This study was conducted to investigate the effect of Solid State Fermented Feed (SSFF) with and Without Prepared Probiotic (PP) on the live body weight, weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion ratio of a local Malaysian chicken (Akar Putra). A total of 96 day-old Akar Putra chicks, were randomly assigned to four dietary treatments (24 chicken/treatment), with 3 replicates for each (8 chicken/replicate). The four dietary treatments were the control T1 (no supplement), diet supplemented of SSFF with probiotic in the second treatment was prepared at the rate 1:1:1 (1 kg of commercial broiler feed+1 L tap water+1g PP). While the rate was 1:1:2 (1 kg of commercial broiler feed+1 L tap water+2 g PP) in the third treatment. The chickens in fourth treatment were fed on SSFF without probiotic. The feeding mixtures of T2, T3 and T4 were placed in a plastic tray which closed ad incubate for 38 h at 37±2EC for complete fermentation and used without drying. Supplementation the SSFF with PP resulted in a significant (p<0.01) increase in the males' and females'live body weight. Furthermore, (p<0.01) enhancement in the females' feed conversion ratio of supplemented treatments was observed. It can be concluded that using wet fermented feed with 1 and 2 g of prepared probiotic caused significant improvement in the production performance of Akar Putra chicken especially in the live body weight and growth rate traits.


The objective of this article is to describe for readers the benefits of moderate exercise.By: Susan Adams M.Ed. The Use Of Moderate ExerciseSummary: The best way to look and feel better and to improve your health is with exercise. It takes just thirty...


Calcium phosphate cement (CPC) sets in situ to form hydroxyapatite and is highly promising for a wide range of clinical applications. However, its low strength limits its use to only non-stress applications, and its lack of macroporosity hinders cell infiltration, bone ingrowth and implant fixation. The aim of this study was to develop strong and macroporous CPC scaffolds by incorporating chitosan and water-soluble mannitol. The incorporation of chitosan could improve the handling properties of CPC. Mannitol provided the needed early strength of CPC and then dissolved to create macropores for tissue ingrowth. This study investigated the effects of mannitol volume fraction (0-70%) on CPC composite mechanical properties and macroporosity of the scaffold after mannitol dissolution.


Partnership and reproductive behaviour patterns have undergone major shifts over much of Europe and North America during the past three decades, leading to the coexistence of a variety of family forms. This country report sheds some light on the development in fertility and partnership formation and it provides a deeper understanding of the subject by measuring possible explanatory factors.


Both numerical and analytical models of coupled atmosphere and its underlying ground components (land, ocean, ice) are useful tools for modeling the global and regional water cycle. Unlike complex three-dimensional climate models, which need very large computing resources and involve a large number of complicated interactions often difficult to interpret, analytical models are able to provide more direct and intuitive figures of variability and processes in a highly simplified system. They can be a good and efficient alternative modeling tool, especially for studying continental water cycle. This article describes the analytical models developed based on the soil and atmospheric water and energy conservation equations. A fourth-order model is used to illustrate the perturbation equation, solutions, and physical interpretation. Our understanding of some water cycle variability issues, including timescale, persistence, and major physical parameters and processes, obtained from the analytical models is presented.

Keywords:

analytical model;
water cycle;
persistence;
land–atmosphere interaction and feedback


A magnetic levitation (maglev) system is inherently nonlinear and open-loop unstable because of the nature of magnetic force. Most controllers for maglev systems are designed based on a nominal linearized model. System variations and uncertainties are not accommodated. The controllers are generally designed to satisfy gain and phase margin specifications, which may not guarantee a bound on the sensitivity. To address these issues, this paper proposes a robust control design method based on Quantitative Feedback Theory (QFT) applied to a single degree-offreedom (DOF) maglev system. The controller is designed to successfully meet the stability requirement, robustness specifications, and bounds on the sensitivity. Experiments verify that the controller maintains stable levitation even with 100% load variation. Experiments prove that it guarantees the transient response design requirements even with 100% load change and 39% model uncertainties. The QFT control design method discussed in this paper can be applied to other open-loop unstable systems as well as systems with large uncertainties and variations to improve system robustness.


Minwise hashing has become a standard tool to calculate signatures which allow direct estimation of Jaccard similarities. While very efficient algorithms already exist for the unweighted case, the calculation of signatures for weighted sets is still a time consuming task. BagMinHash is a new algorithm that can be orders of magnitude faster than current state of the art without any particular restrictions or assumptions on weights or data dimensionality. Applied to the special case of unweighted sets, it represents the first efficient algorithm producing independent signature components. A series of tests finally verifies the new algorithm and also reveals limitations of other approaches published in the recent past.


This study aims to identify the attitude of the future farmers regarding sustainable agriculture, based on the understanding of sustainable agriculture concept, its current and future importance and the fact that agronomy students will be future managers of rural enterprises, public managers and companies of the sector. The research was conducted with 288 students of agronomy from the best Brazilian universities. Through information analysis obtained from the application of the attitude scale toward sustainable agriculture it was possible to notice that the students associate aspects of this concept to the balance of environment and natural resources, and that through these practices agriculture can have both environmental and economic gains. It is expected that the next farmers generation favorable attitude that was found in this research generate greater implementation of the practices of sustainable agriculture in the long term. Keywords: Future farmers, Sustainable agriculture, Agronomist, Brazil, Agriculture.


Dumping is a permanent feature of marketing strategies of numerous firms aiming to increase their market share, to optimise the volume of their production or to maximise profits through price discrimination. Anti‐dumping complaints are increasingly resorted to as a defensive tool to stop the challengers. A brief summary of the basic issues involved is offered and relates them to marketing concerns in export operations. Considers the essential mechanics of anti‐dumping actions and shows how they are used to gain a strategic advantage. Discusses the elements of the export marketing mix which should be subjected to self‐restraint to minimise the threat of anti‐dumping accusations. Concludes by presenting a number of the marketing options that are at the disposal of a dynamic exporter to move potential antagonists in the area of anti‐dumping closer to a co‐operative partnership.


Recent contributions to the empirical analysis of the relationship between financial system development and economic growth found that an exogenous component of financial system development causes economic growth, is a good predictor of growth and that its growth impact is relatively large. In addition, the empirical literature on banking crises predicts that their adverse effects on economic growth will rise in the absence of an adequate response by the government. Given these findings and considering that the Russian government failed to respond adequately to the 1998 banking crisis, Russia's strong economic growth since the crisis is a puzzle. The paper attempts to analyze Russia's growth process and to empirically make visible the impact of the banking crisis. It is found that the growth costs of the crisis may have been even larger than suggested by a simulation that uses growth coefficients from the literature. This adverse growth impact was compensated by other expansionary effects. The finding corroborates those studies that argue for the importance of financial system development in promoting growth in transition countries.


It is shown that Pavlov's opinion is in agreement with the modern requirements for experiments in living animals: use of living animals in experiments is recommended only in the cases when there is no alternative and scientific-practical significance of the planned experiments is justified; minimization (as much as possible) of discomfort, distress and pain of animals under study without sacrifice of the quality of scientific research; use of appropriate number of animals necessary for obtaining reliable results which are adequate to a given experimental situation and general state of the animals inadmissibility of using extra number of animals; drawing up a protocol concerning the experimental procedure and results; reflection in the protocol the techniques of sedation, anesthesia, and euthanasia; constant care of the improvement of the theoretical and practical qualification of a researcher in the ethical questions and experimental technique. Pavlov's views led his time and at present they agree with modern concepts on the experimental ethics.


Legitimacy and legitimation practices are key constructs in the neo-institutional literature. So far, much scholarship has drawn on ideational and discursive approaches of legitimation. Yet, the organizational world has become increasingly iconographical, and visuals seem to have been at the core of contemporary legitimacy claims. This research investigates the visual artifacts and practices embedded in the elaboration of legitimacy claims. Through an iconographic lens applied to practices unfolding in a meeting room, this research emphasizes the image-screen and image-object iconographies involved in the elaboration of legitimation claims. Visual practices elicit symbolic spaces that organizational actors may then mobilize as worlds of justification and legitimization.


This work is an outreach approach to an ubiquitous
recent problem in secondary-school education: how to
face back the decreasing interest in natural sciences
shown by students under 'pressure' of convenient
resources in digital devices/applications. The approach
rests on two features. First, empowering of teen-age
students to understand regular natural events around, as
very few educated people they meet could do. Secondly,
an understanding that rests on personal capability to test
and verify experimental results from the oldest science,
astronomy, with simple instruments as used from
antiquity down to the Renaissance (a capability
restricted to just solar and lunar motions).
Because lengths in astronomy and daily life are so
disparate, astronomy basically involved observing and
registering values of angles (along with times),
measurements being of two types, of angles on the
ground and of angles in space, from the ground. First,
the gnomon, a simple vertical stick introduced in
Babylonia and Egypt, and then in Greece, is used to
understand solar motion. The gnomon shadow turns around during any given day, varying in length and thus
angle between solar ray and vertical as it turns, going
through a minimum (noon time, at a meridian direction)
while sweeping some angular range from sunrise to
sunset. Further, the shadow minimum length varies
through the year, with times when shortest and sun
closest to vertical, at summer solstice, and times when
longest, at winter solstice six months later. The extreme
directions at sunset and sunrise correspond to the
solstices, swept angular range greatest at summer, over
180 degrees, and the opposite at winter, with less
daytime hours; in between, spring and fall equinoxes
occur, marked by collinear shadow directions at sunrise
and sunset.
The gnomon allows students to determine, in
addition to latitude (about 40.4° North at Madrid, say),
the inclination of earth equator to plane of its orbit
around the sun (ecliptic), this fundamental quantity
being given by half the difference between solar
distances to vertical at winter and summer solstices,
with value about 23.5°. Day and year periods greatly
differing by about 2 ½ orders of magnitude, 1 day
against 365 days, helps students to correctly visualize
and interpret the experimental measurements.
Since the gnomon serves to observe at night the moon
shadow too, students can also determine the inclination
of the lunar orbital plane, as about 5 degrees away from
the ecliptic, thus explaining why eclipses are infrequent.
Independently, earth taking longer between spring and
fall equinoxes than from fall to spring (the solar
anomaly), as again verified by the students, was
explained in ancient Greek science, which posited orbits
universally as circles or their combination, by
introducing the eccentric circle, with earth placed some
distance away from the orbital centre when considering
the relative motion of the sun, which would be closer to
the earth in winter. In a sense, this can be seen as hint
and approximation of the elliptic orbit proposed by
Kepler many centuries later.


