This introduction attempts to situate railroads, which have rarely been the object of ethnographic attention, within current debates of anthropology and related disciplines. While mobility is certainly one dimension of human-railroad entanglements, the introduction calls to explore political, social, material, and affective lives of railroads in Europe and Asia as well. Often, connections provided by railroads are precarious at best: enveloped in state and local politics, they appear to some as promise and to others as menace. Planning, construction, decay, and reconstruction constitute the temporal and material life cycle of these infrastructures. Attending to particular ethnographic and historical contexts, the introduction aims to demonstrate how railroads, these potent symbols of modernity, continue to be good to think with.


This paper presents a flexible fully integrated self-calibrated quad-core 12-bit current-steering 180 nm CMOS DAC. Its novel architecture features multiple parallel sub-DAC unit cores. Their various combinations deliver smart flexibility in: performance, functionality, power management, design reuse, and smartness. The parallel sub-DAC units can be used together or separately to optimize the performance of a targeted mixed-signal application. Unused sub-DAC units can be switched off to optimize the power consumption. The new parallel sub-DACs architecture facilitates a new calibration algorithm. This algorithm together with small calibrating DACs and a current comparator enables the realization of the first fully integrated self-calibration start-up method that corrects the mismatch errors of all binary and unary current sources. The presented self-calibrated flexible DAC achieves measured linearity of better than 12-bit, while occupying small silicon area due to the intrinsic 9-bit accuracy of the DAC unit core.


Purpose: to study the etiological structure and incidence rate of various genesis optical neuropathies (ON) according to the own observation data. Material and methods. The study is based on the data analysis from a survey of 658 patients (982 eyes) with ON. The results of routine physical examination of all patients were analyzed to determine the genesis of ON. Results. The most common cases of ON were ischemic ON (31.2 % of all cases), as well as optic neuritis (18.3 % of cases). The anterior optic pathway tumor or infiltrative lesions were detected in 9.9 %, dysthyroid ON was found in 7.2 %. Acute and chronic ON with the optic nerve drusen accounted for 12.4 % of all cases of ON, was found in 60.5 % of all patients with the optic nerve drusen. Hereditary ON was found in 10 % of all cases of ON, toxic - in 4,3 % as a result of acute and chronic alcohol intoxication, chronic narcotic poisoning, drug poisoning. Traumatic ON was found in 6.7 % of all cases of ON. Conclusions. The causes of ON are diverse, vary from innate changes to diseases of the optic nerve as a result of serious therapeutic and neurosurgical pathology, which threaten not only the ophthalmologic, but also the life prediction. The patient thorough clinical study is required to determine the disease genesis at the time of ON symptoms identifying.


Studies and researches on the role of a local community in tourism
 development of rural areas emphasize the significance of inhabitants'
 attitudes about the state and perspectives of this activity. In this context,
 in the professional literature, the term CBT (community-based tourism) is
 used, which implies the involvement of local communities and planning of
 tourism development. The aim of the study is to determine the local
 population's influence on starting an initiative for a tourist arranging of
 the village Zabrega in the Municipality of Paracin, especially the sacral
 objects in the Crnica River Gorge. The following methods were applied: method
 of direct observation, analysis, synthesis, interview and survey in which the
 questions were of a closed and open type. Results of the research survey were
 analyzed in the software package for statistical processing and analysis of
 the data SPSS 20.00. It has been stated that the population has a positive
 attitude about the Society Petrus, which is the main organizer of the
 activities when the prosperity of the village Zabrega is in question, and
 that the local community is interested in engaging in the tourist activities,
 as demonstrated by numerous practical examples. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke
 Republike Srbije, br. 176017 i br. 176008]


In 1970, T. S. Kuhn, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions argued that scientists work by creating a comprehensive model--a model he called "a paradigm." A paradigm, Kuhn said, is an encompassing world view that tells us what facts to pay attention to and what to ignore. He contended that, although we may think that we consider all the facts and ask all the questions, there is always some ordering and selection going on, and we must first be prepared by our paradigm to make sense of what we see. He stated that one of the first signs that a paradigm is shifting is the discovery of facts that seem significant and indisputably true but cannot be explained by the current model. The essential elements, according to Kuhn, that are required for a paradigm to shift are a strong stimulus, a rapidly changing environment, and the realization that whether the change is good or bad is essentially of no significance. The parties most closely involved are frequently the last to appreciate that the shift has occurred.


: A specialised department for vascular microsurgery was established in the Research Institute for Clinical and Experimental Surgery in 1973. 58 replantations of fingers in 42 patients were made. Total percentage of healing was 52 (30 fingers). Doppler's flowmetry is very useful for the control of microanastomoses of the arteries in fingers. Reconstruction of vessels in fingers was made with an operative microscope (magnification 16--24 times), special microtechnique and 10/0 sutures. Successful replantation is possible even 10--12 hours after severance, it the finger is kept in hypothermia at + 4 degrees C. Rapid admission of the patients to the hospital, i.e. improved information and emergency transport may shorten ischaemic time. The first stage of replantation is the marking of arteries and veins in the finger and in the stump. It is essential to suture not less than 2--3 veins for one artery and nerve. Thorough rehabilitation is of utmost importance to get the best functional results.


Many oncology phase II trials are single arm studies designed to screen novel treatments based on efficacy outcome. Efficacy is often assessed as an ordinal variable based on a level of response of solid tumors with four categories: complete response, partial response, stable disease and progression. We describe a two-stage design for a single-arm phase II trial where the primary objective is to test the rate of tumor response defined as complete plus partial response, and the secondary objective is to estimate the rate of disease control defined as tumor response plus stable disease. Since the goal is to estimate the disease control rate, the trial is not stopped for futility after the first stage if the disease control rate is promising. The new design can be generated using easy-to-use software that is available at http://cancer.unc.edu/biostatistics/program/ivanova/.


SUMMARY: The moderately halophilic eubacterium Pseudomonas halosacchavolytica has been grown at salinities over the range 5-25 % (w/v), equivalent to 0.7-3.5 M-NaCl, and the fatty acid composition determined in the late-exponential and stationary phases of batch culture. There was an increase in the proportion of cyclopropane fatty acids (CFA) as the cultures went into stationary phase at all salinities; the overall proportion of CFA was higher in the media containing more salt. The biosynthesis of CFA in P. halosacchavolytica was determined using radiolabelled S-adenosylmethionine as the precursor incubated in cell-free extracts prepared by breaking bacteria with a French press. Compared with the activity obtained in 100 mM-phosphate buffer, the activity of CFA synthetase was inhibited by the addition of NaC1 or KC1, but stimulated up to 12-fold by added glycinebetaine, with maximum activity at 3 M. Although the specific activity of CFA synthetase in lysates from cultures grown in 0.7 or 2.1 M-NaC1 were similar in the presence of 3 M-glycinebetaine, the enzyme activity in low-salinity cultures was better adapted to function in 1 M-glycinebetaine. Shift-up experiments, in which CFA synthetase activity was assayed in cell-free extracts prepared at different times after increasing culture salinity from 0.7 to 2.1 M-NaC1, showed that the activity of the enzyme was immediately responsive to compatible solute concentration changes and indicated that enzyme induction would not be required to achieve the salt-dependent alterations in membrane lipid CFA composition in vivo. A range of other compatible organic solutes stimulated CFA synthetase activity to a much lesser extent (1.8-fold) compared with glycinebetaine. It is suggested that a compatible solute, which is normally accumulated during osmo(halo)adaptation by an organism in order to contribute towards osmotic balance, does not behave passively towards intracellular proteins but can also stimulate enzyme activity.


Every discussion of Jewish Diaspora is different if placed before or after the Age of Emancipation. Judaism is defined by three fundamental words. Torah (Law), People, Land. Erez Israel (Land of Israel) is a Holy Land if People obey the Law. People can obey the Law also outside the Land of Israel. The Jewish civilization owes much to the European culture, including the birth of Zionism. Today the most important problem of the Diaspora is constituted by its relationships with the State of Israel


