Big cities have always been focal points of social, economic, political and cultural change in societies. Berlin constitutes an excellent example of such a place. The collapse of communism and the subsequent transformation to capitalist rule created a new framework for the economic, social, cultural, political and also spatial development of the city.
Latest changes in public space, the built-environment and housing in Berlin favour some social groups while disadvantaging others. The aim of the seminar is to figure out who the winners and losers of contemporary developments are and how this is manifested in and reproduced through urban space. If and how people can 'reclaim' urban space(s) will be finally addressed.
Central points of interest will include the conflicts around the 'New Berlin' (recycling of brownfields, memories and public space), the potential and threats of Berlin as a 'Creative City' (gentrification), the spatial dimension of social exclusion (fragmented city) as well as the integration of migrants in Berlin (multiculturalism) and the perspectives of the 'right-to-the-city-movement' (i.e. guerrilla gardening).
For highlighting the uniqueness of Berlin in a global context, its changing urban landscape will be compared to the ones of Paris and St. Petersburg. Together with the insights from St. Petersburg and Paris, the course contributes to the understanding of the complexity of urban development at the beginning of the 21st century.


ABSTRACT In 1999, devolved governance was established in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland which altered the contours of language recognition in the United Kingdom. Whilst much focus has been placed on how devolution improved the status of Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, and Irish, less attention has been placed on those minority vernaculars with 'contested' linguistic status. Scots in Scotland and Ulster-Scots in Northern Ireland fall into such a category as they are considered by some as merely 'dialects' of English but by others as independent regional languages. The formation of the Edinburgh and Belfast legislatures created policy processes closer to the point of application and has ensured that policy decisions, including those relating to language, have been influenced by the nuances of local identity (Birrell, 2009). This article, therefore, explores the extent to which devolution in Scotland and Northern Ireland has enhanced the status of Scots and Ulster-Scots in areas such as broadcasting, education, and the arts. Whilst supporters in both regions continue to champion better policy coverage, changes since 1999 illustrate how the devolved administrations have facilitated incremental change and evolving policy.


Objective. Gait impairment is commonly in people with multiple sclerosis (MS). The 12-item MS walking scale (MSWS-12) assesses patients' measurement of walking quality. The aim of this study was to cross-culturally adapt and validate the MSWS-12 for the Italian population with MS. Methods. Six MS out-patient clinics across Italy enrolled subjects between June 2013 and December 2013. Construct validity of MSWS-12 was determined by examining correlations with the Italian version of the EDSS, the timed 25-foot walk (T25FW), and the Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS). Results. 321 MS subjects were enrolled. Mean age was 47.55 years and mean disease duration was 13.8 years. Mean EDSS score was 4.46. 185 subjects had a relapsing-remitting course, 92 were secondary progressive, 43 were primary progressive, and 1 had a clinically isolated syndrome. The mean total score of the MSWS-12 was 49.6 (SD: 31) with values ranging between 0 and 100. Correlations between the MSWS-12 with age, disease duration, and disease course were found but not with gender. Values of the MSWS-12/IT were significantly related to EDSS (0.71), to the T25FW (0.65), and to the FSS (0.51). Conclusion. MSWS-12/IT has been adapted and validated, it is a reliable and reproducible scale for Italian patients with MS.


Due to their inherent weakness in thickness direction, laminated fiber reinforced composites are susceptible to undergo large delamination damage when subjected to transverse loading. Low-velocity impact loading is one such case. Low-velocity impact occurs due to tool-drops during manufacturing, maintenance, and service, runway debris during landing and takeoff and hailstorm. In the current work an effort is made to improve the transverse strength by providing 3D reinforcement in the form of pins and stitching the laminate in thickness direction. Laminates were made of S2-Glass/Vinyl Ester. Specimens of size 3 × 4 inch were subjected to drop-weight impact at energy levels of 20, 31 and 41 Joules. The impacted panels were subjected to vibration tests to determine the stiffness loss through vibration based frequency response function (FRF) measurements. Effect of impact damage on interlaminar shear strength was studied. Results indicate that there is considerable improvement in damage tolerance due to 3D reinforcement.