Psychro-active bacteria, important constituents of polar ecosystems, have a unique ability to remain active at temperatures below 0 °C, yet it is not known to what extent the composition of their outer cell surfaces aids in their low-temperature viability. In this study, aqueous suspensions of five strains of Arctic psychro-active marine bacteria (PAMB) (mostly sea-ice isolates), were characterized by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) and compared with SERS spectra from E. coli and P. aerigunosa. We find the SERS spectra of the five psychro-active bacterial strains are similar within experimental reproducibility. However, these spectra are significantly different from the spectra of P. aeruginosa and E. coli. We find that the relative intensities of many of the common peaks show the largest differences reported so far for bacterial samples. An indication of a peak was found in the PAMB spectra that has been identified as characteristic of unsaturated fatty acids and suggests that the outer membranes of the PAMB may contain unsaturated fatty acids. We find that using suspensions of silver colloid particles greatly intensifies the Raman peaks and quenches the fluorescence from bacterial samples. This technique is useful for examination of specific biochemical differences among bacteria.


Lord Denning's assessment of Magna Carta at its 750th anniversary has stood the test of half a century: " the greatest constitutional document of all times—the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot". His longer, but still succinct, article for The Times for the same anniversary has not been bettered. Yet at the time of Magna Carta's 800 th anniversary we have lost sight of two other works of Lord Denning which could make a distinctive contribution to our current constitutional debates. Whereas Lord Neuberger has linked the real Magna Carta to the fictitious Holy Grail in an entertaining lecture  on law and myth, for legal scholars the Holy Grail is a long lost text or case. An earlier essay identified the links between the opening clause of Magna Carta 1215 and s 13 of the Human Rights Act 1998 as worthy of rediscovery. This article presents two further candidates: a neglected lecture on Borrowing from Scotland by Lord Denning in 1961 and a neglected Court of Appeal decision in 1975 applying Magna Carta, in which Lord Denning presided as Master of the Rolls, R v Secretary of State for the Home Office, ex p Phansopkar . [6 Between them, they can offer refreshing insights into contemporary constitutional controversies.


: Antiphospholipid antibodies (APAB) were first detected as a result of the disturbances they cause in routine biological tests. These effects include lupus anticoagulant (LA) in APTT test and false serological reactions for syphilis in VDRL test. With more sensitive techniques using purified phospholipid antibodies (ELISA, RIA) antibodies directed specifically against cardiolipidin or other phospholipids can be assayed. Beside being responsible for positivity of the VDRL test in the context of syphilis, APAB (false serological reactions for syphilis, LA, anticardiolipin antibodies) have also been detected in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and lupus-like syndromes, after intake of certain drugs, and, more rarely, in a number of diseases (table I). The specificity of APAB detected in syphilis (antiphosphatidylcholine) is different from that of APAB detected in SLE (antiphosphatidylserine and anticardiolipin). A given APAB can react with several phospholipids, but such crossreactions do not occur haphazardly with all phospholipids. Crossreactions are observed between APAB and polynucleotides on the one hand, and between antinuclear antibodies and phospholipids on the other. This pattern has led to speculate that APAB are directly involved in the pathogenesis of SLE; however since these crossreactions are not extensive, such speculation is controversial. The presence of APAB in the form of LA, false serological reactions for syphilis or anticardiolipin antibodies is associated with a number of problems including recurrent thrombosis, repeated abortions, thrombocytopenia and positive Coombs' tests or, more rarely, pulmonary hypertension, migraine, epilepsy, chorea, and transverse myelitis.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Cholesterol is a quantitatively and biologically significant constituent of all mammalian cell membrane, including those that comprise the retina. Retinal cholesterol homeostasis entails the interplay between de novo synthesis, uptake, intra-retinal sterol transport, metabolism and efflux. Defects in these complex processes are associated with several congenital and age-related disorders of the visual system. Herein, we provide an overview of the following topics: a) cholesterol synthesis in the neural retina; b) lipoprotein uptake and intraretinal sterol transport in the neural retina and the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE); c) cholesterol efflux from the neural retina and the RPE; and d) biology and pathobiology of defects in sterol synthesis and sterol oxidation in the neural retina and the RPE. We focus, in particular, on studies involving animal models of monogenic disorders pertinent to the above topics, as well as in vitro models using biochemical, metabolic, and omic approaches. We also identify current knowledge gaps as well as opportunities in the field that beg further research in this topic area.


Efforts to create dedicated nuclear medicine breast imaging scanners are maturing as they approach more routine clinical use. These systems promise to improve the detection of small lesions, especially those in breasts that are not definitively imaged with standard methods. Since these techniques lack sufficient specificity for accurate diagnoses of cancer, a method for guiding biopsies with these new devices must be developed. In this investigation, a technique that capitalizes upon the three-dimensional, multi-angle positron emission tomography (PET) breast images created by our new positron emission mammography/tomography imaging and biopsy device (PEM-PET) to guide breast biopsies was tested. Specifically, the accuracy and precision of the needle positioning system was measured for each of the three axes of motion. In addition, a biopsy of a simulated breast lesion was performed under realistic imaging conditions. The results from the positioning tests revealed that the system had very good accuracy and precision in all three axes. The maximum positioning error was plusmn 0.27 mm, sufficient to obtain samples from most lesions detected with PEM-PET. In addition, the simulated biopsy was performed successfully on a single attempt in obtaining a sample from a 5-mm-diameter target sphere. This successful test moves the project closer to the next phase of development, initiation of limited human testing.


A 15-year-old patient has been admitted to the intensive care unit for severe respiratory distress syndrome that developed as a result of pneumonia. Interstitial lung edema was confirmed by computer-aided tomography. It was successfully treated by positive pressure ventilation (PPV). Although PEEP did not exceed 7 cm H2O, PPV was complicated by interstitial emphysema, pneumomediastinum, and bilateral pneumothorax as a result of barotrauma. Pulmonary artery pressure (PAP) and pulmonary capillary wedge pressure (PCWP) were monitored. High PCWP values were inconsistent with the diagnosis of acute respiratory distress syndrome. The authors suggest that high PCWP was caused by high intraalveolar pressure, pneumomediastinum, and venule constriction in the hypoxic sites of the lung.


Pakistan has a large population of more than 150 million people with an overall carrier frequency of approximately 5.6% for β‐thalassemia. Punjab is the largest province of the country having more than 50% of the population. The state of β‐thalassemia is alarming as consanguinity is very high (>81%) and the literacy rate is low in South Punjab. A thalassemia prevention program is the need of the hour in this part of Pakistan. In this study, we initiated awareness, screening, and characterization of the mutations causing β‐thalassemia as well as a genetic counseling program mainly in the districts of Faisalabad and D.G. Khan to establish prenatal diagnosis, a facility previously unavailable in this region for disease prevention. A total of 248 unrelated transfusion‐dependent children and the available members of their families were screened to characterize the mutations and identify the carriers. Genetic counseling was provided to these families and prenatal diagnosis offered. In the samples analyzed, 11 β‐thalassemia mutations and three hemoglobin variants were detected mainly by using the Monoplex and Multiplex ARMS‐PCR. First‐trimester prenatal diagnosis was carried out through chorionic villus sampling (CVS) in seven pregnancies at risk. As a result of our campaign, 145 carrier couples planning to have more children gave their consent to have retrospective prenatal diagnosis in every pregnancy in future. A cooperative trend and a positive attitude toward the prevention of β‐thalassemia were noticed in the families with affected children and in the general population. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Does treatment abstraction affect treatment effects in International Relations survey experiments in countries outside of the US? We assess whether treatment effects are conditional on the anonymity of country actors among respondents in Brazil, China, Sweden, Japan, and Ukraine. We examine whether the effects of the United Nations' approval of military force and regime type of the target country on support for war are moderated by respondents' compliance with our abstraction encouragement. We find that around 20% of the respondents across all samples think of specific countries and do not comply with our abstraction encouragement. However, we fail to find evidence of a change in the average treatment effects by non-compliance, implying that the treatment effects are not likely to be conditional on respondents' compliance (thinking of specific cases) or schema inconsistency (thinking of specific cases that are implausible given the context). At the same time, we find that treatment inconsistency (thinking of specific cases that are inconsistent with the assigned treatments) can affect the main treatment effects.