The capability to generate precisely-timed periodic trains of optical pulses has pushed forward many fields of science and technology. Periodic optical waves are key to disciplines such as optical communications and computing, optical signal processing, sensing, spectroscopy, nonlinear and quantum optics, and many others. Periodic optical waveforms can be generated through electro-optical means, external modulation of continuous-wave lasers, and through mode-locking, perhaps one of the most significant recent advances in optical science and technology. Mode-locking is the process by which the different longitudinal modes oscillating in a laser cavity are tightly locked in phase, giving rise to the repetitive emission of a light pulse, i.e., a periodic pulse train. The spectrum of such a signal is a collection of equally-spaced discrete frequency components, known as a frequency comb for the characteristic comb-like shape of its power spectrum. Currently, optical frequency combs are the most precise man-made clocks in history. These signals are used in a myriad of fundamental and applied disciplines, and they are the key enabling factor of many scientific and technological fields, ranging from high-resolution spectroscopy of molecules and atoms, to next-generation optical communication systems and the astronomical search for exo-planets. The separation between adjacent frequency components of a frequency comb, known as the free spectral range (FSR), is the inverse of the repetition period of the corresponding pulse train in the time domain representation of the signal. This is a fundamental parameter from an application viewpoint. Not only most applications of periodic optical signals require their periodicity to be fixed with precision (for instance, the rate at which information is transmitted in a telecommunication system, and processed in a computing system, is strongly related to the pulse period of the clock signal), but distinct applications require fundamentally different orders of magnitude. As an example, typical atomic and molecular spectroscopy applications require combs with FSR values in the MHz regime, while astronomical spectrographic measurements, as well as applications aimed at arbitrary waveform generation and processing, are performed with frequency combs in the GHz regime. Conventional, well-established approaches for periodicity control through manipulation of pulse trains and frequency combs include spectral amplitude filtering and temporal pulse picking (or time gating). The main drawback of these approaches is their low energy efficiency, as they rely on directly discarding signal energy. Additionally, these methods suffer from practical implementation shortcomings. The amplitude filtering method needs high-finesse filters, with tight design and operational requirements (e.g., precise spectral alignment between the filter and the comb), in order to achieve signals with high quality. Similarly, the imperfect suppression of undesired pulses in pulse picking techniques results in spectral line-to-line amplitude fluctuations of the obtained comb. The relatively low extinction ratio of current electro-optic intensity modulators often forces to use optical gates based on nonlinear effects (incurring in even higher energy inefficiency), or optical switches based on semiconductor optical amplifiers and acousto-optic modulators (with typically low operation speeds). Precise timing between the pulse train and the pulse picking gate also becomes a critical factor for a correct pulse suppression. Another fundamental metric for the applicability of periodic optical waveforms is related to their noise content. Indeed, our ability to detect signals or events and to extract information contained therein is ultimately limited by the strength of said signal and that of the noise content of the measurement. Noise is ubiquitous, and its origin mechanisms are often random and difficult to control. In the particular case of periodic optical signals, the aforementioned techniques for periodicity control typically result in the degradation of the signal-to-noise ratio of the waveform of interest. This is mainly due to the fact that a large amount of energy from the input signal is deliberately thrown away (e.g., in the form of line suppression by spectral amplitude filtering of frequency combs, or pulse rejection by temporal amplitude gating of pulse trains). Versatile methods to control the pulse period of optical trains and the FSR of frequency combs with high energy efficiency and low signal degradation based on passive, linear processes are highly desired. Periodicity control methods for optical signals based on phase-only manipulations – temporal phase modulation and/or spectral phase filtering – are particularly attractive solutions to the problem, as these techniques recycle the energy of the input signal, rather than discarding part of it, redistributing it to form the desired output signal. Several techniques for periodicity control through phase-only manipulations have been proposed. In particular, an important set of these techniques relies on periodic phase transformations based on the theory of Talbot self-imaging. Realizations of Talbot phenomena have been reported across several observation domains, including time and frequency (for pulse trains and frequency combs respectively), and although the phenomenon has been extensively studied, a description that unifies its manifestations across all observation domains is still missing. The main goal of this dissertation is to propose a universal method for arbitrary, energy-preserving control of the period of repetitive optical signals, through the development of a unified mathematical description of the Talbot effect in Fourier-dual representation domains of waves. Such a generalization of the phenomenon is presented in Chapter 3, followed by the formulation of the aforementioned universal periodicity control model. Chapters 4 and 5 present experimental demonstrations of arbitrary, energy-preserving control of the repetition period of temporal pulse trains, and the FSR of frequency combs, respectively. In both chapters, the properties of the method to increase the signal energy over the level of incoherent noise propagating alongside are analyzed. The proposed method is indeed capable of redistributing the energy content of the signals of interest, producing an effect of passive amplification, thus avoiding the need for conventional active gain mechanisms (which are known to amplify both the signal and its noise content, and typically inject additional external noise contributions to the signal). Finally, Chapter 6 presents experimental examples and applications of the developed period control method to the spectra of arbitrary, aperiodic signals. In particular, two applications are reported: (i) a method for introducing reversible frequency gaps (frequency bands free of energy in the spectrum of a wave) to the spectrum of isolated optical waveforms, allowing for implementation of a novel technique for invisibility cloaking; and (ii) a method for compressing the spectra of modulated sequences of short pulses, while preserving the temporal shape of the pulses (including pulse duration), thus combining the performance advantages and robustness of short pulses for transferring and processing information with the convenience of frequency-domain multiplexing and processing operations. Considering the wide range of application of periodic temporal and spectral waveforms (e.g., trains of pulses and frequency combs), interest in the methods reported in this dissertation can be foreseen across many different fields. A particularly appealing feature of the proposed methods for pulse period/FSR control is that they offer a high flexibility and energy efficiency. Furthermore, this project could inspire the development of new applications that would take advantage of the energy redistribution strategies for the design of signal processing systems and techniques.


The effect of upstream duct curvature on the exhaust plume of a jet engine is further studied. Using synthetically created turbulence, improvements are made to the flow through out the S-bend validation case previously studied. The effect of a contracting 70° S-bend duct on the over-expanded exhaust plume emanating from a rectangular nozzle of aspect ratio 5.8:1 at a nozzle pressure ratio of 2.5 and Reynolds number of 7.61×105 is then studied. A modified version of the synthetic eddy method for creating artificial turbulence is initially validated. The validation of the Hydra CFD code is then expanded upon for an S-bend duct including both RANS and LES methodologies. For the combined S-bend and nozzle cases the total pressure gradients that were previously observed at the nozzle exit plane for k-e RANS are also similarly observed using LES with synthetically created in flow turbulence thus confirming the existence of such features. The calculations were carried out using an unstructured, median-dual CFD solver with predominantly hexahedral elements containing approximately 175 million nodes.


Oxide ion conductors have drawn significant attention due to their important technical applications in electrochemical devices. This project is based on a new oxide ion conductor Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 (NBT) which indicates (undoped) conducting NBT is a potential electrolyte material that possesses a high level of nearly pure oxide ion conduction.
Na non-stoichiometry in the starting composition (Na-series), acceptor doping (Mg2+ → Ti4+, Na0.5Bi0.5Ti1-xMgxO3-x) and donor doping (Nb5+ → Ti4+, Na0.5Bi0.5Ti1-xNbxO3+x/2) in NBT have been investigated. It has been shown that similar to a previously reported Bi non-stoichiometric series (Bi-series), the electrical properties of NBT are highly sensitive to low levels of Na non-stoichiometry. However, the defect mechanisms for Na and Bi non-stoichiometry are different and leads to a contrasting influence on the properties of NBT ceramics. Na-rich samples from the Na-series behave like Bi-deficient samples from the Bi-series whereas Na-deficient samples from the Na-series behave like Bi-rich samples from the Bi-series. Generally speaking, the bulk conductivity (oxide ion conduction) of NBT is dependent on the Na/Bi ratio in the nominal starting composition. Samples with a Na/Bi ratio ≥ 1 exhibit high, nearly pure oxygen ion conduction with a low activation energy (< 0.9 eV) for bulk conduction whereas samples with a Na/Bi ratio < 1 are electronic insulators with a high activation energy (~ 1.6 eV) for bulk conduction.
Mg B-site acceptor doping, (Na,Bi)Ti1-xMgxO3-x, can further enhance the bulk conductivity and produces oxide ion transport numbers, tion, close to unity. This doping also stabilises NBT ceramics to reducing atmospheres (eg 5%H2/95%N2 at 500 oC) to demonstrate their potential as an electrolyte material for Intermediate Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells. In contrast, Nb donor doping, (Na,Bi)Ti1-xNbxO3+x/2, systematically suppresses the oxide-ion conductivity; very low levels of Nb doping (0.002 ~ 0.003) leads to a mixed oxide ion and n-type conduction and an intermediate tion (~ 0.5). A further increase of Nb doping level (≥ 0.005) suppresses the oxide ion conduction and results in dielectric materials with predominant n-type electronic bulk conduction with tion ≤ 0.07 at elevated temperature (eg > 600 oC). It is worth noting that, extremely Bi-rich (undoped) NBT (Bi ≥ 0.52) also induces mixed ionic/electronic behaviour by reintroducing higher oxide-ion conductivity with tion ~ 0.4–0.6.
The ferroelectric Aurivillius phase Bi4Ti3O12 (BiT) has also been determined to exhibit high levels of oxide ion conduction. Un-doped BiT shows mixed p-type and oxide ion conduction at low temperature; however, tion approaches near unity close to the Curie Temperature, TC ~ 675 oC. As BiT contains both extrinsic and intrinsic defects, the Bi nonstoichiometry has limited influence on its electrical properties. Isovalent doping (La3+ → Bi3+; Bi4-xLaxTi3O12) acceptor doping (Sr2+ → Bi3+; Bi4-xSrxTi3O12-x/2) and donor doping (Nb5+ → Ti4+; Bi4Ti3-xNbxO12+x/2) are all investigated. La-doping (x ≤ 2) can shift TC to lower temperature and makes BiT a potentially good oxygen ion conductor at ~ 600 oC, but the bulk conductivity gradually reduces with increasing x. Sr-doping has a rather limited solid solution limit (x ≤ 0.12) compared to La doping but can maintain the bulk conductivity while lowering the TC. Nb donor doping on Ti-site can compensate oxygen vacancies and suppress the oxide ion conduction.
K0.5Bi0.5TiO3 (KBT) has been determined to be a mixed conductor where the ionic contribution can be oxide ions and/or protons. The proton conduction in KBT is controlled by the K/Bi ratio in the nominal starting composition. Samples with a starting K/Bi ratio > 1 exhibit substantial proton conductivity whereas samples with a starting K/Bi ratio ≤ 1 exhibit lower proton conduction. Compared to NBT, the oxide ion conduction in KBT is significantly lower and relatively independent of the starting A-site non-stoichiometry.


