development focus on particular strengths as they operate in a particular domain of life. The current study aims to fill this void by examining the life span trajectory of strengths through interviews with individuals (N = 10) over the age of 50. Participants were asked to reflect on their strengths during key developmental periods—childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Using the consensual qualitative research (CQR) methodology, 21 primary categories across 3 domains (i.e., strength trajectory, internal influences, and external influences) were identified. Findings highlight strengths fluctuate throughout the life span and several individual and environmental factors influence the development of strengths. Unique developmental findings and practical implications are discussed.


We present a rest-frame ultraviolet morphological analysis of 108 z ≃ 2.1 Lyα emitters (LAEs) in the Extended Chandra Deep Field South and compare it to a similar sample of 171 LAEs at z ≃ 3.1. Using Hubble Space Telescope images from the Galaxy Evolution from Morphology and SEDs survey, Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey, and Hubble Ultradeep Field, we measure size and photometric component distributions, where photometric components are defined as distinct clumps of UV-continuum emission. At both redshifts, >80% of LAEs have observed half-light radii <2 kpc, but the median half-light radius rises from 0.95 ± 0.04 kpc at z = 3.1 to 1.41 ± 0.14 kpc at z = 2.1. A similar evolution is seen in the sizes of individual rest-UV components, but there is no evidence for evolution in the number of multi-component systems. In the z = 2.1 sample, we see clear correlations between the size of an LAE and other physical properties derived from its spectral energy distribution (SED). LAEs are found to be larger for galaxies with higher stellar mass, star formation rate, and dust obscuration, but there is no evidence for a trend between equivalent width and half-light radius at either redshift. The presence of these correlations suggests that a wide range of objects are being selected by LAE surveys at z ∼ 2, including a significant fraction of objects for which a massive and moderately extended population of old stars underlies the young starburst giving rise to the Lyα emission.


Mice without Lkb1 cannot keep making blood cells. Blood cells are continuously produced throughout life from hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), which can transition between a quiescent, low-energy state and a proliferating, high-energy state (see Durand and Zon). Three groups (Nakada et al., Gurumurthy et al., and Gan et al.) showed that inducible loss of Lkb1, a kinase involved in linking energy status and proliferation, caused an initial transient increase in HSCs, followed by depletion of all blood cell types (pancytopenia) in mice. The transient increase in HSCs was associated with increased proliferation, indicating that in the absence of Lkb1 they were released from the quiescent state. However, ultimately the HSC population exhibited increased apoptosis and signs of genotoxic stress and cell cycle defects, such as aneuploidy, spindle defects, and increased staining for markers of DNA damage. Lkb1-deficient bone marrow cells failed to reconstitute blood cells in wild-type donor transplantation experiments, indicating that the defect in the HSC population was cell intrinsic. When nutrients are depleted, Lkb1 stimulates the activity of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), which in turn inhibits the mammalian target of rapamycin complex (mTORC) that stimulates protein synthesis. However, neither rapamycin treatment to inhibit mTORC nor administration of metformin to stimulate AMPK rescued the pancytopenia associated with induced loss of Lkb1, suggesting that Lkb1 acts through other pathways to control the HSC population. The Lkb1-deficient HSCs exhibited a decline in mitochondrial membrane potential and reduced amounts of ATP, despite an increase in mitochondrial mass (thought to be a compensatory response). Lkb1-deficient HSCs exhibited altered lipid metabolism and reduced expression of genes encoding two transcriptional regulators of mitochondrial biogenesis (PGC-1α and PGC-1β). Because these cellular consequences of Lkb1 loss were limited to the stem cell population and not observed in the differentiated blood cells, it appears that the HSC population is particularly reliant on Lkb1-mediated metabolic sensing to maintain the quiescent state and respond appropriately to the increased metabolic demand required in the proliferating state. D. Nakada, T. L. Saunders, S. J. Morrison, Lkb1 regulates cell cycle and energy metabolism in haematopoietic stem cells. Nature 468, 653–658 (2010). [PubMed] S. Gurumurthy, S. Z. Xie, B. Alagesan, J. Kim. R. Z. Yusuf, B. Saez, A. Tzatsos, F. Ozsolak, P. Milos, F. Ferrari, P. J. Park, O. S. Shirihai, D. T. Scadden. N. Bardeesy, The Lkb1 metabolic sensor maintains haematopoietic stem cell survival. Nature 468, 659–663 (2010). [PubMed] B. Gan, J. Hu, S. Jiang, Y. Liu, E. Sahin, L. Zhuang, E. Fletcher-Sananikone, S. Colla, Y. A. Wang, L. Chin, R. A. DePinho, Lkb1 regulates quiescence and metabolic homeostasis of haematopoietic stem cells. Nature 468, 701–704 (2010). [PubMed] E. M. Durand, L. I. Zon, The blood balance. Nature 468, 644–645 (2010). [PubMed]