In keeping with international trends, South African health policy is moving towards comprehensive primary health care, with mental health care offered as integral to this service. This move is consonant with other moves towards integration in a formerly divided country. We consider some ideological bases for the move towards integration, and the consequences for psychiatric patients. We show how the specialist terrain of the mental health nurse has been recast as focusing primarily on violence, substance abuse and HIV/AIDS rather than on psychiatric care. Using case material to illustrate our argument we suggest that integrating mental health care into the primary health care system may have unintended negative consequences for patients. The argument has implications for services in other poorly resourced and postconflict societies.


The goal of the Local Cluster Survey is to look for evidence of environmentally driven quenching among star-forming galaxies in nearby galaxy groups and clusters. Quenching is linked with environment and stellar mass, and much of the current observational evidence comes from the integrated properties of galaxies. However, the relative size of the stellar and star-forming disk is sensitive to environmental processing and can help identify the mechanisms that lead to a large fraction of quenched galaxies in dense environments. Toward this end, we measure the size of the star-forming disks for 224 galaxies in nine groups and clusters (0.02 < z < 0.04; SFR > 0.1 M⊙ yr−1) using 24 μm imaging from the Spitzer Space Telescope. We normalize the 24 μm effective radius (R24) by the size of the stellar disk (Rd). We find that star-forming galaxies with higher bulge-to-total ratios (B/T) and galaxies in more dense environments have more centrally concentrated star formation. Comparison with H i mass fractions and NUV − r colors indicates that a galaxy's transition from gas-rich and blue to depleted and red is accompanied by an increase in the central concentration of star formation. We build a simple model to constrain the timescale over which the star-forming disks shrink in the cluster environment. Our results are consistent with a long-timescale (>2 Gyr) mechanism that produces outside-in quenching, such as the removal of the extended gas halo or weak stripping of the cold disk gas.


Since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, profound changes in Germany's thinking about Russia, its political elite and foreign policy, can be observed. The trust most German politicians had in their former strategic partner has now lessened. At the same time, Germany has been particularly involved in the process of resolving the conflict, which was demonstrated by the intensive diplomatic actions it undertook. When these failed, Chancellor Angela Merkel did not hesitate to force through the introduction and maintenance of economic sanctions. At the same time, however, this evolution in Germany's thinking about Russia has not translated into any change in the two basic assumptions of the German attitude towards a possible solution to the conflict. First, Germany supports the concept of 'strategic patience' in politics in the context of Russia's aggression. Second, it is convinced that Europe is fated to cooperate with the Russian Federation, and Europe's welfare and security are only possible with Russia as a partner in cooperation, not against it or without it. Therefore, in the immediate future no radical change in Germany's policy as pursued so far should be expected. This provokes questions concerning not only the effectiveness of Berlin's current actions, but also – in a broader sense – Germany's ability to negotiate and achieve real, political solutions to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, reaching beyond (another) ceasefire. The Minsk agreements of 12 February can be considered a success worthy of a humanitarian mission carried out in the hope of reducing the number of casualties. However, the political mission undertaken by Chancellor Merkel and Foreign Minister Steinmeier aimed at "ensuring Europe's security order"[1] has so far resulted in the sense of helplessness and frustration which have recently dominated Germany's policy towards Russia[2].


The on-surface photogeneration of nonacene from α-bisdiketone precursors deposited on nanostructured epitaxial graphene grown on Ru(0001) has been studied by means of low temperature scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy. The presence of an unoccupied surface state, spatially localized in the regions where the precursors are adsorbed, and energetically accessible in the region of the electromagnetic spectrum where n-π* transitions take place, allows for a 100% conversion of the precursors into nonacenes. With the help of state-of-the-art theoretical calculations, we show that such a high yield is due to the effective population of the surface state by the incoming light and the ensuing electron transfer to the unoccupied states of the precursors through an inelastic scattering mechanism. Our findings are the experimental confirmation that surface states can play a prominent role in the surface photochemistry of complex molecular systems, in accordance with early theoretical predictions made on small molecules.


T cell activation plays a major role in the ability of the HIV to remain latent or establish a productive infection. The alpha-chain of the IL-2R (CD25, Tac, p55) is expressed on activated but not resting T cells and therefore represents an ideal marker to distinguish activated from resting T cells. The present studies were designed to define the role of CD25+ (activated) and CD25- (resting) T cells in an acute HIV infection in vitro. This objective was accomplished by selectively killing CD25+ cells with an anti-CD25-ricin A chain immunotoxin (RFT5-deglycosylated ricin A (dgA)) either before or after HIV infection, and then determining the effect of eliminating these cells on the secretion of viral p24 Ag. Three major findings have emerged from this study: 1) Elimination of the small population (3 to 5%) of activated, CD25+ cells present in normal PBMC before HIV infection results in a 99% reduction in p24 secretion. 2) RFT5-dgA, an immunotoxin directed against CD25, kills HIV-infected CD25+ cells. Elimination of the CD25+ cells after infection with HIV virtually stops viral production and the spread of the infection in these cultures. This was confirmed by coculturing RFT5-dgA-treated PBMC with H9 cells. 3) When RFT5-dgA-treated PBMC (CD25-cells) were infected with HIV and then activated with a solid phase anti-CD3 mAb, the levels of p24 produced were comparable with those of PBMC from which the CD25+ cells had not been eliminated. Taken together these findings suggest that both activated (CD25+) and resting/quiescent (CD25-) cells can be infected with HIV but that only the CD25+ cells produce viral proteins in the absence of additional activation.


We study steady state transport through a double quantum dot array using the equation-of-motion approach to the nonequilibrium Green functions formalism. This popular technique relies on uncontrolled approximations to obtain a closure for a hierarchy of equations; however, its accuracy is questioned. We focus on 4 different closures, 2 of which were previously proposed in the context of the single quantum dot system (Anderson impurity model) and were extended to the double quantum dot array, and develop 2 new closures. Results for the differential conductance are compared to those attained by a master equation approach known to be accurate for weak system-leads couplings and high temperatures. While all 4 closures provide an accurate description of the Coulomb blockade and other transport properties in the single quantum dot case, they differ in the case of the double quantum dot array, where only one of the developed closures provides satisfactory results. This is rationalized by comparing the poles of the Green functions to the exact many-particle energy differences for the isolate system. Our analysis provides means to extend the equation-of-motion technique to more elaborate models of large bridge systems with strong electronic interactions.


Background and Objective: Microorganisms, including bacteria, serve as major players in various processes affecting both the quality of aquatic sediment as well as the fate of pollutants released into such matrix. In this study, we evaluated the similarity in bacterial community structure between sediments collected from aquaculture and non-aquaculture sites of a tropical lake. Describing and comparing the bacterial community present in each site may provide clues on the impact of aquaculture practices on aquatic ecosystems. Methodology: Microbial DNA was extracted using PowerSoil® DNA Isolation Kit for all sediment samples. DNA isolates were used as template in the analysis of the hypervariable region of 16S rDNA through nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE). Excised representative 16S rDNA DGGE bands were sequenced and identified through BLAST analysis. Results: Based on the generated mean Dice similarity coefficient of 57.77%, the bacterial community structure between aquaculture and non-aquaculture sediments was highly similar but certain taxa were found unique for each site. Bacteria belonging to Proteobacteria and Firmicutes dominated the aquaculture sediments while Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, and Chloroflexi dominated the non-aquaculture sediments. Certain physicochemical parameters operating in the two sites may have influenced the shift in representative microbes. Shewanella baltica and Trichococcus sp. were found only in aquaculture sediment owing to their ability to tolerate quantities of ammonia and high organic matter from their environment. Conclusions: This study describes the applicability of 16S rDNA PCR-DGGE as a culture-independent technique for describing and comparing the similarity between bacterial communities in sediment. Based on the generated similarity index, the bacterial community between aquaculture and non-aquaculture sediments of Taal Lake was highly similar but interestingly, harbored unique bacterial populations as seen in the DGGE profiles. The shift in dominant taxa and unique representatives per site may have been influenced by certain differences between each site's physico-chemical parameters.


The existing public health system in the USA has a plenty of problems, such as isolated infrastructure, inadequate preventive activity, complex financing, and lack of social equality as regards the availability of medical care for the population. The USA scientists consider that the up-to-date system of health protection is in need of radical reforms. Approaches to these reforms are outlined.


Abstract This article discusses a fountain erected in 1988 in memory of the Hildesheim Synagogue at Lappenberg, which was destroyed during Kristallnacht. It traces the relationship between this modern monument and Hildesheim's rich artistic heritage, mostly from the Middle Ages and centered around the Christian Church. Based on the artists' choice of technique and materials, as well as on an analysis of some of the monument's iconography, the layout of its motifs, and its overall composition, the article argues that, although (and because?) the fountain commemorates a synagogue, it must have been expressly designed to evoke Hildesheim's (Christian) cultural and historical memory so as to elicit the empathy of the local population.


This article presents a framework for analyzing conflicts of laws in cross-border copyright cases. It introduces methods for dealing with such conflicts of laws, notably methods of characterization, of disentangling true from false conflicts, and of tailoring remedies to defuse policy tensions. Most importantly, it explains how the international treaty regime may come into play when such tensions arise in hard cases. On that basis, it outlines solutions for conflicts of laws that concern copyright infringement and ownership.To start, the article argues in favor of localizing any allegedly infringing act in a country only if the course of conduct including that act threatens to be, or is, completed in that country. At the initial stage of suit, a court may base preliminary injunctions on such law as is common to the countries that constitute most of the markets or audiences that cross-border transactions are likely to prejudice. At the end of suit, the court should assess monetary liability by applying the copyright law of a given country for actionable damages or gains that the transactions at issue have caused in that country's own market or audience. This approach allows for predictably resolving conflicts of copyright laws in cyberspace, while it minimizes the extraterritorial application of such laws.Further, the article addresses conflicts of laws affecting the ownership of copyright. Rights best vest according to the law of the country where infringement subject to the rights is localized. Where this solution is unworkable, rights may be allocated consistently with the consensus of the parties generating the work at issue. Criteria are proposed for deciding when to follow choice-of-law approaches, on the one hand, to rights transferred by contracts and, on the other, to contracts themselves. Conflicts of law are sorted out in cases of transfers that are made as a matter of law.Finally, the article explores basic tensions that arise between policies in hard cases of copyright conflicts. In the light of its preceding analyses, it delineates the respective limits of judicial, legislative, and treaty attempts to resolve such tensions.