Clinical trials for treatment of acute ischaemic stroke require large numbers of patients and are expensive to conduct. Treatment is typically administered within the first hours or days after stroke onset. Outcome is usually assessed by a single measure, the most common being the modified Rankin scale (mRS) at day 90. Any strategy that can reduce cost or deliver more reliable answers on safety and efficacy of the investigational treatment would be welcome for future exploratory testing of novel treatments. This thesis focused on the impact of applying different methods of design, inclusion and outcome measurement to limit sample size and strengthen analysis in clinical trials in acute stroke.
Firstly, inclusion criteria were investigated to assess the impact on functional outcome. By assessing how the effect of thrombolysis changes over onset time to treatment (OTT) the relationship between OTT and age could be investigated. By looking across the entire range of OTT and assessing the interaction between the two covariates this provided complementary data to a previous VISTA analysis conducted by Mishra et al. It was found that across the full range of OTT, up to 3.5h, the treatment effect of thrombolysis in very elderly stroke patients (>80 years old) was comparable to that of their younger counterparts. The association of AF and modified Rankin Scale (mRS) at day 90 was then assessed. Multiple logistic regression analysis adjusted for age and baseline National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) showed that history of AF had no independent impact on stroke outcome.
Deferred selection of subjects for neurorestorative therapies from hyperacute (<6h) to 24h was then explored using a simulation approach. The sample size required to detect a 'shift' in mRS outcome equivalent to a 5% absolute difference in proportion achieving mRS 0-2 versus 3-6 was modelled, setting power at 80% and assuming adjustment for entry age and NIHSS. It was found that extending the time window for patient selection provides a measurement which has a stronger more predictive relationship with outcome.
Trial inclusion was explored further by investigating selection for delayed treatment with thrombolysis. Prognostic scoring methods were proposed to identify a strategy for patient selection to be applied first to an existing trial dataset and then validated in the pooled RCT 4.5-6h data. ). Prognostic score limits were chosen to optimise the sample for a net treatment benefit significant at p=0.01 by Cochran Mantel Haenszel test and by ordinal logistic regression. More inclusive limits were also defined based on p=0.05 criteria. After finalising prognostic score limits, for validation they were applied by an independent statistician to the pooled RCT data for 4.5-6h. The validation analysis based on ordinal outcomes failed to deliver a population in whom treatment >4.5h was safe and effective; analysis based on net benefit (mRS 0-1) showed significance.
Secondly, different strategies for endpoint selection were considered. In the past some trialists have investigated the use of earlier endpoints on single trial datasets and taken advantage of the fact that numerous outcome scales are available to measure various domains of neurological and functional recovery. The use of an earlier neurological endpoint for detecting futility in a trial was considered with validation on external RCT data. Global endpoints, investigating different aspects of functional recovery at different time-points were then considered.
Simulations were undertaken to assess the relationship between sample size and power for ordinal scales and the corresponding global outcomes. Day 7 NIHSS was found to be the most sensitive individual ordinal endpoint. Dichotomised analyses supported these results. However this needed validation in a randomised trial dataset for use in exploratory stroke trials. The validation study reinforced the results from the non-randomised VISTA study. The global test combination of NIHSS90 with NIHSS7 appeared to offer incremental sensitivity to treatment effect compared to the ordinal scales alone. The combination of mRS90 with NIHSS7 did not increase the sensitivity to treatment effect when compared to NIHSS alone, but offers a broader clinical measure without loss of statistical power.
Finally, alternatives to the traditional RCT were considered. Abandoning the rigour of the blinded RCT carries substantial penalty in loss of reliability and should not be undertaken lightly.
If a placebo control is deemed impractical or unethical, investigators often consider comparisons against historical controls. A within-VISTA exploration of case-control matching is presented. The reliability of different matching methods and covariate combinations were assessed using a simulation approach. The results indicate that caution must be taken when using historical controls to generate a matched control group. Substantial further work matching to external data and validation to RCT data is needed.
Cluster randomised trials, which randomise patients by groups, are becoming a more widely used approach. When evaluating strategies to promote the transfer of research findings into clinical practice, i.e. in "Implementation Research", an RCT is impractical and a cluster randomised trial design is of advantage. Some elements in the design and sample size calculation of cluster randomised trials were considered. Intra cluster correlation coefficients (ICCs) were estimated from linear and generalised linear mixed models using maximum likelihood estimation for common measures used in stroke research. These estimates of relevant ICCs should assist in the design and planning of cluster randomised trials.
In conclusion, this research has shown that there are several areas in the design of clinical trials of acute stroke that merit further investigation. Several strategies have been highlighted that could potentially reduce sample size whilst retaining optimal levels of statistical power. However other aspects such as patient selection and the nature of the intervention under study can affect trial cost and statistical power and need to be taken under consideration.


Proceedings: AACR 104th Annual Meeting 2013; Apr 6-10, 2013; Washington, DC

Introduction: Chemokines are a family of cytokines known to regulate the migration of cells. The chemokine CXCL12, also known as SDF-1, and its receptor CXCR4 are associated with prostate cancer bone metastasis. The tumor suppressor PTEN (phosphatase and tensin homolog) is a critical regulator of growth factors and inhibitor of PI3K. Loss of PTEN is frequently observed in cancer, resulting in the deregulation of cell survival, growth, and proliferation. Previous studies have found that PTEN is lost or mutated in 30-80% of primary prostate cancer, and 50% of prostate cancer bone metastases. In mouse models of prostate cancer, it has been shown that loss of PTEN is critical for tumor initiation, and the level of PTEN expression is inversely associated with prostate tumorigenesis. Murine epithelial cells from PTEN-deficient prostate tumors also display increased expression of CXCR4 and CXCL12. We hypothesize that loss of PTEN and subsequent activation of Akt, frequent occurrences in prostate cancer, regulate the CXCL12/CXCR4 signaling axis in prostate cancer progression.

Methods: Prostate-specific deletion of floxed exon 5 of PTEN was achieved by Cre recombinase expressed under the control of an androgen-responsive probasin promoter. Stable cell lines were developed from PTEN+/+, PTEN+/−, and PTEN−/− murine prostate epithelial cells isolated from prostates of corresponding mice at 8 weeks of age. PTEN status in these cell lines was confirmed by genotyping and immunoblot analyses. Human prostate cancer cell lines BPH-1, C4-2B, PC3, and DU145 were also utilized. Gene expression and invasion were analyzed in the presence or absence of Akt inhibitor. Additionally, DU145 with overexpressed HA-tagged Akt1 was also utilized in a subcutaneous injection model.

Results: Loss of PTEN resulted in increased expression of CXCR4 and CXCL12, suggesting that loss of PTEN may play a key role in the regulation of these chemokines in prostate cancer. Upon treatment of PTEN-null cells with Akt inhibitor, the induction of CXCL12/CXCR4 was reversed, further demonstrating the role of the PTEN regulated pathway in the expression of these genes. Akt inhibition also resulted in decreased invasion in response to CXCL12. Overexpression of Akt1 in DU145 resulted increased CXCR4 expression, as well as increased proliferation and cell cycle progression. Subcutaneous injection of these cells also resulted in increased tumor growth as compared to neo controls.

Conclusions: These results suggest the basis for activation of CXCL12 signaling through CXCR4 in prostate cancer driven by the loss of PTEN and subsequent activation of Akt.

Citation Format: Katie Conley-Lacomb, Allen Saliganan, Yong Q. Chen, Hyeong-Reh C. Kim, Michael L. Cher, Sreenivasa R. Chinni. PTEN loss mediated Akt activation promotes prostate tumor growth via CXCL12/CXCR4 signaling. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 4088. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-4088


Maintenance is not only important in ensuring the condition and physical of the old building to operate safely and effectively, but it also for an activity that is important in determining the life long of the building, so that it can be preserve and be inherit by the next generation. The need of maintenance is not only on repairing but more towards prevention method. According to the previous study, maintenance is done reactively; this further will cost serious problems in future. Therefore maintenance need good planning from the early stage and is followed with on-going implementation from time to time by all those who are responsible in it. In conjunction with this, this paper is to discuss about the importance of on-going maintenance in order to manage the old building after it has been gazette as heritage listed. At the end of the discussion, several strategies have been put forward in order to stimulate the practice of on-going maintenance as an initiative to encourage the culture of maintenance and also help to increase the quality process in a more effective maintenance management.


OBJECTIVES
Studies investigating the association between radiation therapy and the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer have provided inconsistent results, likely due to relatively small cohort sizes. This study investigated the effect of previous thoracic radiation therapy on the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy in a large non-small-cell lung cancer cohort.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
We conducted a retrospective cohort study using data from 531 non-small-cell lung cancer patients who received monotherapy with programmed cell death protein 1/programmed death-ligand 1 inhibitors at nine institutions. The effects of thoracic radiation therapy on the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors were investigated.

RESULTS
A total of 531 non-small-cell lung cancer patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors were included in this study. The progression-free survival period was significantly longer in patients that had received thoracic radiation therapy before immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy compared to those without previous thoracic radiation therapy (median progression-free survival 5.0 vs. 3.0 months, P = 0.0013). A multivariate analysis showed that thoracic radiation therapy was an independent predictive factor of improved progression-free survival (hazard ratio of progression-free survival: 0.79, P = 0.049). In contrast, extra-thoracic radiation therapy was associated with inferior outcomes (median progression-free survival 3.0 vs. 4.2 months, P = 0.0008).

CONCLUSION
Previous thoracic radiation therapy, but not prior extra-thoracic radiation therapy, enhanced the efficacy of anti-programmed cell death protein 1/programmed death-ligand 1 therapy in non-small-cell lung cancer patients.