The challenges faced by domain experts, commitments made to domain-specific rule (DSR) languages and process design are described. We investigate the business application developments and existing challenges of evaluation strategies of DSR articulations. Often, multiple domain scenarios pose end-user predicaments complicating the computational ability of DSR. In addition, implementation of DSR and its configuration are belated due to poorly evaluated usability criteria. A new framework is needed, facilitating the DSR language and enhancing the computational intelligence. We intend to evaluate the performance of DSR generation and framework integration with variety of usability conditions including efficiency and effectiveness of configuration through system usability score (SUS). Empirical research involving experimental data, questionnaire surveys, and interview outcomes provide conclusive evaluation attributes and their fact instances from SUS. Both manual and semi-automatic configurations are tested. Semi-automatic configuration appears to be more efficient and satisfactory with regard to artefact performance, quality, learnability, user-friendly and reliability.


The study on the changes of stomatal sensitivity in relation to xylem ABA during periodical soil drying and the effect of leaf water status on the stomatal sensitivity has confirmed that xylem ABA concentration is a good indicator of soil water status around roots and the relation between xylem ABA concentration and predawn leaf water potential remained constant during the three consecutive soil drying cycles based on the slopes of the fitted lines. The sensitivity of stomata to xylem ABA increased substantially as the soil drying cycles progressed, and the xylem ABA concentration needed to cause a 50% decrease of stomatal conductance was as low as 550 nmol/L in the next two soil drying cycle, as compared with the 750 nmol/L ABA in the first cycle of soil drying. The results using the split_root system showed that leaf water deficit significantly enhanced the stomatal response to xylem ABA and the xylem ABA concentration needed to cause a 50% decrease in stomatal conductance was 2 to 4 times smaller in the whole_root_drying treatment than those in the semi_root_drying treatment. These results suggested that the sensitivity of stomata to xylem ABA concentration is not a fixed characteristic.


The majority of published literature on system dynamics of space heating assumes that the constants in the exponential models for heating (active) and cooling (passive) are equal. Reports by Roots and his co-workers show that in one form of space heating the active and passive constants are not equal. This paper presents data from rigidly controlled experiments in an environmental test room under three forms of space heating. Active and passive time constants are reported for baseboard heating, ceiling cable heating, and forced air heating. Explanations are advanced for differences noted.


Over the years electronic structure theory has proven to be a powerful method with which one can probe the behaviour of materials, making it possible to describe and predict material properties. The numerical tools needed for these methods are always in need of development, since the desire to calculate more complex materials pushes this field forward. This thesis contains work on both this implementational and developmental aspects.It begins by reviewing density functional theory and dynamical mean field theory, with the aim of merging these two methods. We point out theoretical and technical issues that may occur while doing this. One issue is the Pade approximant, which is used for analytical continuation. We assess the approximant and point out difficulties that can occur, and propose and evaluate methods for their solution.The virial theorem is assessed within the framework of density functional theory merged with many-body methods. We find that the virial theorem is extended from its usual form, and confirm this by performing practical calculations.The unified theory of crystal structure for transition metals has been established a long time ago using early electronic structure calculations. Here we implement the first- principles exact muffin-tin orbitals method to investigate the structural properties of the 6d transition metals. The goal of our study is to verify the existing theory for the mostly unknown 6d series and the performance of the current state-of-the art in the case of heavy d metals. It is found that these elements behave similarly to their lighter counterparts, except for a few deviations. In these cases we argue that it is relativistic effects that cause this anomalous behaviour. Palladium is then studied, taking many-body effects into account. We find that we can reproduce experimental photoemission spectra by these methods, as well as the Fermi surface.The thesis ends with an investigation of the stacking fault energies of the strongly correlated metal cerium. In addition to providing the first ab-initio stacking fault data for the two cubic phases of Ce, we discuss how these results could have an impact on the interpretation of the phase diagram of cerium


The currently proposed guidelines and consensus for asthma include Peak expiratory flow (PEF) and forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV1) as two criteria to classify asthma severity. The report between these functional data and clinical classification degrees has been evaluated in 153 asthmatic patients. Concordance between functional evaluation and clinical degree has been found only for moderate persistent asthma but not for intermittent or mild persistent asthma. These results suggest that the correlation between clinical evaluation and lung function proposed in the guidelines must be reevaluated.