Abstract New high-precision radiometric dates are available for eight Upper Eocene volcanic ash beds in the Brazos River Valley of East Texas that provide age control for determining the rate of sediment accumulation of Yegua and Jackson strata during the Late Eocene. One volcanic ash date was determined from the late Middle Eocene and five additional dates were determined for areas outside the Brazos River Valley. These dates indicate similar rates of sediment accumulation for a 580 m (1900 ft) section of strata in east-central Texas at a rate of approximately 160 m (525 ft) per million years for the last 3 million year interval of the Late Eocene. In the outcrop belt, strata of this interval are characterized by cyclic deposition and a similar periodicity of cycles. Cyclic units in Jackson Group strata of Brazos County have a duration of ~320,000 yr.


type="main"> This article proposes a carbon management system (CMS). The system comprises 10 essential elements from four broad perspectives: carbon governance, carbon operation, emission tracking and reporting, and engagement and disclosure. The proposed new approach focuses on cross-functional integration, enforcement of proactive strategies and group rather than individual accountability. We then use Carbon Disclosure Project reports to examine empirically the implementation of systems by large Australian firms. Overall, we find that firms with higher quality CMS have achieved better carbon mitigation. Further, adequate assessment of carbon risk and opportunity, the presence of reduction targets, the strength of carbon programs and enhanced external disclosures appear to be the most effective elements in our sample firms. We present evidence that, by combining governance, internal process, carbon dioxide-footprint tracking and communication activities, a CMS helps managers improve decision making. We discuss the implications of the findings for accounting practice and education.


We present our investigation into the origins of high- and hyper-velocity stars around the Milky Way by exploring Gaia data. We begin by establishing a working set of criteria for a star to even be considered as a potential hyper-velocity star, which we defined chronologically as: if the uncertainty in parallax is acceptably low; if the star has above average total velocity for its home set; and finally if the star has a velocity that is mostly radial we investigate it further. We also discuss the complications encountered trying to identify candidate stars. Finally, we perform a time-reversing procedure to trace our final set of stars back to where they may have originated. We found a large number of candidate stars in our initial broad range search, but by enforcing stricter constraints we found a final sample of 1,158 potential hyper-velocity stars. This set displayed zero stars passing close enough to Sagittarius A* to have been thrown out or boosted to their current velocities. However, by selecting hyper-velocity stars with little proper motion in right ascension and declination, we discovered five stars which may have passed close enough to Sagittarius A* to have had their orbits significantly altered. A detailed analysis of the trajectories of those stars was performed, resulting in one star that may have originated from a binary system that had a close encounter with Sagittarius A*. We propose a potential binary partner in some of the known stars orbiting Sagittarius A* with similar periapsis.


Congenital muscular torticollis is a problem that arises at birth or immediately after birth in which the sternocleidomastoid muscle is shortened on the afflicted side, leading to an ipsilateral rotated of the head and a contralateral rotation of the face and jaw. To determine the effectiveness of physical therapy treatment in infants treated for congenital muscular torticollis, relevant articles published between 2011 and 2020 were located using electronic databases. A total of 9 studies out of 24 potentially relevant articles were reviewed. All studies were randomised controlled trials with 6-8 score on the Physiotherapy Evidence Database scale (Pedro scale) which showed high quality of methodology. The studies typically found significant statistical effects in the management of congenital muscular torticollis. Additionally, most of the studies reported increased adherence to exercise as another essential advantage. Conservative physical therapy management showed positive outcomes, and early physiotherapy referral showed significant reduction in treatment duration.


As we roam through the city, the input from our sensations triggers emotional responses, which are referenced by our emotional memories. These experiences make it possible for us to align with the Other. The research shows that the sensorial experience of the body is the foundation for the development of a feeling of 'spatial empathy'. This article focuses on the analysis of a public space in Rio de Janeiro: the area around the 'Rodrigo de Freitas' lagoon, which is considered an 'empathetic place' by the regular visitors. In its concluding considerations, the article argues that the concept of spatial empathy has a greater connection to the sensorial characteristics of the ambiance rather than architectural beauty.


Titanium dioxide light emitting diode was successfully designed and characterised. An approach in developing TiO2 was based on cylindrically symmetric configuration with shorter computation time. The main goal of the research was to look into the performance of light emitting diode by using titanium dioxide and compare its validity with the standard or common criteria. The circular chip of titanium dioxide with 60 µm diameters was made with a circular active region formed by p and n- type dopants. The drastic reduction of internal quantum efficiency droops almost to zero value even though the current started to increase by 0.002 mA. The efficient operation within the device was observed that it would occur at the lowest current 0.01 mA while the total emission rate shown linearly increased at axis (0.002 mA, 5.6 (1/s)). This light emitting diode based on titanium dioxide also enabled to operate at lower turn-on voltage as low as 0.5 V. As the increment of voltages, the distribution of emission rate became less concentrated towards the top active of p-type layer of the device. The result also compared the two meshes where it was found that the refined mesh was focused around the p-n junction.


Purpose: The article analyzes the use of information technologies to increase the level of economic efficiency and trust in public administration in Ukraine. Design/Methodology/Approach: We use the concept of digital management for the purpose of integrated interaction of municipal and state structures with business, civil society institutions and the population. Findings: The conducted research concludes the active digital transformation of public administration in Ukraine. The following trends in the use of information technology are identified: the development of institutional support; the creation of analytical portals for ensuring public control; the level of accountability, transparency, accountability of the activity of civil servants; the implementation of e-government projects; the changing philosophy of development of electronic services. Practical Implications: The concept of state policy in the field of digital infrastructure was developed on the basis of a multi-stakeholder approach according to which the main purpose of the state bodies is to identify, prioritize, harmonize and satisfy the stakeholders. Originality/Value: In this article, we show the level of individual regions in Ukraine where there is uneven implementation and use of e-learning tools management.


The article presents a case of 18-year follow-up of 59 y. o. patient with cholecystolithiasis and adenomiomatosis, with the development of complications of rapidly progressing xanthogranulomatous cholecystitis with malignancy.


This special section of the IEEE JOURNAL OF ELECTRON DEVICES SOCIETY is dedicated to select papers presented at the 2019 IEEE S3S Conference, which was held Oct. 14– 17, 2019 in San Jose, CA, USA. The papers were selected based on their technical merits and relevance to the Journal and with the feedback from the Technical Committee of the conference and session chairs.


Induction, the ability to generalize knowledge from known to novel instances, is essential for human learning. This study investigates how attention allocation during category learning and induction affects what information is represented and encoded to memory. In Experiment 1 5-year-olds and adults learned rule-based categories. They were then presented with an Induction-then-Recognition task. Similar to previous results with familiar categories, children exhibited better memory for items than adults. In Experiment 2, adults learned similarity-based categories and then were presented with an Induction-then-Recognition task. In this condition, adults' memory was as good as children's memory in Experiment 1. These results indicate that the way categories are represented affects the way induction is performed.


In wound-rotor synchronous machine variable-speed drives, accurate information about the field winding current is paramount to obtain high dynamic and steady-state performance, such as unity power factor. When brushless excitation is employed and no direct measurement of field winding current is available, it must be estimated. This is a topic which has not received much attention in the literature, despite its importance in high-power synchronous motor drives. This paper presents two different methods for field current estimation, applied in a vector-controlled voltage-source converter-fed drive. Experimental results illustrate the steady-state accuracy and dynamic performance.


People do not think in isolation. Whether purchasing a new product on Amazon, deciding what movie to watch, or evaluating scientific evidence, we often rely on aggregated sources of information (e.g., product ratings or reviews) to make decisions. Indeed, the internet has given rise to unprecedented levels of aggregated information, to the extent that it is difficult to imagine anything for which we might not be able to find summary information. In other words, what we know (or think we know) is constrained not just by our own knowledge, but by the knowledge of our community (Sloman & Rabb, 2016). Yet this raises a question: what happens when a community of knowledge is not in agreement? Here, we assess this question by pitting cases of high confidence against cases of high consensus. Results from two experiments show that 1) individuals are sensitive to both confidence and consensus; 2) individuals utilize such information in a predictable but context-dependent manner; and 3) perceptions of confidence and consensus influence judgments and decisions in a substantial way, even when individuals are not aware of the contrast between them. Taken together, the findings suggest that individuals are highly sensitive to variability in aggregated information – rather than merely an average – and that these 'summary statistics' of aggregated information have a substantial, reliable impact on decision-making.


Several studies have explored whether pornography exposure is associated with a casual approach to sex. Much of this research, however, has been cross-sectional, has assessed only straightforward exposure–casual sex associations, and has employed convenience samples of adolescents. This study employed nationally representative longitudinal data from the General Social Survey to explore whether casual sex behavior predicted over time change in US adults' pornography exposure and whether pornography exposure predicted over time change in US adults' casual sex behavior. Casual sex behavior did not predict over time change in pornography exposure, but pornography exposure did predict over time change in casual sex behavior. To test the prediction of Wright's acquisition, activation, application model of sexual socialization (3AM) that negative affective states make the application of risky sexual scripts provided by sexual media more likely (Wright, 2011a) the moderating role of unhappiness was explored. In s...