Breaking of yield stagnation through novel approaches like exploitation of gene pools of winter wheat and
spring wheat as well as new variability available in the form of buitre & synthetic wheats is one of the promising
avenues for ensuring food security. However, very little information is available on their combining ability.
Therefore, to assess the combining ability of yield and secondary traits among these important gene pools, 18 F1
hybrids developed by (6x6) half diallel of two winter, two spring, one facultative and one buitre parents were
evaluated in replicated plots over 2 years. Highly significant differences among the six parental lines for all
attributes suggested that sufficient variability existed in this set of material. Non-additive gene effects
predominate for all the characters. The larger magnitude of GCA compared to GCA x Year mean squares,
suggests that interaction effects may be of relatively minor importance for days to heading, ear length, spikelets
per ear, grains per ear, grains wt. per ear and 1000 grain weight. The spring wheat 'UP 2572', facultative wheat
'VL 818' and buitre line 'CMH 83.2518' can be used as parents for high grain yield per plant. On overall basis
'90 Zhong 65'/ 'HW 3083' a winter x spring cross was the best cross combination having desirable significant
GCA effect for days to heading, maturity, ear length, grain weight per spike, grain yield per plant, biological
yield per plant and thousand grain weight. Although GCA effects of the most of the winter, spring, facultative
and buitre wheats were average for yield as such but they were good for one or other yield component and their
combination can produce improved genotypes. The chances of getting high yielding genotypes were high
through winter x spring followed by winter x facultative and spring x buitre as compared to other crosses.


Multiple sclerosis, seems to be a rare disease however in the population herein studied it is similar to the one described by others, in Brazil and abroad. We studied 50 patients classified according Poser's criteria that were followed at the Department of Neurology UNIFESP-EPM from 1983 to 1995. The clinical findings of these 50 patients were similar to those described in other series. We found a high prevalence among female young patients who presented relapsing-remitting evolution. The most common symptoms were those related to pyramidal and cerebellar dysfunctions. The EDSS score seems to be worse in patients with specific cerebellar and pyramidal signs, higher number of relapses and longer time of disease but it is not related to the number of white matter lesions found at MRI.


Medical treatment, intraocular pressure (IOP) and adverse drug reactions were recorded in a prospective multicentre study of 71 unselected, newly diagnosed cases of open-angle glaucoma. Eight ophthalmologists recorded standard information at five visits over a mean interval of 12.1 months. No limitations were imposed on the choice of drugs or interval between visits. The IOP was satisfactorily controlled throughout the follow-up period with the first drug prescribed in 36% of eyes. In an additional 10% to 13% the IOP was stabilized with alternative therapy, prescribed for approximately one-third of eyes per visit. A total of 27 patients reported 18 severe and 31 mild suspected adverse reactions during the follow-up period. Survival analysis showed that there was no significant difference between the proportions of patients continuing treatment with the first, second and third drug prescribed (half-life of treatment approximately 210 days in all three cases). However, when only changes for unsatisfactory pressure were considered, the half-life of treatment was significantly longer, 350 days (p = 0.02).


Following the 2002 Conference on Open Magnetic Systems for Plasma Confinement, a three times progress in the formation of ion-confining potential height is achieved in the hot-ion mode. The advance in the potential formation leads to a finding of remarkable effects of radially produced shear of electric fields dEr/dr on the suppression of not only coherent drift waves but turbulence-like fluctuations for the first time in GAMMA 10. Also, the progress in the potential formation is made in line with the extension of our proposed physics scaling of potential formation covering over representative tandem-mirror operational modes, characterized in terms of (a) a high-potential mode having kV-order plasmaconfining potentials and (b) a hot-ion mode yielding fusion neutrons with 10-20 keV bulk-ion temperatures (Ti).


Weaving the Tapestry of Life. The United Nations and Global Governmentality

My doctoral research evolves around the question how the Secretaries-General have been constructing the UN as a peculiar subject in world politics, and how this construction is linked to the cognitive structures in which global governance is imagined. These problems are best comprehensible in a post-structuralist framework, where structures of knowledge and discourses are typical tools for doing research. This approach has the capacity to reveal very different facets of International Relation's general problem, often formulated as 'what makes the world hang together', what makes it look like someone is governing? I address similar issues, but from a definite point of view, which stands on a long and diverse traditions of scholarship when it hypothesises the UN's role on the one hand, and structures of knowledge on the other. My point is that these cannot be treated separately if the above questions are to be answered, and, that a promising entry point is the analysis of discursive mechanisms.
I assume that the discourse of world politics as global governance, structured by the dynamics of 'modern political rationalities', is in a complex relationship with the UN, and especially the construction of its 'subjectivity' since its establishment. This approach places the focus on a cognitive structure, but also stays sensitive to agency. That world politics is imagined in terms of global governance was nothing new around the end of the Cold War, but it certainly gained momentum, thanks in large part to the collective efforts put in elaborating the discourse of global governance. The creation of the UN was a significant and symbolic development, which makes it an intriguing object of research. The above elements – the discourse of global governance, the UN's subjectivity (meaning the 'acting Self' constructed through discursive mechanisms) and modern political rationalities (the frames of our political imagination) – are thus argued to be entangled in a set of complex relationships, the unravelling of which is the primary goal of my project. I assume that it is the discourse of global governance which integrates the other parts under its 'order of knowledge', and has the capacity to embed the research question in a broader debate on the changing character of world politics. Making these linkages engendered the questions guiding this research: How has the UN's subjectivity been formed in relation to the shifting rationality of world politics? How has the discourse of global governance organized this interplay of subjectivity and political rationalities?
The empirical dataset I work on to answer these questions is one which I extracted from the Annual Reports of the Secretaries-General on the Work of the Organization. I investigate the UN's 'subjectivization narrative' primarily with the tools offered by (Foucauldian) discourse analysis. I present the analysis and the results in a narrative-, and then in a discourse analytical step, and interpret my results in the framework offered global governmentality theory. The empirical chapter also presents an original interview research, which is used to describe accurately the process of producing the Annual Reports in the Secretariat on the one hand, and to confront the interviewees' stories (who are officials of the UN Secretariat, working on the Secretary-General's reports) with the knowledge structures they are grounded in. My conclusions outline the complex set of relationships between the UN, global governance, and how our thinking about world politics has evolved in the past decades.


Abstract This paper examines the stability of egocentric networks as reported over time using a novel touchscreen-based participant-aided sociogram. Past work has noted the instability of nominated network alters, with a large proportion leaving and reappearing between interview observations. To explain this instability of networks over time, researchers often look to structural embeddedness, namely the notion that alters are connected to other alters within egocentric networks. Recent research has also asked whether the interview situation itself may play a role in conditioning respondents to what might be the appropriate size and shape of a social network, and thereby which alters ought to be nominated or not. We report on change in these networks across three waves and assess whether this change appears to be the result of natural churn in the network or whether changes might be the result of factors in the interview itself, particularly anchoring and motivated underreporting. Our results indicate little change in average network size across waves, particularly for indirect tie nominations. Slight, significant changes were noted between waves one and two particularly among those with the largest networks. Almost no significant differences were observed between waves two and three, either in terms of network size, composition, or density. Data come from three waves of a Chicago-based panel study of young men who have sex with men.


Multimedia streaming over Mobile Ad Hoc networks has been a very challenging issue due to the dynamic behavior and uncertain nature of the channels. Transmission of real time video has bandwidth, delay and loss requirements. However there are no Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees for video transmission in today's network. There are many challenging issues that need to be addressed in designing mechanisms for video transmission, which include end-to-end Quality of Service, Bandwidth, Delay, Loss, Congestion, and Heterogeneity. The Challenges of delivering Multi-media signals are even pronounced in Wireless Networks (Mobile Ad Hoc Networks, Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) and Cellular Networks) which are heavily bandwidth constrained and have no fixed infrastructures. In this Research we provide a theoretical model for minimum buffer size as a means of achieving smoother, higher quality streaming video. This Research presents a general optimal video smoothing algorithm based on the concept of dynamically controlled Coefficient of Variance (CV), which is the ratio of standard deviation of the end-to-end delay and the expected value of the delay for each ensemble of packets being transmitted through the network. The results discuss how the size of the "receive buffer" is affected by the allocated bandwidth for each source-pair end users for supporting video streaming applications without any gaps. The simulation performance show that the dynamic client buffer size based on measured bandwidth variation achieves negligible jitter in the video streaming which is subjectively acceptable.


Hepatocellular carcinoma is a primary malignancy of the liver. Hepatocellular carcinoma is now the third leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, with over 500,000 people affected. In Egypt, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the second most common cancer in men and the 6th most common cancers in women. This rising incidence and its' poor prognosis make the early detection and surveillance of hepatocellular carcinoma of high importance. Aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) is a polymorphic enzyme responsible for the oxidation of aldehydes to carboxylic acids, which leave the liver and are metabolized by the body's muscle and heart. ALDH1 and ALDH2 are the most important enzymes for aldehyde oxidation. These enzymes are found in many tissues of the body but are at the highest concentration in the liver. AIM: The aim of this study is to evaluate the diagnostic value of serum Aldehyde dehydrogenase level in hepatitis C virus infected Egyptian patients with cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. METHODS: This study included 50 patients with cirrhosis, 50 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and 37 healthy volunteers. For all groups we studied clinical data, liver function tests, viral markers, serum alpha fetoprotein (AFP) and ALDH concentration using enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). RESULTS: Our data showed that ALDH was more sensitive and specific than AFP, ALDH had 74% sensitivity and 82% specificity, P- value (0.000) but AFP had 66% sensitivity and 64% specificity, P-value (0.003). CONCLUSION: ALDH could be used as useful diagnostic marker for detection of hepatocellular carcinoma and in differentiation between HCC and cirrhosis at a cut off value of 41 U/L.