In this paper, we present Howdy Y'all, a multi-modal task-oriented dialogue agent developed for the 2021-2022 Alexa Prize TaskBot competition. Our design principles guiding Howdy Y'all aim for high user satisfaction through friendly and trustworthy encounters, minimization of negative conversation edge cases, and wide coverage over many tasks. Hence, Howdy Y'all is built upon a rapid prototyping platform to enable fast experimentation and powered by four key innovations to enable this vision: (i) First, it combines a rules, phonetic matching, and a transformer-based approach for robust intent understanding. (ii) Second, to accurately elicit user preferences and guide users to the right task, Howdy Y'all is powered by a contrastive learning search framework over sentence embeddings and a conversational recommender for eliciting preferences. (iii) Third, to support a variety of user question types, it introduces a new data augmentation method for question generation and a self-supervised answer selection approach for improving question answering. (iv) Finally, to help motivate our users and keep them engaged, we design an emotional conversation tracker that provides empathetic responses to keep users engaged and a monitor of conversation quality.


Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is an emerging medical imaging technique that can be employed to reconstruct the internal conductivity of an object from measurements made on the boundary. One proposed application for EIT is in head imaging, including imaging of impedance changes that occur with neuronal depolarisation and the imaging of acute stroke. The work of this thesis was aimed at advancing the imaging of brain pathology and function, with particular focus on the imaging of fast neural activity. Chapter 1 is a review of other brain imaging techniques, the principles of bioimpedance and EIT, and of previous impedance recordings of fast neural activity. Chapter 2 was a comparison of reconstruction algorithms for the detection of acute stroke using EIT in a realistic head-shaped tank, which entailed assessing boundary voltage rejection methods and quantitative analysis of image quality to determine the best reconstruction algorithms for the detection of acute stroke. In chapter 3, an EIT imaging dataset of fast neural activity, previously collected in a rat model, was assessed using second-level statistical parametric mapping (SPM) and the spatio-temporal propagation of the activity assessed and compared to the neurophysiological literature, which was reviewed in chapter 1. The analysis undertaken in chapter 3 illustrated some key methodological issues, which were addressed in chapter 4: new high resolution meshes and better optimised matrix inversion were employed, a new algorithm for electrode alignment was developed, also the use of SPM was validated by applying it to control datasets and through the use of statistical non-parametric mapping. Chapters 5 and 6 detail work attempting to cross-validate the use of EIT to image fast neural activity by employing a physiological stimulus, mechanical whisker displacement, and comparing the findings to other neurophysiological techniques recorded in the same model. Chapter 5 details work to validate the model and the impedance findings in this model as compared to previously published neurophysiological results, while chapter 6 details the use of other neurophysiological techniques for cross-validation.


The element Re is known to be a very potent strengthener concerning the creep properties of Ni-base superalloys. In this paper the influence of Re on the properties of new γ′-strengthened Co-base superalloys is addressed. Atom probe tomography reveals that Re partitions preferentially to the γ phase, but not as pronounced as in ni-base superalloys. Nanoindentation and micro-pillar compression tests of the γ′ phase indicate an increase of the hardness and the critical resolved shear stress caused by a considerable concentration of Re in the γ′ phase. Creep investigations show that the positive effect of Re is by far not as pronounced as in Ni-base superalloys. Several effects, which can contribute to this behavior, such as the lower Re concentration in γ and hence a slightly reduced effective diffusion coefficient, a smaller diffusion barrier of Re in Co compared to Ni, a slightly lower lattice misfit and γ′ volume fraction of the Re-containing alloy, are discussed.