Microbial reduction of selenium oxyanions under mesophilic (30 °C) and thermophilic (55 °C) conditions produces biogenic elemental selenium nanospheres (BioSe-Nanospheres) and nanorods (BioSe-Nanorods), respectively. While the properties of BioSe-Nanospheres are well studied, the colloidal properties of BioSe-Nanorods have not yet been investigated. Therefore, this study characterized the surface properties of BioSe-Nanorods, compared their colloidal properties with BioSe-Nanospheres and elucidated the formation of BioSe-Nanorods in the presence of a capping agent. This study demonstrated that BioSe-Nanorods, like BioSe-Nanospheres, are capped by extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) as evidenced by infrared spectroscopy. The EPS capped BioSe-Nanorods were less colloidally stable than EPS capped BioSe-Nanospheres as demonstrated by the former's less negative zeta potential values when exposed to 10 mM NaCl. In fresh lake water, BioSe-Nanospheres showed a 91.6 (±0.5)% settling efficiency, while BioSe-Nanorods displayed a settling efficiency of 97.1 (±0.5)%. The lower colloidal stability and higher settling efficiency was due to a 7 times less negative surface charge of BioSe-Nanorods compared to BioSe-Nanospheres at pH 7.2. Further, this study observed that the formation of BioSe-Nanorods might proceed via BioSe-Nanospheres through orientation attachment followed by anisotropic growth as well as a solid-solution-solid mechanism. This study demonstrates the importance of the shape of nanoparticles in determining their bioremediation effectiveness and fate in the environment.


Supporting human decision making is a major goal of data mining. The more decision making is critical, the more interpretability is required in the predictive model. This paper proposes a new framework to build a fully interpretable predictive model for questionnaire data, while maintaining high prediction accuracy with regards to the final outcome. Such a model has applications in project risk assessment, in health care, in sentiment analysis and presumably in any real world application that relies on questionnaire data for informative and accurate prediction. Our framework is inspired by models in Item Response Theory (IRT), which were originally developed in psychometrics with applications to standardized tests such as SAT. We first extend these models, which are essentially unsupervised, to the supervised setting. We then derive a distance metric from the trained model to define the informativeness of individual question items. On real-world questionnaire data obtained from information technology projects, we demonstrate the power of this approach in terms of interpretability as well as predictability. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that leverages the IRT framework to provide informative and accurate prediction on ordinal questionnaire data.


The notion of privacy in the healthcare domain is at least as old as the ancient Greeks. Several decades ago, as electronic medical record (EMR) systems began to take hold, the necessity of patient privacy was recognized as a core principle, or even a right, that must be upheld.1 ,2 This belief was re-enforced as computers and EMRs became more common in clinical environments.3–5 However, the arrival of ultra-cheap data collection and processing technologies is fundamentally changing the face of healthcare. The traditional boundaries of primary and tertiary care environments are breaking down and health information is increasingly collected through mobile devices,6 in personal domains (eg, in one's home7), and from sensors attached on or in the human body (eg, body area networks8–10). At the same time, the detail and diversity of information collected in the context of healthcare and biomedical research is increasing at an unprecedented rate, with clinical and administrative health data being complemented with a range of *omics data, where genomics11 and proteomics12 are currently leading the charge, with other types of molecular data on the horizon.13 Healthcare organizations (HCOs) are adopting and adapting information technologies to support an expanding array of activities designed to derive value from these growing data archives, in terms of enhanced health outcomes.14

The ready availability of such large volumes of detailed data has also been accompanied by privacy invasions. Recent breach notification laws at the US federal and state levels have brought to the public's attention the scope and frequency of these invasions. For example, there are cases of healthcare provider snooping on the medical records of famous people, family, and friends, use of personal information for identity fraud, and millions of records disclosed through lost and …

Correspondence to Dr Bradley Malin, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Vanderbilt University, 2525 West End Avenue, Suite 600, Nashville, TN 37203, USA; b.malin{at}vanderbilt.edu


The contemporary moment, if we are to intervene in and radically change the current social and economic system, demands that we return to, rearticulate, reimagine and redefine concepts, goals, desires and relations. Returning to performance works that continue to haunt us, that have left us with the feeling that something has not been articulated about their importance, might help us rearticulate our relation to the world, to others, our place in and the function of current systems. In this article, I return to Jérôme Bel's The Show Must Go On and specifically to its first presentation in 2001– a time when a great deal of participatory work began to be made – to offer a different articulation to those offered so far. Drawing on the thinking of Wendy Brown, Gilbert Simondon, Jeremy Gilbert and John Protevi, I examine the work's economy of relations, its consequent production of the social and the potential that emerged from it. I focus my attention on the sociality produced in a specific moment in this presentation and the role of repetition in it. I suggest that, in that moment, a 'disequilbrium' caused by the work's dramaturgy resulted in a shift in the system of the work which afforded the spectators' repetitive intervention in it and allowed for the work's potential to emerge. Using Simondon's theory of individuation (2005) and Gilbert's (2014) articulation of it, I argue that the work's production of sociality created a space of decision, affect and creative possibility, that enabled practices of thinking, relation and action, that any democratic institution should be informed by, enable and repeat. I suggest that it is such practices that constitute what I define as ethical encounters. While The Show is not conventionally considered to be a participatory or socially engaged work, I maintain that it achieves some of the claimed or intended, but often not delivered work of contemporary participatory performance.


This thesis is a critical investigation of a theory of expert leadership (hereafter TEL) and has
the central aim of theory development. In proposing a TEL, Goodall (2012) argues that those
at the top of organisations should be among the best experts in their industry, as opposed to
general, professional managers. Empirical support for the TEL and its effects are reported in
a small number of studies that show positive correlations between expert leadership and
organisational performance. Moreover, expert leaders are thought to gain credibility and
respect and are better able to understand motivations and values of followers having been
one of them. Whilst these findings are interesting and imply something important in terms of
what we might look for when choosing leaders, they raise conceptual and methodological
concerns that were the starting point for this study.
My approach draws on Gadamer's (1989) conceptualisation of hermeneutics and Josselson's
(2011b) narrative approach in what I described as hermeneutic storytelling to account for the
lived experiences of managers in the backdrop of men's professional football, on the
assumption that stories about our lives are representations of reality. To explore this
phenomenon, I borrow from J. L. Austin's (1962) work, How to Do Things With Words, and
the idea of felicity conditions, as a theoretical lens to understand expert leadership influence.
Felicity conditions refer to criteria that must be in place and satisfied for performative acts to
achieve their purpose.
As a theoretical contribution to knowledge I found first that, for expert leadership influence
to be felicitous, football managers need to meet, in the requisite way, conditions of; authority
and be authorised beyond the position they hold; which is granted by virtue of authenticity,
in the way they operate in relation to others; and sincerity, with thoughts, intentions and
motivations that embodied the virtue. This is mediated by interplay of thoughts, beliefs and
expectations of people who interact with football managers and also what is rooted in
historically affected cultures and traditions.
Second, there is a dark side to this leadership that undeniably exists and in any study involving
people who have great authority and hold powerful positions this reality needs to be
truthfully told.
Third, as a practical contribution my thesis proposes the Human Resources (HR) profession,
and recruitment in general, moves away from traditional competency and behavioural
practice, to selecting leaders on a values-based process, that assesses the fit of human values
and the cultural of an organisation.
My thesis allows the reader to reimagine expert leadership and proposes the need to examine
what is human about the phenomenon in question. I conclude, the TEL is a paradoxical mix of
perceptions of leadership qualities, human conditions and performativity in context.


Purified glucosylceramide from beet extract (beet GlcCer) and beet extract containing an equal amount of GlcCer were administered orally to ultra violet B (UVB)-irradiated mice, and differences in the protective effects against skin barrier dysfunction caused by UVB irradiation were compared. In the beet GlcCer group, epidermal thickening and the decrease in stratum corneum (SC) ceramide content caused by UVB irradiation were reduced. In the group that was orally administered beet extract containing glucosylceramide, effects similar to those in the beet GlcCer group were observed. Oral administration of beet GlcCer had no obvious effects against an increase in TEWL or decrease in SC water content after UVB irradiation, but there was improvement in the beet extract group. Oral administration of beet GlcCer is effective in improving skin barrier function in UVB-irradiated mice. Beet extract contains constituents other than GlcCer that are also effective in improving skin barrier function.