An optimization technique is discussed which improves the numerical efficiency of the finite difference method with memory variables used to analyze wave propagation in high‐loss materials [η=O(1)] [Blanch et al., ''Viscoelastic finite difference modeling,'' Rice University Tech. Rep. TR93‐04 (1993)]. With the conventional use of memory variables, the relaxation function of a viscoelastic material is modeled with a series of decaying exponential functions. The amplitudes and relaxation times of these exponentials are then matched, as closely as possible, to the behavior of the viscoelastic material. Using the new optimization technique, the error of the finite difference method, which is completely predictable using the von Neuman method, is accounted for during the matching process reducing the total error. For narrow‐band models, the reoptimization process can reduce run times and memory requirements for 2‐D models by about 8X and 4X, respectively. The usefulness and accuracy of this technique versus an...


. Following recent shootings in the USA, a debate has erupted, one side favoring stricter gun control, the other promoting protection through more weapons. We provide a scientific foundation to inform this debate, based on mathematical, epidemiological models that quantify the dependence of firearm-related death rates of people on gun policies. We assume a shooter attacking a single individual or a crowd. Two strategies can minimize deaths in the model, depending on parameters: either a ban of private firearms possession, or a policy allowing the general population to carry guns. In particular, the outcome depends on the fraction of offenders that illegally possess a gun, on the degree of protection provided by gun ownership, and on the fraction of the population who take up their right to own a gun and carry it with them when attacked, parameters that can be estimated from statistical data. With the measured parameters, the model suggests that if the gun law is enforced at a level similar to that in the United Kingdom, gun-related deaths are minimized if private possession of firearms is banned. If such a policy is not practical or possible due to constitutional or cultural constraints, the model and parameter estimation indicate that a partial reduction in firearm availability can lead to a reduction in gun-induced death rates, even if they are not minimized. Most importantly, our analysis identifies the crucial parameters that determine which policy reduces the death rates, providing guidance for future statistical studies that will be necessary for more refined quantitative predictions.


Abstract Why do combatants uproot civilians in wartime? In this paper I identify cross-national variation in three population-displacement strategies—cleansing, depopulation, and forced relocation—and test different explanations for their use by state actors. I advance a new "assortative" theory to explain forced relocation, the most common type. I argue that combatants displace not only to expel undesirable populations, but also to identify the undesirables in the first place by forcing people to send signals of loyalty and affiliation based on whether, and to where, they flee. This makes communities more "legible" and facilitates the extraction of rents and recruits. I test these arguments using a novel Strategic Displacement in Civil Conflict data set (1945–2008). Consistent with my expectations, different displacement strategies occur in different contexts and appear to follow different logics. Cleansing is more likely in conventional wars, where territorial conquest takes primacy, while forced relocation is more likely in irregular wars, where identification problems are most acute. The evidence indicates that cleansing follows a logic of punishment. The results for relocation, however, are consistent with the implications of my assortative logic: it is more likely to be employed by resource-constrained incumbents fighting insurgencies in "illegible" areas—rural, peripheral territories. A case study from Uganda based on in-depth fieldwork provides evidence for the assortative mechanism. As the most comprehensive analysis of wartime displacement strategies to date, this paper challenges some core assumptions about a devastating form of contemporary political violence.


Current side hand controllers are passive fly-by-wire devices with two or three control axes, usually associated with a spartan armrest. Alternatives are considered for biomechanical interface improvements before moving to serial implementation of actuation for smart-stick multiaccess multiaxis controllers. Possible improvements are proposed to provide harmonious, smart-active hand controllers for future high-performance applications. It is suggested that these must be based on an optimum biomechanical man-machine interface before the advantages of active control can be realized.<<ETX>>


Digital structured light(SL) profilometry is increasingly used in three-dimensional(3D) measurement technology.However, the nonlinearity of the off-the-shelf projectors and cameras seriously reduces the measurement accuracy. In this paper, first, we review the nonlinear effects of the projector–camera system in the phase-shifting structured light depth measurement method. We show that high order harmonic wave components lead to phase error in the phase-shifting method. Then a practical method based on frequency domain filtering is proposed for nonlinear error reduction. By using this method, the nonlinear calibration of the SL system is not required. Moreover, both the nonlinear effects of the projector and the camera can be effectively reduced. The simulations and experiments have verified our nonlinear correction method.


This article investigates the argument that the Christian idea of forgiveness can and should be translated into a socio-political context, from a Reformed perspective. It furthermore endeavours to provide guidelines that can be applied in the sphere of a political transition of the basis of an ethics of forgiveness. The new post-Apartheid society of South Africa is a good example of such a political transition. The central theoretical argument of this investigation is that the Christian theological perspective of forgiveness can indeed be translated into a socio-political praxis. Seen within the context of major biblical themes, this can provide a valuable, if not indispensable, contribution to the quest for reconciliation and nation-building in countries troubled by histories of colonialism, ethnocentrism, tribalism, racism and xenophobia.


The article views some aspects of promoting innovative activity in the Republic of Bashkortostan. The measures stimulating innovative activity have been grouped into blocks. 1. Creating favorable conditions for innovative activity. 2. Increasing the population's innovative activity. 3. Development of the system of scientific and production cooperation and innovation commercialization. 4. Investment support of innovative projects. 5. Development of innovative infrastructure. 6. Development of innovative small businesses. 7. Information provision of innovative activity. The main directions of implementing the above-mentioned conditions are: - lawmaking activity in the Republic, taking into consideration the federal legislation, international standards and traditions; - financial and tax inducement of scientific-technical and innovative activity; - international technological integration; - private-state partnership in the sphere of innovative activity. Recommendations are suggested, relating to the innovative policy activation for more efficient fulfillment of the key functions of the Republic's scientific and research sector. The authors conclude that the Republic has all necessary preconditions for small entrepreneurship functioning: the natural conditions favorable for many kinds of economic activity, the forming local market infrastructure for small business servicing, and the availability of large enterprises and centers of economic activity. Keywords : entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, innovation, innovative activity, region, infrastructure, investments, stimulation, monitoring.


Objective. Oral glucocorticoid (OGC) use for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is debated because of the adverse event (AE) profile of OGC. We evaluated the associations between cumulative doses of OGC and potential OGC-related AE, and quantified the associated healthcare expenditures. Methods. Using the MarketScan databases, patients ≥ 18 years old who have RA with continuous enrollment from January 1 to December 31, 2012 (baseline), and from January 1 to December 31, 2013 (evaluation period), were identified. Cumulative OGC dose was measured using prescription claims during the baseline period. Potential OGC-related AE (osteoporosis, fracture, aseptic necrosis of the bone, type 2 diabetes, ulcer/gastrointestinal bleeding, cataract, hospitalization for opportunistic infection, myocardial infarction, or stroke) and AE-related expenditures (2013 US$) were gathered during the evaluation period. Multivariable regression models were fitted to estimate OR of AE and incremental costs for patients with AE. Results. There were 84,357 patients analyzed, of whom 48% used OGC during the baseline period and 26% had an AE during the evaluation period. A cumulative OGC dose > 1800 mg was associated with an increased risk of any AE compared with no OGC exposure (OR 1.19, 99.65% CI 1.09–1.30). Incremental costs per patient with any AE were significantly greater for cumulative OGC dose > 1800 mg compared with no OGC exposure (incremental cost = $3528, 99.65% CI $2402–$4793). Conclusion. Chronic exposure to low to medium doses of OGC was associated with significantly increased risk of potential OGC-related AE in patients with RA, and greater cumulative OGC dose was associated with substantially higher AE-related healthcare expenditures among patients with AE.


The CXCL12/CXCR4 pathway, which is involved in biological phenomena such as inflammation, lymphoid homing and regeneration, may play an important role in tumor progression and distant metastasis, especially in organ-selective metastasis. In addition, the CXCL12/CXCR4 pathway has been reported to regulate tumor angiogenesis. In this study, we examined the immunohistochemical expression of CXCR4 and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in nasopharyngeal carcinoma. CXCR4 and VEGF mRNAs were also assessed by real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. Overexpression of CXCR4 and VEGF was observed in 41 (53.9%) and 30 (39.5%) of 76 tumors, respectively. There was a significant positive correlation between immunohistochemical CXCR4 and VEGF expression (p=0.0339). Additionally, immunohistochemical CXCR4 expression was associated with CXCR4 mRNA expression, and immunohistochemical VEGF expression was associated with VEGF mRNA expression (p=0.0040 and p=0.0476, respectively). Furthermore, patients with VEGF-positive tumors had a significantly worse prognosis than patients with VEGF-negative primary tumors (p=0.0044). Our findings suggest that the expression of CXCR4 and VEGF is associated with metastatic progression, and that VEGF expression is a valuable prognostic marker in nasopharyngeal carcinoma.


The article is devoted to investigating British English, American English, Polish and Russian automotive LSP. There are three main tasks to be accomplished: conducting semantic analysis, comparing British and American versions, identifying borrowings in Polish and Russian. The first one allowed to determine paradigmatic relations, designate thematic groups and systematize the microsystem. The second analysis revealed numerous discrepancies between British and American sets, including different or partially different lexemes nominating the same real objects, as well as examples of compounds with various spelling rules being applied to. Finally, there are twenty four direct borrowings from English into Polish and Russian (approximately seventeen percent of the analyzed vocabulary total), which confirms the leading role of British and American English as source languages for automotive LSP.