Edward Said contributed to American Studies as a critical theorist who stressed comparative and interdisciplinary methods, as a cultural critic who challenged the U.S. as a traditional and neo-imperialist power, and as a public intellectual who represented the historical diversity of the Arab world in response to Orientalist caricatures. He wrote about such important U.S. artists and intellectuals as Herman Melville, Henry James, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, and R.P. Blackmur. He understood and challenged American exceptionalism, especially as it structured U.S. perspectives on other peoples and societies. Educated in the traditions of modernist cosmopolitanism and transnationalism, Said is often identified as the "founder" of postcolonial studies, especially by his most committed critics. In fact, many of the political aims and methodological assumptions of postcolonial studies differ from Said's theory and practice. Respecting Edward Said for his great accomplishments as a scholar, teacher, and public intellectual, we should also question the culture of intellectual celebrity and genius with which he is identified. In some respects, his reputation is a very American phenomenon we need to criticize if we are to achieve a more collaborative understanding of the United States in its global interactions and realize our responsibilities as cultural critics.


Contracts, once almost exclusively written by lawyers for lawyers, are undergoing a major transformation. Technology and design have enabled entirely new contract genres. When the focus shifts from legal issues to functionality and ease of use, automation and communication come to the fore. We envision a future where contracts are designed to contain code, text, sound, visuals, comics, and more. They work for both computers and humans, on and off screen: they can autoexecute desired terms as well as guide human behavior toward more collaborative and productive ends.


The aim of this study was to understand the experiences of family caregivers in the process of diagnosing hereditary angioedema. An interpretive and qualitative research methodology based on Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics was carried out. Data collection took place between May 2015 and August 2016 and included a focus group and in-depth interviews with 16 family caregivers. Two themes define the experiences of family caregivers: "Family life focuses on identifying the problem" and "Discovering and coping with a complex diagnosis." The process of diagnosis generates fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and incomprehension. Family caregivers are the main support for patients diagnosed with hereditary angioedema. As they share in the patients' suffering, they need a diagnosis to be established to be able to cope with the disease and offer support. Family health nurses can contribute to improving the coping process in this phase of the disease.


This review covers the epidemiology, pathophysiology, clinical presentation, and diagnosis of cardiac autonomic neuropathy (CAN) in diabetes and discusses current evidence on approaches to prevention and treatment of CAN.

A 26-year-old woman with "brittle" type 1 diabetes and severe CAN experienced sudden cardiac death. She had a 16-year history of poor diabetes control presenting with wide blood glucose fluctuations, recurrent episodes of severe hypoglycemia, and hypoglycemia unawareness. Over time she developed persistent orthostatic hypotension with daily falls in systolic blood pressure ranging from 30–60 mmHg. These episodes had significant impact on her daily activities and required intermittent therapy with the α-1 agonist midodrine. Other complications included severe gastroparesis, refractory diarrhea, and painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Her last clinical examination revealed resting tachycardia with a fixed rate of 115 bpm, supine blood pressure of 110/78 mmHg, which dropped to 70/48 mmHg while standing, symmetrical absent pinprick and temperature discrimination in stocking distribution, and left Charcot joint. Her last pertinent laboratory findings were A1C 8.7%, creatinine 1.9 mg/dl, microalbumin/creatinine 496 mg/g, and hemoglobin 10.8 g/dl.

CAN represents a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in diabetic patients and is associated with a high risk of cardiac arrhythmias and sudden death, possibly related to silent myocardial ischemia. Therefore, it has important clinical and prognostic relevance. Recent reports of major clinical trials undermine established thinking concerning glycemic control and cardiac risk. Thus, a review of this topic is both timely and important for physicians to better understand how to assess the complexity of conditions present in patients with diabetes in order to establish safe treatment targets.

Diabetes affects more than 23 million people in the U.S. (www.diabetes.org) and an estimated 250 million worldwide (www.who.int/diabetes). Diabetic neuropathies, including CAN, are a common chronic complication of type 1 and type 2 diabetes and confer high morbidity …


Introduction

To protect the (possibly) injured spine, trauma patients are immobilized on a backboard, with an extrication collar, lateral headblocks, and straps. Although pressure ulcers are typically associated with older adults and chronic illness, of all patients in a hospital environment, these trauma patients may be particularly at risk for developing (device-related) pressure ulcers. Pressure ulcers are a serious health complication that develop as a result of pressure alone or pressure in combination with shear force.