The COVID-19 crisis underscored the urgency of digitizing sovereign money and ensuring universal access to banking services. It pushed two related ideas—the issuance of central bank digital currency and the provision of retail deposit accounts by central banks—to the forefront of the public policy debate. To date, however, the debate has not produced a coherent vision of how democratizing access to central bank money would—and should—transform and democratize the entire financial system. This lack of a systemic perspective obscures the enormity of the challenge and dilutes our ability to tackle it.

This Article takes up that challenge. It offers a blueprint for a comprehensive restructuring of the central bank balance sheet as the basis for redesigning the core architecture of modern finance. Focusing on the U.S. Federal Reserve System (the Fed), the Article outlines a series of structural reforms that would radically redefine the role of a central bank as the ultimate public platform for generating, modulating, and allocating financial resources in a democratic economy—the People's Ledger.

On the liability side of the ledger, the Article envisions the complete migration of demand deposit accounts to the Fed's balance sheet and explores the full range of new, more direct and flexible, monetary policy tools enabled by this shift. On the asset side, it advocates a comprehensive qualitative restructuring of the Fed's investment portfolio, which would maximize its capacity to channel credit to productive uses in the nation's economy. This compositional overhaul of the Fed's balance sheet would fundamentally alter the operations and systemic footprints of private banks, funds, derivatives dealers, and other financial institutions and markets. Analyzing these structural implications, the Article shows how the proposed reforms would make the financial system less complex, more stable, and more efficient in serving the long-term needs of the American people.


BAARS JR 2001. Biology and laboratory culturing of the root-feeding flea beetle, Longitarsus columbicus columbicus Harold, 1876 (Chrysomelidae: Alticinae): a potential natural enemy of Lantana camara L. (Verbenaceae) in South Africa. Entomotropica 16(3):149-155. The introduced ornamental plant, Lantana camara L. (Verbenaceae), is one of South Africa's worst invasive weeds. It has been the target of a biological control programme here for the past four decades. Although several natural enemies have been established, the level of control is considered unsatisfactory, and a number of new potential biocontrol agents are being evaluated. The flea beetle Longitarsus columbicus columbicus Harold is considered to be highly destructive, attacking the roots of lantana, a niche largely ignored by biocontrollers in the past. Little is known about this potential natural enemy, and attributes of its life history and mode of feeding are discussed. Adults feed on the leaves and deposit eggs in the leaf litter near the soil surface. The larvae burrow into the soil, where they feed externally on the secondary rootlets. Development takes about 60 days during summer, with the potential of 2-3 generations per annum in the field in South Africa. Rearing techniques are described, notably the use of a modified cage, and the results are compared with the alternative of rearing cultures in petri dishes. Implications for the host-specificity screening of L. columbicus columbicus and other Longitarsus and root-feeding flea beetle species under laboratory conditions are discussed.