We have discovered a new mechanism of monoallelic gene expression that links antigenic variation, cell cycle, and development in the model parasite Trypanosoma brucei. African trypanosomes possess hundreds of variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) genes, but only one is expressed from a telomeric expression site (ES) at any given time. We found that the expression of a second VSG alone is sufficient to silence the active VSG gene and directionally attenuate the ES by disruptor of telomeric silencing-1B (DOT1B)-mediated histone methylation. Three conserved expression-site-associated genes (ESAGs) appear to serve as signal for ES attenuation. Their depletion causes G1-phase dormancy and reversible initiation of the slender-to-stumpy differentiation pathway. ES-attenuated slender bloodstream trypanosomes gain full developmental competence for transformation to the tsetse fly stage. This surprising connection between antigenic variation and developmental progression provides an unexpected point of attack against the deadly sleeping sickness. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.02324.001


Bio-modalities, such as the face, iris, and fingerprint, are ideal for establishing authentication in the futuristic networks, such as the medical cyber physical systems (MCPSs). In such a network, to authenticate and classify the bio-modalities, raw data would be traditionally sent to the cloud other than the proximal devices as they are resource-constrained. Thus, the centralized cloud-based solution not only incurs significant delay but also violates the data privacy as the data are moved to the cloud. In recent years, privacy-preserving on-device AI nodes are getting attention to solve certain classification problem, which can also be applied for classifying spoofed and real bio-modalities for authentication. To this end, we propose an on-device AI-based MCPS architecture, where the on-device AI node runs a light-weight but powerful classification algorithm, as we call it the feature-augmented random forest (FA-RF). The FA-RF combines the power of random forest with feature selection and a proposed feature augmentation mechanism. Besides privacy-preserving of the raw data, the proposed approach can significantly reduce the communication delay imposed on the network as cloud computation and communication is removed. Our proposal is verified on real datasets of the face, iris, and fingerprint bio-modalities provided by the Warsaw, Replay-Attack, and LiveDet 2015 Crossmatch benchmark, respectively. The experimental results show that our model can outperform the state-of-the-art architectures in four out of six tests. Besides, we show that the FA-RF can significantly reduce the training and testing time in both the cloud and the on-device AI node.


This article examines the process by which certain coastal states in East and Southeast Asia may confirm their sovereign rights over areas of continental shelf more than 200 nautical miles from their baselines — areas commonly termed the "outer" or "extended" continental shelf. The article provides an overview and explanation of this legally and technically complex process. It also highlights some of the numerous issues and uncertainties in respect of both the interpretation of the relevant provisions of the international law of the sea and practical aspects of the implementation of the process itself. Many states around the world, including in East and Southeast Asia, are striving to meet a deadline for submissions related to the outer continental shelf of May 2009. Existing and potential submissions are outlined. The potential opportunities and challenges associated with outer continental shelf are then discussed.


The topic of social justice within intercollegiate sport has focused primarily on administrator perceptions. To better understand the athletes' perspective and the impact of athletic identity on social justice, 166 current and former NCAA athletes participated in a survey related to their perceptions of inequities during their collegiate athletic experiences. Results indicated that although no significant difference existed between current and former athletes and their levels of athletic identity, former athletes were more likely to perceive inequities. Thus, the data suggests that a shift in perspective, unrelated to athletic identity, may occur once an athlete leaves college. The results further suggest that former athletes may provide a more critical perspective that is needed to further advance social justice within intercollegiate athletics. The theoretical and practical implications of this research are discussed.


The intrauterine device (IUD) is a safe, effective, and reversible contraceptive method, however in many countries use of the IUD is stagnant or declining in relation to other contraceptive methods. In 2002, the Population Council investigated the reasons for low utilization of IUDs among women in Ghana and Guatemala. The studies examined clients' and providers' knowledge and attitudes about IUDs as well as factors within the health system that affect their use and availability. The studies took place at public, private, and nongovernmental health centers and clinics in both rural and urban settings. Researchers collected qualitative data using a combination of focus group discussions, in-depth interviews with providers, and visits from simulated clients enacting profiles of women wishing to space or limit pregnancies. The studies also included a secondary analysis of service statistics from government and private clinics. As concluded in this brief, lack of knowledge among providers and clients, logistical problems, and cumbersome guidelines contributed to low use of the IUD in Ghana and Guatemala. Efforts to improve use should include more comprehensive training for providers, education for clients, and logistical support.


This study investigates patterns of mobility in Early Medieval Bavaria through a combined study of diet and associated burial practice. Carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios were analyzed in human bone samples from the Late Roman cemetery of Klettham and from the Early Medieval cemeteries of Altenerding and Straubing-Bajuwarenstrasse. For dietary comparison, samples of faunal bone from one Late Roman and three Early Medieval settlement sites were also analyzed. The results indicate that the average diet was in keeping with a landlocked environment and fairly limited availability of freshwater or marine resources. The diet appears not to have changed significantly from the Late Roman to the Early Medieval period. However, in the population of Altenerding, there were significant differences in the diet of men and women, supporting a hypothesis of greater mobility among women. Furthermore, the isotopic evidence from dietary outliers is supported by "foreign" grave goods and practices, such as artificial skull modification. These results reveal the potential of carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis for questions regarding migration and mobility.


Residual and cascaded migration can be described as a continuous process of velocity continuation in the post-migration domain. This process moves reflection events on the migrated seismic sections according to changes in the migration velocity. Understanding the laws of velocity continuation is crucially important for a successful application of migration velocity analysis. In this paper, I derive the kinematic laws for the case of prestack residual migration from simple trigonometric principles. The kinematic laws lead to dynamic theory via the method of characteristics. The main theoretical result is a decomposition of prestack velocity continuation into three different components corresponding to residual normal moveout, residual dip moveout, and residual zero-offset migration. The contribution and properties of each of the three components are analyzed separately.


We propose a personality detection algorithm based on human perceptions of images and created a mobile social application named Date gram to test the efficiency of our algorithm and connect people who share similar image perceptions. We detect user's Big Five personality based on their perceptual opinions on several images. Users in Date gram are matched to play visual-sentiment games, through which their connections based on personality similarity are further strengthened. Datagram utilizes techniques of image sentiment detection to analyze user's personality. Given the collected personal sentiment perception data, we proposed personality-mapping algorithm to categorize users into "Big Five" personality. After the Adjective-Noun-Pairs (ANPs) are extracted from each image, a personalized image-profile that consists of multiple pairs of ANPs and corresponding user decisions is generated. This profile is treated as the input of our algorithm, and a modified Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model is applied to extract personality-related features. "Big Five" personality values are calculated by a word-personality mapping algorithm where the technique of Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) is used. To evaluate our proposed algorithm, we did user studies over visual sentiments as well as personality detections. The results demonstrate that sentimental opinions from different persons vary significantly towards the same image, people would prefer to connect with those sharing similar perceptions of images and similar personalities with them.


Searching for sentences containing claims in a large text corpus is a key component in developing an argumentative content search engine. Previous works focused on detecting claims in a small set of documents or within documents enriched with argumentative content. However, pinpointing relevant claims in massive unstructured corpora, received little attention. A step in this direction was taken in (Levy et al. 2017), where the authors suggested using a weak signal to develop a relatively strict query for claim–sentence detection. Here, we leverage this work to define weak signals for training DNNs to obtain significantly greater performance. This approach allows to relax the query and increase the potential coverage. Our results clearly indicate that the system is able to successfully generalize from the weak signal, outperforming previously reported results in terms of both precision and coverage. Finally, we adapt our system to solve a recent argument mining task of identifying argumentative sentences in Web texts retrieved from heterogeneous sources, and obtain F1 scores comparable to the supervised baseline.


Needs and Capacity Assessment Strategies for Health Education and Health Promotion, Fourth Edition provides practitioners with a handbook that can be used in the classroom and in the field. It focuses on realistic needs and capacity assessment strategies with considerations for preparation, implementation, and incorporation of findings into the planning process. It also provides an overview of settings, specific target audiences, approaches to assessing needs, and recommendations for addressing problems encountered along the way. The Fourth Edition continues to be reader friendly and worthwhile in terms of practical recommendations. The twelve chapters are realistic process discussions with mini-examples at the end based on the authors' experiences and those of others in the field. Case studies provide insight into various combinations of strategies used in a variety of settings. Two special articles at the end of the book provide further insight regarding community risk estimation and the use of metaphors to gain a better understanding of the perceived needs and capacities that are assessed.


Background: Patients with somatoform disorders tend to report somatic complaints, while denying the influence of psychological factors: a pattern described as "illusory mental health". The present study investigated if somatoform patients present themselves in this way. In this context we investigated features of personality organization), selfreported personality traits, symptomatology, and coping.
Methods: A cross-sectional design was applied to 79 patients with somatoform disorders and 114 psychiatric controls. We compared the two groups regarding prevalence of the several profiles of personality organization, selfreported symptoms, coping and personality traits.
Results: Compared to controls, the narcissistic subtype of the borderline personality organization was 2.5 times more prevalent among patients with somatoform disorders. Unexpectedly, the psychotic personality organization was also more prevalent among patients with somatoform disorders. Furthermore, patients with somatoform disorders rated themselves as more socially competent, with higher levels of self-esteem and greater ability to cope with problems. They also reported less anger and less depressive symptoms. However, they seem to recognize feelings of anxiety.
Conclusion: Patients with somatoform disorders show a favourable self-presentation and in line with this a relatively high prevalence of the narcissistic personality organization. The favourable self-presentation in patients with somatoform disorders may be related to defensive denial, i.e. illusory mental health. The utility of self-reports may be limited in these patients, given their favourable self-presentation on these instruments. This has also implications for the use of self-reports in the context of assessing treatment outcome among patients with somatoform disorders, for example in the context of routine outcome monitoring. Somatization in patients with somatoform disorders might have an integrating preserving function. Future research should investigate the role of personality organization on treatment outcome for patients with somatoform disorders. Future research should also include observer ratings, complementary to self-reports, given the favourable self-presentation of SFD-patients.