Background: Expedient transfer of acute stroke patients is imperative for optimizing stroke treatment. Our aim was to develop and evaluate a new process that would provide rapid accessibility to expert advice, multi modality imaging, and interventional stroke treatments. Methods: In October 2008, members from Interventional Neuroradiology and Stroke neurology identified obstacles that led to delays in acceptance and transfer of patients. the Stroke Interventional Radiology (SIR) processwas developed to streamline the transfer of acute stroke patients. Results: Before implementation of the SIR process, numerous calls were made to arrange for coordination of care. Communication between the referring physician, stroke neurologist and neuro-interventionalist occurred sequentially. Once a decision was made to accept the patient for transfer, checking for bed availability before approval of the transfer created additional delays. In May 2009, the SIR process was developed to improve rapid access. The process involves coordinated care among the neuro-interventionalist, stroke neurologist, transfer center, hospital administration, radiologist, radiology techs, and crisis nurses and has three main components: 1)the neurologist and interventional neuroradiologist are jointly connected via conference call with the referring physician within five minutes, 2) bed availability for acute stroke transfers is guaranteed, and 3) a paging system provides communication to physicians, nurses, radiology technologists, transport team, and respiratory therapist on patient condition and estimated time of arrival. Since implementation, total time to transfer approval has decreased by 75%. Simultaneously, we have increased the volume of patients transferred (38 in 2010, 59 in 2011 and 21 for first quarter of 2012), the number of acute stroke patients treated with intervention (10, 13, 16, 17 for consecutive years from 2008), and, via phone consultation, the number of patients treated with IV tPA at referring hospitals (3, 2, 19, 28, for consecutive years since 2008 and 12 already for first quarter of 2012). Conclusion: A system of coordinated care can markedly reduce acute stroke transfer times.


The Floquet-based quantum-classical Liouville equation (F-QCLE) is presented as a novel theoretical model for the interaction of molecules with intense laser pulses. This equation efficiently combines the following two approaches:

A small but spectroscopically relevant part of the molecule is treated quantum-mechanically while the remaining degrees of freedom are modelled by means of classical molecular dynamics. The corresponding non-adiabatic dynamics is given by the quantum-classical Liouville equation which is a first-order approximation to the partial Wigner transform of full quantum dynamics.
The dynamics of the quantum subsystem is described in terms of instantaneous Floquet states thus eliminating highly oscillatory terms from the equations of motion.
The resulting F-QCLE is shown to have a well defined adiabatic limit: For infinitely heavy classical particles and for infinitely slow modulation the dynamics adiabatically follows the Floquet quasi-energy surfaces for a strictly time-periodic field. Otherwise, non-adiabatic effects arise both from the motion of the classical particles and from the modulation of the field which is assumed to be much slower than the carrier frequency.

A numerical scheme to solve the F-QCLE is based on a Trotter splitting of the time evolution. The simplest implementation can be realized by an ensemble of trajectories stochastically hopping between different Floquet surfaces. As a first application we demonstrate the excellent agreement of quantum-classical and fully quantum-mechanical dynamics for a two-state model of photodissociation of molecular fluorine. In summary, due to the favorable scaling of the numerical effort the F-QCLE provides an efficient tool for the simulation of medium to large molecules interacting with intense fields beyond the perturbative regime.


Background The modulation of inflammatory processes is a necessary step, mostly orchestrated by regulatory T (Treg) cells and suppressive Dendritic Cells (DCs), to prevent the development of deleterious responses and autoimmune diseases. Therapies that focused on adoptive transfer of Treg cells or their expansion in vivo achieved great success in controlling inflammation in several experimental models. Chloroquine (CQ), an anti-malarial drug, was shown to reduce inflammation, although the mechanisms are still obscure. In this context, we aimed to access whether chloroquine treatment alters the frequency of Treg cells and DCs in normal mice. In addition, the effects of the prophylactic and therapeutic treatment with CQ on Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis (EAE), an experimental model for human Multiple Sclerosis, was investigated as well. Methodology/Principal Findings EAE was induced in C57BL/6 mice by immunization with myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG35–55) peptide. C57BL/6 mice were intraperitoneally treated with chloroquine. Results show that the CQ treatment provoked an increase in Treg cells frequency as well as a decrease in DCs. We next evaluated whether prophylactic CQ administration is capable of reducing the clinical and histopathological signs of EAE. Our results demonstrated that CQ-treated mice developed mild EAE compared to controls that was associated with lower infiltration of inflammatory cells in the central nervous system CNS) and increased frequency of Treg cells. Also, proliferation of MOG35–55-reactive T cells was significantly inhibited by chloroquine treatment. Similar results were observed when chloroquine was administrated after disease onset. Conclusion We show for the first time that CQ treatment promotes the expansion of Treg cells, corroborating previous reports indicating that chloroquine has immunomodulatory properties. Our results also show that CQ treatment suppress the inflammation in the CNS of EAE-inflicted mice, both in prophylactic and therapeutic approaches. We hypothesized that the increased number of regulatory T cells induced by the CQ treatment is involved in the reduction of the clinical signs of EAE.


This paper presents a methodology for optimization of beam-column connections of plane steel frames. The objective is to obtain beamcolumn connections mechanically more efficient and with minimum cost by determination of the optimal dimensions for the components of the connection; satisfying mechanical constraints associated with the bending moment and the rotational stiffness of the connection, without compromising its safety and integrity. Minimum and maximum limits of geometric parameters are considered, according to current regulations. Algorithms were developed to calculate the bending moment and the rotational stiffness of the connection using the "Method of Components" of Eurocode 3. Initially, it was developed a digital database with structural profiles, steel plates and commercial bolts obtained from catalogs of manufacturers, with automatic access of the data by the computational modules of structural analysis and optimization. In the optimization model, it is adopted the connection with extended end plate without stiffeners, the design variables are the dimensions and the thickness of the end plate, the diameter and the location of the bolts. In the optimization process, we use genetic algorithms with continuous and discrete variables, with the discrete variables being associated to the database. In this way, this paper presents a computational tool fully developed in MATLAB® environment for analysis and optimal design of beam-column connections for plane steel frames. Applications that show quite satisfactory results when compared with results available in the literature are presented.


The performance of the U.S. economy over the past several years has been remarkable, including a rebound in labor productivity growth after nearly a quarter century of sluggish gains. To assess the role of information technology in the recent rebound, this paper re-examines the growth contribution of computers and related inputs with the same neoclassical framework that we have used in earlier work. ; Our results indicate that the contribution to productivity growth from the use of information technology - including computer hardware, software, and communication equipment - surged in the second half of the 1990s. In addition, technological advance in the production of computers appears to have contributed importantly to the speed-up in productivity growth. All in all, we estimate that the use of information technology and the production of computers accounted for about two-thirds of the 1 percentage point step-up in productivity growth between the first and second halves of the decade. Thus, to answer the question posed in the title of this paper, information technology largely is the story.


A new etching pattern of quartz is formed, when a plate cut normal to the optic axis is subjected to the actions of hydrofluoric acid and electric field simultaneously. The general aspects of the pattern vary with the field intensity. In the case of weak field, the etching pattern consists of a number of regularly orientated small triangular figures which change their orientation from one twinned part to another. On the other hand, under the action of strong field, the triangular figures produced are generally smaller in size but by far greater in number than in the first case. The most striking features, exhibited in most of the etched surfaces under strong fields, are the appearance of groups of parallel long lines and bands as well as a kind of new etched zones which are similar in appearance but unlike in nature, the ordinary twinned zones. These groups of parallel lines and bands are exactly parallel to the electric axes of quartz; the presence of these lines and bands affords a very convenient way for the determination of the axes. There is reason to believe that the localities where the groups of parallel lines and bands as well as the new etched zones are found, are the seats of new crystalline defects arising from the so-called 'primary' crystal flaws. Some effects of the new crystalline defects on the oscillation characteristics of quartz oscillators are observed. The triangular etching figure, as revealed by a microscope, is composed of three sets of brushy parallel lines which make 120° with each other. The orientation of these sets of lines is a function of the applied field; those produced under weak field are approximately parallel to the three electric axes of quartz, with their outward ends directed to the positive extremities of the electric axes by compression, while those formed in strong field may deviate from the corresponding axes by as much as some ten degrees. Both the sense of deviation of the sets of lines with reference to the corresponding electric axes and the mode of arrangement of these brushy lines are found to be closely related with the sense of optical rotation of quartz. A general and accurate (to 1°) method for the determination of electric axes of quartz and their polarities, basing on the use of the orientations of the elementary etching figures, has been described.


Acknowledging the importance scientific research may have in terms of the foundation, orientation and evaluation of the use of technologies in an educational context, it is only natural that there should also be greater knowledge on the research carried out in this particular field. This is what we set out to achieve in a recent conference held in Portugal on the theme Research in Education. Using the theme of the conference itself – Research in Education between 1960 and 2005 – as our basis, we decided to focus on what has actually been the object of research in our country within the framework of Educational Technology. We realised, at a very early stage, that there were hardly any studies in this field before Portuguese universities took on a more active role, nor in the field of educational tech‐ nologies, particularly after the appearance of the first Masters courses at the University of Minho in 1987. Even though we are not aware of any in‐depth study to characterise scien‐ tific research developed in Portugal in this area, several Portuguese authors have referred to this issue in some way or another (Abrantes, 1981, 1998; Blanco & Silva, 1993; Caldas, 2001; Fernandes, 1969; Ponte, 1994; Silva, 2000). On the other hand, since we have stated that a considerable part of research, in this partic‐ ular field, focuses precisely on this academic qualification, we have decided to construct our analysis around this aspect. Therefore, in this article we present the result of the studies on Masters dissertations carried out in Portugal, with a view to furthering understanding of the studied themes, their theoretical and methodological frameworks, and to finding out where they are carried out, who does the research, what the collection techniques are and the type of data analysis used, just to mention some of the aspects around which our analysis is centred. This is an exploratory analysis within a restricted context, however, we hope that it may contribute to the acquisition of more profound knowledge regarding research prac‐ tices in this specific field of Educational Sciences in Portugal.


Progressive alteration of the incubation temperature of Aerobacter aerogenes cultures, growing in a chemostat at a fixed dilution rate, caused a progressive change in bacterial concentration and in bacterial RNA, carbohydrate and protein contents; the DNA content did not vary significantly. The change in bacterial RNA concentration was associated with a variation in bacterial ribosome content, similar to that found in organisms grown at a fixed temperature but different dilution rates. Changes in bacterial yield also resulted from alterations in the pH value of the culture, but corresponding changes in bacterial RNA, carbohydrate and protein contents were small.