As key regulators of cell survival, proliferation and immune responses, the NFκB family of transcription factors, which signal via the classical and alternative activation pathways, play important roles in intestinal physiology. The pro-inflammatory function of the classical NFκB activation pathway has previously been demonstrated in various animal models of intestinal inflammation. Persistent activation of this pathway has also been detected in the colonic mucosa of patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). Conversely, several studies in transgenic mice have shown that disruption of the classical NFκB activation pathway specifically in intestinal epithelial cells renders these cells more susceptible to undergoing apoptosis and also results in increased susceptibility to developing colitis. However, the specific roles of individual members of the NFκB family and in particular the role of the alternative NFκB activation pathway in regulating the susceptibility of the intestine to apoptosis, inflammation and colitis associated colon cancer have not been well defined. We therefore hypothesised that individual members of the NFκB family of proteins which signal via the classical and alternative activation pathways specifically regulate intestinal epithelial cell proliferation, apoptosis and colonic inflammation, consequently modulating susceptibility to developing inflammation associated colon cancer.
Most of these aims were addressed using transgenic mice with germline deletions of c-Rel, NFκB1, and NFκB2, along with their wild-type counterparts. Intestinal epithelial apoptosis was induced using either γ-irradiation or irinotecan administration. Colitis was induced using dextran sulphate sodium (DSS) and colitis associated cancer by a combination of azoxymethane (AOM) and DSS. In vitro studies were performed in HCT116 colon carcinoma cells.
Disruption of classical NFκB signalling by deletion of NFκB1 but not c-Rel sensitised intestinal epithelial cells to undergo apoptosis following γ-irradiation and irinotecan administration. Deleting either c-Rel or NFκB1 also exacerbated the severity of experimental acute and chronic DSS-induced colitis in mice. However, only c-Rel-null mice showed an increase in AOM/DSS induced colonic tumours. This was associated with c-Rel, but not NFκB1 deletion resulting in persistent colonic epithelial mitosis and increased crypt regeneration following DNA damage.
Disruption of the alternative NFκB activation pathway by either deleting NFκB2 (in vivo) or suppressing its expression (in vitro) also increased the susceptibility of intestinal epithelial cells to undergo apoptosis following DNA damaging stimuli. Conversely and intriguingly however, deleting NFκB2 also protected mice from developing colitis and colitis associated colon cancer.
Specific members of the NFκB family therefore play different roles in regulating the intestinal responses to various types of cellular injury. NFκB2 in particular appears to be essential for developing colitis and its associated cancer. Pharmacological inhibition of NFκB2 may therefore be a promising novel therapeutic strategy for IBD, whereas inhibition of c-Rel signalling may increase susceptibility to developing colitis and its associated colon cancer.


This paper introduces StoryTech, a smart storytelling toy that features a virtual space, which includes computer- based graphics and characters, and a real space, which includes plush toys, background cards, and a communication interface. When children put real objects on the receiver panel, the computer program shows related backgrounds and characters on the screen. StoryTech encourages children to produce their own stories. Empirical research with a total of 90 children indicated that StoryTech contributed to narrative activities of children and made a positive impact on their creativity. The paper also focuses on the attributes, design, and development process of StoryTech.


Disabled poet Larry Eigner makes striking use of the space of the page to create poetry that operates in a visual as well as linguistic register. Many critics have read Eigner's oeuvre in light of his physical condition, but no scholar has previously looked to the parallels between the Black Mountain artists' experiments in abstraction and Black Mountain poet Larry Eigner's work, though the same influences are clearly evident. Working collaboratively and interdisciplinarily, the authors combine their expertise in the disciplines of literature and art history, reading both the words on the page and the page as picture, in a manner that engages specifically with phenomenological philosophy, to explicate how these poems work on the body of the reader. Key words: embodiment, abstraction, poetics, typography, metaphysics, phenomenology


An institutionalist scholar, familiar with the numerous impacts of institutions, is
likely to be puzzled by most entrepreneurship studies that have been published in
leading economics, business and management journals over the past decades.
Surely, these studies are far from agreeing on one homogeneous line of research.
Disagreement concerns most fundamentally the question whether entrepreneurial
'traits' or 'founding processes' are the defining entrepreneurial characteristics
to be studied ...


Two separate experimental studies aimed at enhancing nitrification in lagoon systems are described. In the first study a system of four 1:10 scale experimental ponds was used to evaluate the potential for enhancement of nitrification through the control of hydraulic loading rates to lagoon systems. A relationship incorporating the parameters: hydraulic retention time, nitrifier growth rate, temperature, pH and chlorophyll a concentration was established. This relationship provides a useful guide to managing lagoons but further work is required to provide a better understanding of the processes involved. In the second study eight laboratory-scale reactors were used to evaluate the potential for enhancement of nitrification through the use of algal/bacterial biofilms. The study showed that these biofilms have the potential to enhance nitrification, particularly under more adverse conditions such as low hydraulic retention time, high organic loading and low levels of D.O., pH and temperature.


PURPOSE
Two anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapies are approved for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel) and tisagenlecleucel; each costs $373,000. We evaluated their cost effectiveness.