Chirped pulses from gain-switched, distributed feedback laser diodes at a wavelength of 1.3μm are compressed to 8.7ps. FWHM by the linear dispersion properties of single-mode fibre. These pulses are used to optically sample fast waveforms from other 1.3 pm laser diodes. The high time resolution sampling system uses a fibre coupler to combine beams; this eliminates critical alignment and results in a practical design.


Ernst Troeltsch and Comparative Theology examines the methodological attempts of Ernst Troeltsch and Robert Neville for discerning Christian normativity. The investigation of Troeltsch focuses on his treatment of the absoluteness of Christianity and highlights the crisis brought upon absolute religious claims by the study of the history of religions. By rejecting both the supernatural-exclusive apologetic of orthodox Protestantism and the evolutionary apologetic of liberal Protestantism, Troeltsch insists that theology's method should be the history of religions' method (die religionsgeschichtliche Methode). Like Troeltsch, Neville agrees with historical inquiries, but, contrary to Troeltsch, Neville advances an axiological hypothesis to thinking, which is founded in valuation. Neville explains the role of valuation at the imaginative level of thinking and relates it to his theory of normative truth in religious symbols. This study shows that Neville begins with Troeltsch's methodological presuppositions but achieves more normative theology than Troeltsch, especially on ways in which God is engaged in symbolically shaped thinking and practice. Both thinkers offer creative insights for theology that make possible a critical comparison of truth claims regarding the validity of Christianity in and for a historically conscious age.


A prospective randomised controlled clinical trial of treatment decisions informed by invasive functional testing of coronary artery disease severity compared with standard angiography-guided management was implemented in 350 patients with a recent non-ST elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) admitted to 6 hospitals in the National Health Service. The main aims of this study were to examine the utility of both invasive fractional flow reserve (FFR) and non-invasive cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) amongst patients with a recent diagnosis of NSTEMI. In summary, the findings of this thesis are: (1) the use of FFR combined with intravenous adenosine was feasible and safe amongst patients with NSTEMI and has clinical utility; (2) there was discordance between the visual, angiographic estimation of lesion significance and FFR; (3). The use of FFR led to changes in treatment strategy and an increase in prescription of medical therapy in the short term compared with an angiographically guided strategy; (4) in the incidence of major adverse cardiac events (MACE) at 12 months follow up was similar in the two groups. Cardiac MRI was used in a subset of patients enrolled in two hospitals in the West of Scotland. T1 and T2 mapping methods were used to delineate territories of acute myocardial injury. T1 and T2 mapping were superior when compared with conventional T2-weighted dark blood imaging for estimation of the ischaemic area-at-risk (AAR) with less artifact in NSTEMI. There was poor correlation between the angiographic AAR and MRI methods of AAR estimation in patients with NSTEMI. FFR had a high accuracy at predicting inducible perfusion defects demonstrated on stress perfusion MRI.
This thesis describes the largest randomized trial published to date specifically looking at the clinical utility of FFR in the NSTEMI population. We have provided evidence of the diagnostic and clinical utility of FFR in this group of patients and provide evidence to inform larger studies. This thesis also describes the largest ever MRI cohort, including with myocardial stress perfusion assessments, specifically looking at the NSTEMI population. We have demonstrated the diagnostic accuracy of FFR to predict reversible ischaemia as referenced to a non-invasive gold standard with MRI. This thesis has also shown the futility of using dark blood oedema imaging amongst all comer NSTEMI patients when compared to novel T1 and T2 mapping methods.


Why did the Victorians drape their buildings in elaborately ornate decoration? Why was the Arts and Crafts movement so popular with the American middle class at the end of the 19th century? Why did Modernism replace traditional architectural styles after World War II? Mark Gelernter provides fresh answers to questions like these, convincingly showing how buildings express powerful cultural forces. Embodying deeply felt attitudes about fundamental issues, buildings express our relationship with nature, our social relations with others, the importance of the individual, the value of science and technology, and our political role in the world. He explains how designers sometimes expressed these ideas with available building technologies, while at other times they invented new technologies in order to realize new ideas. Each of the ten chronological chapters, accompanied by almost 300 photographs, drawings, and maps, begins with a broad survey of the dominant cultural forces and technologies, and then discusses how designers of the day responded with particular architectural forms.


This article offers a sympathetic critique of recent attempts to forge a dialogue between Global Commodity Chain (GCC) and World City Network (WCN) approaches to global economic change. While broadly supportive of the endeavour, we make three observations about this ongoing project. First, we question the utility of emphasizing the common roots of these approaches in World Systems Theory given that both have subsequently moved into new epistemological terrain and, additionally, that the language of core and periphery seems ever less pertinent to global economic realities. Second, we seek to highlight the potential dangers of essentializing the global system as one that is primarily shaped by certain kinds of connections – namely the intra-firm relationships of advanced producer service firms – between certain kinds of cities – namely the leading tiers of global cities. Third, we point to the need to expand the interpretations of relationality within global networks to include a wider variety of actors, particularly beyond the corporate realm, and to explore the dynamic power relations between those actors. We also discuss the methodological challenges of expanding the purview of research in this way. This commentary has been stimulated by the articles in the special issue of Global Networks on 'World City Networks and Global Commodity Chains'.


The electricity sector is an important part of any country's economy as it holds a cross-sectoral importance and produces a socially signifi cant product for residents and industries. Economically, the sector is less vulnerable during world crises, receiving many variations of the state support. Both world electricity consumption and electricity generation have grown steadily over 2007-2019, with China, USA, India, Russia, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Germany, Brazil and France being world market leaders. This article analyzes the current state and the main trends of the development of the electricity industry as a whole and the fi nancial stability of its companies. The United States and Russia, with similar functioning market models, were chosen to assess. The analysis of the fi nancial stability of PJSC Inter RAO and Exelon Corp, two electricity giants in Russia and in the United States, has shown that they demonstrate stable results: Exelon Corp is more profi table while PJSC Inter RAO is less dependent on fi nancing from creditors. Overall, electricity companies and the industry as a whole should not suff er much from the COVID-19 pandemic: many fi nancial support measures have been developed in both countries, helping the sector to recover to 2019 levels by 2021.


Amorphous Al2O3 is an attractive material for integrated photonics. Its low losses from the UV till the mid-IR together with the possibility of doping with different rare-earth ions permits the realization of active and passive functionalities in the same chip at the wafer level. In this work, the influence of reactive gas flow during deposition on the optical (i.e., refractive index and propagation losses) and material (i.e., structure of the layer) characteristics of the RF reactive sputtered Al2O3 layers is investigated and a method based on the oxidation state of the sputtering target is proposed to reproducibly achieve low loss optical guiding layers despite the continuous variation of the condition of the target along its lifetime.


Training a model to perform a task typically requires a large amount of data from the domains in which the task will be applied. However, it is often the case that data are abundant in some domains but scarce in others. Domain adaptation deals with the challenge of adapting a model trained from a data-rich source domain to perform well in a data-poor target domain. In general, this requires learning plausible mappings between domains. CycleGAN is a powerful framework that efficiently learns to map inputs from one domain to another using adversarial training and a cycle-consistency constraint. However, the conventional approach of enforcing cycle-consistency via reconstruction may be overly restrictive in cases where one or more domains have limited training data. In this paper, we propose an augmented cyclic adversarial learning model that enforces the cycle-consistency constraint through an external task specific model, which encourages the preservation of task-relevant content as opposed to exact reconstruction. We explore digit classification with MNIST and SVHN in a low-resource setting in supervised, semi and unsupervised situation. In low-resource supervised setting, the results show that our approach improves absolute performance by $14\%$ and $4\%$ when adapting SVHN to MNIST and vice versa, respectively, which outperforms unsupervised domain adaptation methods that require high-resource unlabeled target domain. Moreover, using only few unsupervised target data, our approach can still outperforms many high-resource unsupervised models. In speech domains, we also adopt a speech recognition model from each domain as the task specific model. Our approach improves absolute performance of speech recognition by $2\%$ for female speakers in the TIMIT dataset, where the majority of training samples are from male voices.


1. Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science and IR, University of Gujrat, Pakistan 2. Lecturer, Department of Politics &IR, University of Sargodha, Pakistan 3. Lecturer, Department of Social Work, University of Sargodha, Pakistan PAPER INFO ABSTRACT Received: February 09, 2020 Accepted: March 28, 2020 Online: March 31, 2020 This study inquires the political, cultural and economic grievances of indigenous Sindhis and role of the actual or perceived injustices for the rise of Sindhi ethno-nationalism. One-Unit was a scheme introduced by the Pakistani government to amalgamate all the areas of West Pakistan in a single province. Its implementation deprived existing provinces of their autonomy. The defunct provinces were not mere administrative units but were historical homelands of communities possessing distinctive ethno-cultural identities. Hence, it was not only a loss of political autonomy but was also a loss of identity for the people of smaller provinces. Larger proportion of One-Unit population belonged to the former province of Punjab. Punjabis also formed the most advanced ethnic group of West Pakistan. So their dominance in OneUnit's administration, economy and politics was quite obvious. The government was compelled to abandon the One-Unit scheme after a decade and a half because of the resolute opposition by smaller provinces nevertheless it left bitter memories. Indigenous population of Sindh akin to people of other smaller provinces considered the One-Unit period as the bitterest experience of their history. It is abominated as the colonial period during which people had to face many suffering and lead a miserable life. That strengthened ethnonationalists sentiment among indigenous Sindhis. The perceptions of Sindhis' exploitation are how much based on reality demand a comprehensive investigation based on empirical pieces of evidence


My PhD thesis presents an account of transactional fairness as a moral constraint on the distribution of profits between firms in international supply chains. While recent work on global justice and exploitation has paid growing attention to distributive demands that arise in the context of international trade, both bodies of literature have been largely silent with respect to the prices at which goods are exchanged between businesses located in different national jurisdictions. My thesis aims to advance the debate by addressing this gap. I argue for the view that the choice of prices in such international commercial transactions represents an issue of moral concern and, engaging with the debate about the moral status of benefiting from injustice and different theories of exploitation, develop a distinctive account of the conditions under which prices in such transactions qualify as fair. The thesis proceeds in three parts. The first part makes the general case for the demand of transactional fairness in international commercial transactions by defending the claim that the prices at which goods are exchanged across national borders, typically in transactions between firms, are subject to the moral constraint that the economic benefits that they entail for each of the transacting parties be fair. The second part critically examines potential criteria for a moral assessment of prices that have been suggested elsewhere. These criteria can be categorised according to two types of approaches to conceiving of a fair price. In terms of possible counterfactual-procedural approaches, I consider the acceptability of a price in the absence of prior injustice and the correspondence of a price to the price that would emerge under conditions of perfect competition as possible criteria of fairness. As far as possible value-based approaches are concerned, I consider the suggestions that prices are fair insofar as they are equivalent to the cost of production or to the marginal revenue product of the good being exchanged. Having rejected these possibilities, the third part of the thesis turns to possible distributional conceptions of a fair price. This leads to the defence of the view that international commercial transactions are fair insofar as they entail equal degrees of profitability for the transacting firms.


The in vivo hemodynamic impact of sodium nitroprusside (SNP), a widely used antihypertensive agent, has not been well studied. Here, we applied functional optical‐resolution photoacoustic microscopy (OR‐PAM) to study the hemodynamic responses to SNP in mice in vivo. As expected, after the application of SNP, the systemic blood pressure (BP) was reduced by 53%. The OR‐PAM results show that SNP induced an arterial vasodilation of 24% and 23% in the brain and skin, respectively. A weaker venous vasodilation of 9% and 5% was also observed in the brain and skin, respectively. The results show two different types of blood oxygenation response. In mice with decreased blood oxygenation, the arterial and venous oxygenation was respectively reduced by 6% and 13% in the brain, as well as by 7% and 18% in the skin. In mice with increased blood oxygenation, arterial and venous oxygenation was raised by 4% and 22% in the brain, as well as by 1% and 9% in the skin. We observed venous change clearly lagged the arterial change in the skin, but not in the brain. Our results collectively show a correlation among SNP induced changes in systemic BP, vessel size and blood oxygenation.


This paper reviews the state-of-the-art eco-hydraulic and eco-sedimentation studies in China, particularly focusing on the impact of hydropeaking, habitat suitability modelling, bio-invasion control strategies, sediment transport effects on river ecology, and ecological restoration. Field investigations found that macro-invertebrate species number reduced nearly to zero in a short reach downstream of a dam due to hydropeaking, resulting from a hydropower station. Habitat suitability modelling for the Chinese sturgeon indicated that the habitat suitability was reduced after the Three Gorges Dam began filling. Macro-invertebrate species number and fishery harvest reduced sharply after riparian lakes were cut-off from the Yangtze River. Invasion and dense attachment of mussels on water transfer tunnel walls have caused biofouling in many countries. An effective control strategy, using hydraulic control methods for the golden mussel invasion is proposed. Erosion, sediment transportation, and deposition create and change habitats for many macro-invertebrate species. The biodiversity and number density of individual invertebrates are high in stable streams, lower in incised streams and streams experiencing sedimentation, and lowest in streams with intensive sediment transport. In stable streams, macro-invertebrates colonized a layer of bed sediment up to 60 cm, in which different species preferred different depths. For incised streams, the ecosystem was restored with artificial step-pools, which stabilized the channel bed and created high-habitat diversity. The problems and studies presented in this paper indicate the growth points of the discipline of eco-hydraulics and eco-sedimentation.


Background Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a major cause of liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma and the leading indication for liver transplantation. In the Middle East, genotype 4 HCV infection is the most common genotype. However, limited data exists on the treatment of genotype-4 in the liver transplant setting. We evaluated the safety and efficacy of ledipasvir (LDV)-sofosbuvir (SOF) in treating HCV genotype-4 infected patients with cirrhosis or postliver transplantation. Methods This prospective, single-arm, observational study includes cohort of patients with cirrhosis before liver transplantation (cohort A) and a cohort of postliver transplantation patients (cohort B). Patients received LDV/SOF (90-400 mg) once daily for 12 to 24 weeks with or without ribavirin (RBV). Patients with creatinine clearance below 30 were excluded. Results A total of 111 patients (61 cirrhotic; 50 postliver transplants) with HCV genotype 4 were treated in King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center; 55% cohort A and 44% cohort B received RBV. Sustained virological response sustain virological response (SVR)12 was 91.8% and 86% of cohorts A and B, respectively. There were no treatment-related mortality or serious adverse effects. RBV dose reduction occurred in 25% without any treatment discontinuation. SVR12 rates in cohort A were significantly higher in patients with a viral load below 800 000 (100% vs 83.9%, P value = 0.022). Viral load did not impact SVR rates in cohort B. The use of RBV did not increase SVR12 and was associated with anemia. Conclusions LDV/SOF without RBV is an effective and safe treatment option for patients with HCV genotype 4 infection in preliver and postliver transplant settings.


At the high luminosity LHC the current L1 trigger of ATLAS will not be able to reduce the number of events to a level accepted by the higher level triggers. It is therefore of importance to implement new strategies of triggering to be able to continue successful operation. This study examined an RoI-seeded muon track trigger in the Higgs to tau-tau to mu-mu channel and found that the ability to select signal events was very good, even at five times rejection of soft minimum bias events compared to the current trigger. The overall trigger efficiency for selected signal muons is decreased by less than 4% with smearing of track transverse momenta up to ten times coarser than the current offline resolution.


We used field and laboratory mesocosm experiments to examine the effects of the func- tional response of the blue crab Callinectes sapidus foraging on Balthic clams Macoma balthica in the upper Chesapeake Bay. Field experiments measured the density-dependent effect of blue crabs on clam patches in both mud and sand substrates at multiple sites spanning the natural range of clam densities, allowing us to examine the effects of larger-scale variation in prey abundance on prey mortality patterns. We compared the results of our field experiments to mesocosm experiments with 1 and 2 blue crabs to determine differences in the effects of single and multiple predators on the den- sity-dependence of clam mortality. We observed predator behavior to identify mechanisms responsi- ble for differences in prey mortality patterns. In the field, M. balthica mortality was not significantly density dependent, but the natural density of prey surrounding experimental patches had a negative density-dependent effect on clam mortality in mud. In the mesocosms, 1 or 2 blue crabs caused den- sity-dependent mortality. Density dependence was weaker in mesocosms with 2 crabs. Agonistic behaviors were not significantly affected by clam density, but the presence of a conspecific increased a crab's foraging time at the lowest clam density. Changes in behavior when multiple crabs forage together may partly account for the reduction in density dependence of clam mortality. Predator responses such as the effects of conspecifics on foraging and patch choice that were lacking in the laboratory appear to be key in determining prey mortality patterns in the field. Larger-scale patterns of prey density variation were more important in determining prey mortality rates than the small- scale variation represented by the experimentally manipulated patches.


Field experiment was conducted during the wet season of 2008 at the Teaching and Research Farm of Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma (Lat. 6° 45' North and Long. 6° 08' East and an altitude of 460 metres above sea level), to evaluate the relationship between farmyard manure, inorganic fertilizer and dry matter weights on the yield of cucumber. The experiment consisted of one variety of cucumber (Ashley), three farmyard manure rates and five fertilizer levels using a randomised complete block design fitted into a 3 × 5 factorial scheme with three replicates. The result of the study indicated that increasing the farmyard manure and fertilizer levels led to an increase in dry matter production and the yield of cucumber. There was a positive correlation between the total dry matter production and yield components of cucumber.

 Key words: Farmyard manure, inorganic fertilizer, dry matter, yields of cucumber.


HONAI :  International Journal for Educational, Social, Political & Cultural Studies.  This journal will provide a peer-reviewed forum for the publication of thought-leadership articles, briefings, discussion, applied research, case and comparative studies, expert comment and analysis on the key issues surrounding the Educational, Social, Political, and Cultural studies in general, not only in Indonesia but also in Southeast Asia and around the world, and its various aspects. Analysis will be practical and rigorous in nature. The HONAI journal, with ISSN 2621-1653 (print), ISSN 2621-3621 (online), was firstly published on May 2, 2018, in the context to commemorate the National Education Day in Indonesia. The HONAI journal has been organized and managed by the Lecturers at the STISIP (College of Social and Political Sciences) Amal Ilmiah in Wamena, Papua, Indonesia; and published by Minda Masagi Press as a publisher owned by ASPENSI (the Association of Indonesian Scholars of History Education) in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. The HONAI journal is published twice a year i.e. every May and November. Manila, the Philippines: November 30, 2018. Prof. Dr. Jose M. Ocampo, Jr. Guest Editor of HONAI Journal for Issue of November 2018; and a Senior Lecturer at the PNU (Philippine Normal University) in Manila, the Philippines.