Background: Estrogen is a risk factor for the development of breast cancer. The effect of estrogen is primarily mediated by estrogen receptor alpha 1 (ESR1). In this study, we investigated the association between breast cancer risk and the frequency of alleles and genotypes for two ESR1 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in breast cancer patients and a healthy control group. Methods: A total of 98 female patients with pathologically confirmed breast cancer and 93 age-matched healthy female controls who were selected from the visitors of the general hospital were recruited in the study. Two ESR1 candidate polymorphisms; +2464 C/T (rs3020314) and -4576 A/C (rs1514348) were selected. The frequency of alleles and genotypes was determined using Quantitative Real-Time PCR assay. Linkage disequilibrium (LD) was assessed for each pair of markers. Using logistic regression, genotype frequencies were estimated as odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals. Results: There was no significant difference in the genotype and allele distributions of ESR1 for SNPs +2464 C/T and SNP -4576 A/C between patients and controls. The frequency of the ESR1 +2464 T/T genotype in case and control groups was 31.6% vs 29.0%, (OR TT/TC: 1.13, 95%CI: 0.58, 2.20; P = 0.69). The frequency of the +2464C allele was 33.9% vs 35.2%, (OR C/T: 0.94, 95%CI: 0.60, 1.47; P =0.79). The frequency of the ESR1 -4576C/C genotype in case and control groups was 37.75% vs 33.36%, OR CC/AC: 1.02, 95%CI: 0.51, 1.97; P =0.98). The frequency of the -4576A allele was 36.2% vs 43.6 %, (OR C/A: 0.73, 95%CI: 0.47, 1.13; P =0.14). Conclusion: The results indicated that ESR1 polymorphism does not show any significant association with breast cancer risk among female Iranian adults.


Following the fireworks disaster in Enschede in May 2000, a 'fireworks policy team' was established within the Dutch ministry of Transport and Public Works. In the first months after the fireworks disaster the team designs a large number of new policy alternatives. A few years after the disaster however, the team members indicate that they did not consider all possible good policy alternatives. Why didn't they do that at that time? In this thesis the possible explanation that the team could have suffered from 'groupthink' and 'peer pressure' is elaborated. These are group processes by which one solution is prematurely chosen and other alternatives are overlooked. Because (national) government increasingly makes use of policy programs and projects to design new policy, it is important that government managers better understand the relationship between group processes on one side, and the quality of policy design on the other.
To test the hypothesis that "when the level of groupthink and peer pressure in a mid-level policy group increases, the quality of the policy design will decrease" four cases were selected and thoroughly analysed: 1. the policy team that was concerned with new policy after the fireworks disaster in Enschede; 2. the policy team concerned with new safety concepts in tunnels; 3. the team responsible for the implementation of the NEC directive; 4. the team concerned with a safe Dutch business environment.
The thesis shows indeed that there is a link between groupthink and the quality of policy design. Until now research mainly focuses on high-level decision making groups. This thesis shows that additional research is possible and desirable to generate more knowledge about the relation between groupthink processes and the quality of the policy design in mid-level policy groups. At the same time the results of this thesis make it possible to improve the groupthink research model and confirm the challenge for the government manager to actually implement the recommendations for good policy design already generated in previous research.


Criminal prosecutors wield immense power in the criminal justice system. While the majority of prosecutors exercise this power in a professional manner, there is compelling evidence of a serious and growing problem of prosecutorial misconduct in this country. Although much prosecutorial misconduct results in the violation of the constitutional and other legal rights of criminal defendants, prosecutors are protected from any liability arising from these violations in all but the most exceptional cases by the defense of absolute immunity. The U.S. Supreme Court has justified the application of absolute prosecutorial immunity, in part, by noting that other means of incentivizing appropriate prosecutorial conduct exist, namely criminal prosecution and professional sanction. This Article briefly documents the extent of the problem of prosecutorial misconduct in this country and the complete ineffectiveness of non-civil liability mechanisms for controlling it. It argues that absolute immunity is an excessive protection for prosecutors and that qualified immunity, which limits the liability of prosecutors to instances where they have violated an objectively clear constitutional right, is sufficient to serve the policy objectives that absolute immunity was created to protect. This Article discusses the sufficiency of qualified immunity in the new context of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, and the standard it announced for legal sufficiency for civil rights claims filed against prosecutors. This new standard was expressly designed to make it easier to dismiss factually weak claims against prosecutors thereby removing one of the central justifications for the absolute immunity defense applied by courts for decades in light of the previous, and more lenient, sufficiency standard articulated by the Court in Conley v. Gibson. Because qualified immunity is a sufficient liability protection for prosecutors (particularly in the post-Iqbal federal court system) the harsh and unjust defense of absolute immunity for prosecutors should be eliminated.


Metabolic modifications associated with natural environmental conditions were assessed in the meagre Argyrosomus regius cultured in earthen ponds under natural photoperiod and temperature. Juvenile specimens (90-100 g initial weight) were sampled (plasma, liver and muscle) every two months for 18 months (between December 2004 and May 2006). Specimens showed seasonal variations in growth rate, with the highest values in spring and summer. Plasmatic, hepatic and muscular metabolite levels and hepatic and muscular metabolic enzymes also showed significant variations throughout the year. Enzymatic activity related to carbohydrate metabolism in the liver (HK, FBPase and G6PDH) showed great modifications in summer, increasing glycogenogenic pathways, while amino acid metabolism (GDH and GOT activity) was enhanced in spring and summer. However lipid-related (G3PDH activity) metabolic enzymes did not show a clear seasonal pattern. In muscle, enzymatic activity related to amino acid, lipid and lactate metabolism (LDH-O activity), but not carbohydrate metabolism, showed seasonal changes in parallel with changes in growth rate. Thus A. regius specimens showed a trend to grow in summer months and mobilize their energy reserves in winter. Differences in the hepatic level were observed between the first and the second year of the study, suggesting the possible existence of metabolic changes related to specimen age or size. Our results indicate that growth and metabolic responses in A. regius are environmentally dependent and that this species is a very good candidate for diversification in aquaculture.


Controversy is a reflection of our zeitgeist, and an important aspect to any discourse. The rise of large language models (LLMs) as conversational systems has increased public reliance on these systems for answers to their various questions. Consequently, it is crucial to systematically examine how these models respond to questions that pertaining to ongoing debates. However, few such datasets exist in providing human-annotated labels reflecting the contemporary discussions. To foster research in this area, we propose a novel construction of a controversial questions dataset, expanding upon the publicly released Quora Question Pairs Dataset. This dataset presents challenges concerning knowledge recency, safety, fairness, and bias. We evaluate different LLMs using a subset of this dataset, illuminating how they handle controversial issues and the stances they adopt. This research ultimately contributes to our understanding of LLMs' interaction with controversial issues, paving the way for improvements in their comprehension and handling of complex societal debates.


Anomaly based intrusion detection systems (IDS) are typically employed for protecting web
applications. Changes in the applications, also known as Web Concept Drifts, negatively
impact the accuracy of IDS, increasing the number of false alerts. To adapt the IDS to
application changes, the retraining of the model is required. Unfortunately, retraining is
a time consuming task that requires a considerable effort from system administrators and
security experts. Different methods have been proposed in literature to deal with this
issue. One of these, called Response Modeling, exploits the structure of HTTP responses
to detect changes and automatically adapt the detection model to application drifts.
In this thesis, we survey existing work that addresses the Concept Drift issue and we test
one of them on simulated as well as real scenarios. The results seem to indicate that the
existing approach is still not mature enough for consistently reduce the FPR (false positive
rate). More precisely, it seems that just a specific type of alerts can be meaningfully
reduced while most of the others are not decreased. We propose some requirements and
future directions to improve such solutions, aimed at refine the e�cacy of this technique.


We derive sharp probability bounds on the tails of a product of symmetric nonnegative random variables using only information about their first two moments. If the covariance matrix of the random variables is known exactly, these bounds can be computed numerically using semidefinite programming. If only an upper bound on the covariance matrix is available, the probability bounds on the right tails can be evaluated analytically. The bounds under precise and imprecise covariance information coincide for all left tails as well as for all right tails corresponding to quantiles that are either sufficiently small or sufficiently large. We also prove that all left probability bounds reduce to the trivial bound 1 if the number of random variables in the product exceeds an explicit threshold. Thus, in the worst case, the weak-sense geometric random walk defined through the running product of the random variables is absorbed at 0 with certainty as soon as time exceeds the given threshold. The techniques devised for...


Recent studies document the deteriorating performance of forecasting models during the Great Moderation, which conversely implies that forecastability was higher in the preceding era when the economy was unexpectedly volatile. We explain this phenomenon in the context of equilibrium indeterminacy in dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models. We first analytically show that a model under indeterminacy exhibits richer dynamics that can improve forecastability. Then, using a sticky-price DSGE model, we numerically demonstrate that indeterminacy arising from passive monetary policy generates persistent dynamics that lead to superior forecastability. We also point out the possibility that forecastability under indeterminacy deteriorates when the degree of uncertainty about sunspot fluctuations is large.