METHODS
We used a decision analytic Markov model informed by recent multicenter, single-arm trials to evaluate axi-cel and tisagenlecleucel in multiply relapsed/refractory, adult, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma from a US health payer perspective over a lifetime horizon. Under a range of plausible long-term effectiveness assumptions, each therapy was compared with salvage chemoimmunotherapy regimens and stem-cell transplantation. Main outcomes were undiscounted life years, discounted lifetime costs, discounted quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (3% annual discount rate). Sensitivity analyses explored uncertainty.

RESULTS
In an optimistic scenario, assuming a 40% 5-year progression-free survival (PFS), axi-cel increased life expectancy by 8.2 years at $129,000/QALY gained (95% uncertainty interval, $90,000 to $219,000). At a 30% 5-year PFS, improvements in life expectancy were more modest (6.4 years) and expensive ($159,000/QALY gained [95% uncertainty interval, $105,000 to $284,000]). In an optimistic scenario, assuming a 35% 5-year PFS, tisagenlecleucel increased life expectancy by 4.6 years at $168,000/QALY gained (95% uncertainty interval, $105,000 to $414,000/QALY). At a 25% 5-year PFS, improvements in life expectancy were smaller (3.4 years) and more expensive ($223,000/QALY gained [95% uncertainty interval, $123,000 to $1,170,000/QALY]). Administering CAR-T to all indicated patients would increase US health care costs by approximately $10 billion over 5 years. Price reductions to $250,000 and $200,000, respectively, or payment only for initial complete response (at current prices) would allow axi-cel and tisagenlecleucel to cost less than $150,000/QALY, even at 25% PFS.

CONCLUSION
At 2018 prices, it is possible that both CAR-T therapies meet a less than $150,000/QALY threshold. This depends on long-term outcomes compared with chemoimmunotherapy and stem-cell transplantation, which are uncertain. Widespread adoption would substantially increase non-Hodgkin lymphoma health care costs. Price reductions or payment for initial response would improve cost effectiveness, even with modest long-term outcomes.


Premixed compression ignition low-temperature diesel combustion (PCI) can simultaneously reduce particulate matter (PM) and oxides of nitrogen (NOx). Carbon monoxide (CO) and total hydrocarbon (THC) emissions increase relative to conventional diesel combustion, however, which may necessitate the use of a diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC). For a better understanding of conventional and PCI combustion, and the operation of a platinum-based production DOC, engine-out and DOC-out exhaust hydrocarbons are speciated using gas chromatography. As combustion mode is changed from lean conventional to lean PCI to rich PCI, engine-out CO and THC emissions increase significantly. The relative contributions of individual species also change; increasing methane/THC, acetylene/THC and CO/THC ratios indicate a richer combustion zone and a reduction in engine-out hydrocarbon incremental reactivity. The DOC is most effective in oxidizing CO, followed by acetylene and olefins, aromatics, non-methane paraffins and methane. DOC conversion efficiency of CO and THC is high for lean conventional and lean PCI but very low for rich PCI. The high CO/O2 ratio of rich PCI is believed to cause nearly all of the catalyst's active sites to be filled with CO, essentially disabling it until the CO/O2 ratio is reduced. Lean PCI DOC-out exhaust has the lowest combination of NOx, PM, CO and THC emissions, and the lowest atmospheric ozone forming potential.


Starting from Newton's laws of motion and viscosity, this book is an introduction to fundamental aspects of fluid dynamics that are most relevant to groundwater scientists. Based on a perspective of driving versus resisting forces that govern the motion of a fluid, the author derives Darcy's law for flow through porous media by drawing an analogy to Bernoulli's law for fluid with negligible viscosity. By combining the effects of gravity and pressure, the author identifies hydraulic head as a convenient numerical quantity to represent the force driving groundwater flow. In contrast to the physical derivation of hydraulic head, hydraulic conductivity emerges as a parameter related to the resisting frictional forces between the mobile fluid and the stationary porous medium. These frictional seepage forces also affect the effective stress state of the porous medium, thus establishing a link to soil stability and quicksand formation. Combining Darcy's law with the law of mass conservation leads the reader to the fundamental equations of saturated groundwater flow. Finally, the effects of capillary forces are included to establish the governing equations for unsaturated and multi-phase flow. Throughout the book, the author focuses on thoroughly illustrating and deriving the equations while applying order of magnitude analyses. This approach makes it possible to extract the most information, for example in terms of the scale of response time, without requiring explicit solutions. A number of boxes and solved exercises contain further details and links to practical applications such as the water table ratio that reflects 'fullness' of an aquifer and the performance of slug tests for in situ measurement of hydraulic conductivity. This book makes an important contribution to groundwater science by providing a progressive introductory explanation of the physical mechanics of groundwater flow and the accompanying socioeconomic and ecological problems that may arise.