Trauma patients (with suspected spinal injury) have traumatic injuries, are immobile, and exposed to immobilizing and medical devices; these are all factors that increase the risk to develop pressure ulcers.

Methods

The thesis focuses primarily on the development of pressure ulcers in trauma patients with suspected spinal injury. We defined general research questions that served as a fundament for our studies:

1. What is the incidence of pressure ulcers in trauma patients, immobilized with a backboard, extrication collar and headblocks due to suspected spinal injury?

2. Which risk factors play a role in pressure ulcer development in trauma patients with suspected spinal injury?

To answer these questions, we performed a systematic literature review (n=13), an experimental study (n=54), and three prospective observational studies (n= 342, n=254, n= 254). Furthermore, we wrote a discussion paper, covering the current discussion on preventive spinal immobilization.

Results

In the systematic literature review we found only four studies that included trauma patients, nine studies included healthy volunteers. The described incidence of pressure ulcers related to the cervical collar varied widely and risk factors for pressure ulcer development from immobilizing devices were related to the type of device, length on/in the device and the severity of illness. No studies were found that described the occurrence of pressure ulcers related to the application of backboards, vacuum mattresses or headblocks. In the experimental study with emergency nurses and physicians, we found that pressure ulcer identification and classification skills improved significantly after an educational intervention. In the prospective observational studies, we focused on the acute phase (the emergency department) and the follow-up phase (hospital admission). In the acute phase, we found very high incidence figures on pressure ulcer development (75.4%) and pain (63.2%) from the extrication collar and headblocks. In the follow-up phase, we found high incidence figures on pressure ulcer development (28.3%). Over 60% of the found pressure ulcers were related to devices. Pressure ulcer development was significantly associated with an older age, a lower Glasgow Coma Scale score and higher Injury Severity Scores. Extra nutrition significantly decreased the probability of pressure ulcer development during admission.

Conclusions

The incidence of pressure ulcers in trauma patients, immobilized with a backboard, extrication collar and headblocks is high. Patients experience pain and develop pressure ulcers from the extrication collar and headblocks. The risk for pressure ulcer development appears high in patients with an older age and severe injuries. It is necessary to revise the current practice of spinal immobilization.


Abstract The first known amphipterygid-like zygopteran from amber is described. Although its provenance is not known with certainty, we feel confident in attributing it to the Baltic amber deposits of northern Europe. It thus represents the first Old World Tertiary amphipterygidan and substantially extends the known geographic range of the taxon. Based on current knowledge its phylogenetic position cannot be ascertained reliably, but its possible relationships are discussed. It shares a mixture of characters with extant species including Amphipterygidae, Diphlebiidae, Thaumatoneurinae and Lestoideinae.


Investigation of an IsoTruss® Structure as a Compliant Member Used in Bending and Torsion Jens Garret Jacobson Department of Mechanical Engineering, BYU Master of Science An investigation of IsoTruss structures in bending and torsion was conducted. A model was developed in ANSYS APDL where bay length and longitudinal member to helical member cross sectional area ratio could be varied while holding the diameter constant. The model was validated using previously reported values from analytical models and empirical data. The model was used to make predictions of a specific geometry that was manufactured, tested and compared against the model. 12 specimens were built and tested. In flexure, empirical data had a percent error with respect to the model ranging from 10.9 to 65.4% with one outlier at 94.1%. In torsion, the empirical data had a percent error with respect to the model ranging from 0.4 to 34%. The test data exhibited similar trends compared to the model. An IsoTruss structure built to maximize torsional rigidity should have a diameter and bay length such that its helical angle is between 55 and 60 degrees. The inclusion of longitudinal members has a negligible impact on rigidity. Flexural rigidity is maximized with longitudinal members and with a minimal helical angle, placing helical members more in the direction of the longitudinal members. In order to minimize flexural rigidity, the longitudinal members should be removed from the design and the helical member angle should be maximized up to 80 degrees.