Food safety optimization measures neglect the consumers' psychological requirements. To avoid guilt - delight - discords, problems of livestock farming are not registered in the first place. Food checks at the purchase are felt to be a matter of the consumers own competence, using his five senses and primarily seen as a tasting test. Market mechanisms supply additional safety in the background. Consumer behavior in acute crises must be seen from the point of protective magie. Governmental pre-tests raise doubts on the consumer's shopping competence, they are felt to be insulting and unreliable. Certificates and quality seals only stand a chance as complimentary service to the consumer's own competence.


Using a panel data set for about 70 countries, this paper jointly analyzes agri-investment trends and food security developments in vulnerable countries. This work empirically connects two mainly independent debates about impacts of agri-investments on food security and on the proposed responsible investment policy frameworks and its contribution to achieve food security. The results indicate the special relevance of private investments, domestic or foreign. The domestic situation in target countries in terms of governance is relevant: Good governance supports food security. The findings underline the importance of the recently developed responsible investments guidelines as they shall contribute that investments maintain their potential positive influence on economic development and food security.


Background: The essential features of Posterior Reversible Encephalopathy Syndrome (PRES) are headache, mental changes, seizures, visual symptoms and often arterial hypertension. Brain RMN typically shows cortico-sottocortical parieto-occipital edema, with a bilateral and symmetric distribution. PRES develops in clinical conditions as hypertensive encephalopathy, preeclampsia/ eclampsia, autoimmune diseases, after transplantation, infections and as an adverse effect of immunosuppressive drugs or chemotherapy. It usually completely reverses with treatment, although permanent sequelae are possible in case of delayed or missed diagnosis. Case report: We describe the case of a transsexual (M!F) and tetraplegic patient, admitted for neck and low back pain. She suddenly developed headache, confusion, seizures and severe hypertension with normal blood tests. RMN showed multiple cortico-sottocortical areas of vasogenic and citotoxic edema in temporo-occipital, parietal, frontal, and cerebellar regions. Soon after the beginning of the antihypertensive therapy, clinical recovery was observed, as well as the disappearance of edema at RMN. Discussion and conclusions: Although PRES is usually associated with definite pathological conditions, it is not always the case, as was for the patient here described, who had no predisposing factors in her past clinical history, and presented hypertension only in the acute phase of the syndrome. Since, moreover, PRES usually presents with acute non specific features and it can be misdiagnosed with other serious diseases, the clinician will be helped by the knowledge of this syndrome to promptly start diagnostic workup and treatments, and avoid permanent neurological deficits.


About the book:
This book offers a fully up-to-date and comprehensive guide to religion in Britain since 1945. A team of leading scholars provide a fresh analysis and overview, with a particular focus on diversity and change. They examine:

relations between religious and secular beliefs and institutions

the evolving role and status of the churches

the growth and 'settlement' of non-Christian religious communities

the spread and diversification of alternative spiritualities

religion in welfare, education, media, politics and law

theoretical perspectives on religious change.
The volume presents the latest research, including results from the largest-ever research initiative on religion in Britain, the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme. Survey chapters are combined with detailed case studies to give both breadth and depth of coverage. The text is accompanied by relevant photographs and a companion website.


This paper implements a real-time hand gesture recognition algorithm based on the inexpensive Kinect sensor. The use of a depth sensor allows for complex 3D gestures where the system is robust to disturbing objects or persons in the background. A Haarlet-based hand gesture recognition system is implemented to detect hand gestures in any orientation, and more in particular pointing gestures while extracting the 3D pointing direction. The system is integrated on an interactive robot (based on ROS), allowing for real-time hand gesture interaction with the robot. Pointing gestures are translated into goals for the robot, telling him where to go. A demo scenario is presented where the robot looks for persons to interact with, asks for directions, and then detects a 3D pointing direction. The robot then explores his vicinity in the given direction and looks for a new person to interact with.


As a result of the introduction of new technologies, such as endoscopic (EUS) and endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS) guided aspiration, surgeons are moving away from routine mediastinoscopy prior to lung cancer resection. The scope of this article is two-fold: to describe in detail our technique of video-mediastinoscopy (VM), applied in more than 100 patients, and to clarify the current indications for its use. In the modern era, VM remains a fundamental technique in thoracic surgery as it is able to provide diagnosis for many thoracic conditions, overcoming some of the weaknesses associated with EBUS and EUS guided aspiration. VM is a valuable and irreplaceable tool in the mediastinal staging of patients affected by non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).


ABSTRACT
It is useless begin with a list of numbers telling how much energy our society uses, how
many tons of CO2 produced every second to try and scare society and hope that everything
suddenly change. People won´t change anything themselves if they won´t really want it. And
the message of our project is to build an efficient, inexpensive and friendly house with sexy
design which people simply will want.
The Solar Decathlon Europe is an international competition organized by the Ministry of
Housing of the Government of Spain. During the final phase of the competition each of 20
university teams assembles their house in Madrid in Spain, where the houses are open to
the general public, while undergoing the ten contests of the competition, reason for which
this event is called Decathlon.
Apropos. Key purpose of this Master thesis is to optimize energy flows, decrease energy
use in the building and utilize produced energy the most efficient way. The optimal energy
solution must be found with a respect both to competition rules but also to live of the house
after the competition.
In the Solar Decathlon house the only energy source is the sun. But there are several
sources of energy use (heat pump, fans, pumps, lighting, dishwashing, cooking, washing,
etc). There is often a mitchmach between the time of energy demand and supply. The
project will optimize energy balance through test of PV and PVT, theoretical calculations,
energy certification of the house and measurements on the built Solar Decathlon house at
DTU campus.
A strong emphasis is paid to innovative and astonishes Scandinavian design for equipment
consuming energy. ASKO HWC appliances use heat instead of electricity as a main source
of energy. These brand new products can save up to 85% of electricity meanwhile the free
heat is generated in solar thermal panels.
Seldom used PV-T technology establishes positive electrical energy balance with surplus
higher than 10kWh per 12 days. Significant growth of efficiency of electricity generation is
caused by cooling the cells to optimal temperature by system of embedded pipes on the
backside of photovoltaic panels.
To increase the energy autonomy of the Fold house a concept using electro-mobile as a
battery backup is developing in collaboration with several companies.
Low pressure losses thermal part with Tichelmann connection is using drain back tank
system. This clever combination allows usage the same system with a ordinary water
without any chemicals without concern of boiling or freezing risk in any climates around the
world. Low energy consumption and environmental friendliness behavior is like a extra
bonus.
The DTU is first time participating Solar Decathlon competition thus it is big challenge for
each team member same as for associated companies and sponsors. Keep your fingers
crossed…
REFERENCES
Solar Decathlon Europle, (2012), Solar Decathlon Europe 2012 Rules V.4.0 . Madrid


Koi herpesvirus disease (KHVD) is a highly contagious viral illness causing significant morbidity and mortality in common carp (Cyprinus carpio). KHVD has been confirmed in almost all countries around the world except Australia. KHV has been previously detected in the Czech Republic based on PCR screening but with no clinical signs of KHVD. An outbreak of KHVD with clinical signs, and severe mortality was confirmed in July 2009 by histopathology and virological testing of hepatopancreas, anterior kidney, spleen and gill samples.


BACKGROUND
The minimal access surgery revolution has only just begun to impact on pediatric surgery, thanks mainly to technologic advances and evidence of the benefits of minimally invasive procedures in this population.

OBJECTIVES
To review the current status of MAS in a pediatric tertiary care center in Israel, in terms of feasibility, safety, and effect on standard practices.

METHODS
We reviewed the files of all children who underwent a MAS procedure in our department during the period April 2002 to July 2004, and compared the findings with those of children treated by standard practices.

RESULTS
A total of 301 procedures were performed in 271 patients: 107 thoracoscopic and 194 laparoscopic. There were no major intraoperative complications. The total conversion rate was 3.65%: 0 for thoracoscopy and 5.6% for laparoscopy (11/194). Twenty-four types of procedures were performed during the study period. The thoracoscopies accounted for 92.24% of all thoracic procedures in the department (107/116), and routine abdominal laparoscopic procedures replaced open surgery in 30-100% of cases (total 44.8%, 194/433).

CONCLUSIONS
MAS procedures appear to be safe for a wide range of indications in children. In our center they currently account for a significant percentage of pediatric surgeries. We suggest that the integration of MAS training in the residency programs of pediatric surgeons be made a major long-term goal. The creation of a pediatric MAS study group that would allow for multi-institutional studies is especially important in Israel where a relatively large number of pediatric surgery departments handle a small annual number of patients.


Lung cancer has one of the highest cancer mortality rates in the world and threatens people's health. Timely and accurate diagnosis can greatly reduce the number of deaths. Therefore, an accurate diagnosis system is extremely important. The existing methods have achieved significant performances on lung cancer diagnosis, but they are insufficient in fine-grained representations. In this paper, we propose a novel attentive method to differentiate malignant and benign pulmonary nodules. Firstly, the residual attention network (RAN) and squeeze-and-excitation network (SEN) were utilized to extract spatial and contextual features. Secondly, a novel multi-scale attention network (MSAN) was proposed to capture multi-scale attention features automatically, and the MSAN integrated the advantages of the spatial attention mechanism and contextual attention mechanism, which are very important for capturing the salient features of nodules. Finally, the gradient boosting machine (GBM) algorithm was used to differentiate malignant and benign nodules. We conducted a series of experiments on the Lung Image Database Consortium image collection (LIDC-IDRI) database, achieving an accuracy of 91.9%, a sensitivity of 91.3%, a false positive rate of 8.0%, and an F1-score of 91.0%. The experimental results demonstrate that our proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods with respect to accuracy, false positive rate, and F1-Score.