Unschooling is a form of homeschooling where learning occurs not through the following of a set curricula, but instead through real life experiences. Unschooling parents do not try to replicate school or school-like activities at home. Instead, children are in charge of their own education, and that education usually naturally fits with their own intrinsic motivations, preferences, and learning styles. This is quite different from what we may see or experience in the public school classroom, where curriculum is strictly adhered to, and testing is the way a student's learning is assessed. In this study, how and when unschoolers learn to read without a set curriculum will be explored. Twenty eight unschooled adults (age 18 and older) were interviewed and asked to recall their experiences with reading and learning to read. Through these interviews, the author sought to explore how reading can be learned naturally, without adult intervention; and how this may effect later motivation for reading, writing, and other academic endeavors.


AbstractRequirements definition affects work performed in subsequent phases of a project. Thus, the compliance with requirements is crucial to the success of a project. The primary objective of this research was to develop a comprehensive framework for evaluating key building project requirements. The second objective was to identify and prioritize important project requirement using the analytical network process (ANP). The third objective was to examine the impact of requirement completeness on project success using structural equation model (SEM) analysis. A four-phase approach was employed to achieve the goals. The results suggest that building programming and site information have a higher priority in requirement definition than project control, project strategy, and project design parameter. The findings also indicate that requirement completeness may contribute significantly to building project success in terms of schedule success, cost success, quality performance, and overall benefit.


In this paper, we propose an algorithm for estimating parameters of a source term of a linear advection-diffusion equation with an uncertain advection-velocity field. First, we apply a minimax state estimation technique in order to reduce uncertainty introduced by the coefficients. Then we design a source localization algorithm which uses the state estimator as a model and estimates the parameters of the source term given incomplete and noisy data. The principal novelty of the proposed algorithm is in that it is robust with respect to uncertainty in advection coefficients. The localization algorithm is sequential; that is, it updates both the state estimate and the source estimate once a new observation arrives. To demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed algorithm, we present a numerical example of source localization in two spatial dimensions for the advection-dominated transport of a nonreactive pollutant emanating from a point source.


The personalization of politics has received much attention in both the political science and political communication literature, but the focus has almost entirely been on party leaders and prime ministers. This study investigates the personalization of ministerial communication in Norway, a type of decentralized personalization. It combines a survey of communication workers; in-depth interviews with politicians, communication workers, political reporters, and top-level civil servants; and ethnographic observation inside a ministry. The article goes beyond media-centered perspectives and identifies several potential drivers and barriers to personalization processes. Based on our mixed methods approach, we find that ministerial communication in Norway is strongly centered on the minister in both reactive media management and the proactive promotion of the minister and new policies. This decentralized personalization is driven by both demands from the media and the strategic adaptation by political and administrative actors within ministries. Based on the rich empirically grounded insights, the article discusses how the interplay between the logic of the contemporary commercial news media, political ambitions, internal administrative ambitions, and changes in executive government shapes the personalization of ministerial communication, and illuminates how these multiple drivers of personalization are mutually reinforcing.


We analyze the structure and morphology of mesocrystalline, body-centered tetragonal (bct) superlattices of PbS nanocrystals functionalized with oleic acid. On the basis of combined scattering and real space imaging, we derive a threedimensional (3D) model of the superlattice and show that the bct structure benefits from a balanced combination of {100}PbS− {100}PbS and {111}PbS−{111}PbS interactions between neighboring layers of nanocrystals, which uniquely stabilizes this structure. These interactions are enabled by the coaxial alignment of the atomic lattices of PbS with the superlattice. In addition, we find that this preferential orientation is already weakly present within isolated monolayers. By adding excess oleic acid to the nanocrystal solution, tetragonal distortion is suppressed, and we observe assembly into a bilayered hexagonal lattice reminiscent of a honeycomb with grain sizes of several micrometers.