Purpose
Telemedicine has been advancing for decades and is more indispensable than ever in this unprecedented time of the COVID-19 pandemic. As shown, eHealth appears to be effective for routine management of chronic conditions that require extensive and repeated interactions with healthcare professionals, as well as the monitoring of symptoms and diagnostics. Yet much needs to be done to alleviate digital inequalities that stand in the way of making the benefits of eHealth accessible to all. The purpose of this paper is to explore the recent shift in healthcare delivery in response to the COVID-19 pandemic towards telemedicine in healthcare delivery and show how this rapid shift is leaving behind those without digital resources and exacerbating inequalities along many axes.

Design/methodology/approach
Because the digitally disadvantaged are less likely to use eHealth services, they bear greater risks during the pandemic to meet ongoing medical care needs. This holds true for both medical conditions necessitating lifelong care and conditions of particular urgency such as pregnancy. For this reason, the authors examine two case studies that exemplify the implications of differential access to eHealth: the case of chronic care diseases such as diabetes requiring ongoing care and the case of time-sensitive health conditions such as pregnancy that may be compromised by gaps in continuous care.

Findings
Not only are the digitally disadvantaged more likely to belong to populations experiencing greater risk – including age and economic class – but they are less likely to use eHealth services and thereby bear greater risks during the pandemic to meet ongoing medical care needs during the pandemic.

Social implications
At the time of writing, almost 20% of Americans have been unable to obtain medical prescriptions or needed medical care unrelated to the virus. In light of the potential of telemedicine, this does not need to be the case. These social inequalities take on particular significance in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Originality/value
In light of the COVID-19 virus, ongoing medical care requires exposure to risks that can be successfully managed by digital communications and eHealth advances. However, the benefits of eHealth are far less likely to accrue to the digitally disadvantaged.


A consensus industrial reference was necessary to be established for meeting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's current Good Manufacturing Practice Compliance for the manufacture and quality control of dietary ingredients and supplements that contain ginger rhizome, dry extract, and/or purified nonvolatile ginger constituents. An analytical method has been developed, validated, and previously published for identifying and quantifying 6-,8- and 10-gingerols, 6-, 8- and 10-shogaols, 6-paradol, and zingerone. HPLC with UV-Vis detector was used for the determination of nonvolatile ginger constituents by following AOAC Guidelines for Single-Laboratory Validation. Sample was accurately weighed and diluted with acidified water and methanol mixture. The sample solution was then sonicated and filtered through a PTFE filter and analyzed under a linear gradient scheme instrument condition. A reverse-phase superficially porous particle C18 column and an absorption wavelength of 230 nm were used for analyte separation and determination. The method was demonstrated to be selective, linear (R² > 0.999), specific, accurate (91.1-103.2% spike recovery rate), and precise (RSDr < 5%, RSDR < 8%) and therefore met all AOAC Standard Method Performance Requirements (2017.012) criteria. With a relatively short run time (12 min) and optimized extraction solvent system, the method has been validated to simultaneously determine nonvolatile ginger constituents in a variety of dietary ingredients and dietary supplements matrices including dry extract, powder, tablet, capsule, liquid capsule, softgel capsule, and oleoresin.


This paper presents an investigation into the relative effectiveness of various score normalisation methods for speaker verification. The study provides a thorough analysis of different approaches for normalising verification scores, and comparatively examines these under identical experimental conditions. The experiments are based on the use of subsets of the Brent (telephone quality) speech database, consisting of repetitions of isolated digit utterances zero to nine spoken by native English speakers. Based on the experimental results it is demonstrated that amongst the considered methods, a particular form of the cohort normalisation method provides the best performance in terms of the verification accuracy. The paper discusses details of the experimental study and presents an analysis of the results.


ABSTRACT Planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) imaging of the OH radical was used to study the reaction-zone structure in the near-nozzle region of strongly-pulsed jet diffusion flames in the presence of a swirling coflow. The nominal steady jet velocity at the nozzle exit leads to a Reynolds number of Rejet = 5000. Ethylene-fueled flames were investigated over a wide range of injection conditions and different swirl levels. OH PLIF imaging was successfully employed in these highly sooting flames by careful selection of the laser fluence and camera gate width to minimize soot-related signal interference. The reaction-zone structure, as indicated by OH PLIF, is broadly consistent with the observation of luminous flame structure for these types of flames under the same injection conditions. The overall area of the reaction zones, as indicated by statistics generated from the OH PLIF signals, is generally higher for strongly-pulsed flames compared to steady flames. In addition, the measured reaction-zone area generally increases with increased swirl level, consistent with a broader and more convoluted reaction-zone structure for flames with swirl. The root mean square of the reaction-zone area, which is broadly indicative of the degree to which the reaction zones are impacted by the local flow fluctuations, is generally higher for flames with swirl than for those without swirl, suggesting a relatively stronger impact of flow turbulence on the flame structure of swirled flames. In many cases, the reaction zones were observed to exhibit discontinuities (i.e., non-ignition of fuel) at the instantaneous flame tip in the early period of fuel injection. The discontinuities are less evident for the case of flames with swirl.


The currently published paper " Reduced fitness and physical functioning are long-term sequelae after curative treatment for esophageal cancer: a matched control study " by Gannon et al . (1) focuses on a highly relevant topic of esophageal surgery, which has been greatly under-addressed in the past. Objective data on physical performance outcomes and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of disease-free survivors after esophagectomy for cancer compared with a noncancer control group are rare (1). Data by Gannon et al . clearly show that disease-free survivors of curative esophageal cancer treatment display a significant compromise in physical functioning as compared to the control group, highlighting the multiple, complex rehabilitative needs of this cohort (1).


Abstract Naive and adaptive schemes have been used as proxies for price expectations in previous studies of supply response. Those studies contain mixed formulas of futures, support, and lagged prices as alternative formulations for price expectations. This study uses a conditional expected price which combines both market and support prices into one price expectations measure. It defines the total effect of available information on supply response. The results indicate the potential usefulness of formulating expected prices as conditional price expectations in supply response analysis, with support prices being the conditional set. Under the provisions of the 1985 Farm Bill, significant reductions in corn and soybean acreages are in prospect for 1987-90.


Introduction The 2016 National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) HIV testing guidelines reiterated the need to include HIV testing in abortion services. This survey aimed to determine whether HIV testing was commissioned in abortion services and how much testing was performed. Methods 143 CCGs were invited to provide service specifications and monitoring data for the number of women seen for care, tested for HIV and diagnosed as HIV positive. Results Of 103 CCGs that responded, 45 (42%) stipulated that HIV testing should be offered to all women, 10 (9%) requested that providers work towards this, 27 (26%) requested sign-posting and 21 (20%) had no mention of HIV. All 10 CCGs in extremely high HIV prevalence areas (where diagnosed HIV is >5/1000) commissioned HIV testing. 54% (14/26) of CCGs in high prevalence areas (diagnosed HIV is 2–5/1000) and 45% (30/367) of CCGs in low prevalence areas (diagnosed HIV is <2/1000) did so. 40 of 103 CCGs reported testing data. Of 35,023 women reported as seen for care, 35% (12,179) were tested for HIV and 0.14% (17) tested positive. Uptake ranged from 0% to 97% and positivity ranged from 0% to 0.53%. Discussion Overall positivity rates exceed those required to make HIV testing cost effective. Less than half the CCGs reported commissioning HIV testing in abortion services, including 54% in high prevalence areas. These gaps in service provision mean opportunities to diagnose women earlier; thereby improving their prognosis and reducing undiagnosed infection were missed. Further advocacy for testing HIV testing in abortion services is required.


The choice of reasonable parameters of EPB shield tunneling in weathered granite ground is of great importance to reduce tunneling-induced effects on existing tunnels. Combined with the practice of the EPB shield tunneling below existing interval tunnels from Kexueguan station to Dajuyuan station of Shenzhen metro line No.1, the method of design and regulation of main parameters including the earth pressure in excavation chamber, the ground conditioning, the volume of the discharged soil, the grouting control and the advance speed, of the EPB shield tunneling are studied. The practice of the below-crossing shows in the weathered granite ground, it is reasonable that the earth pressure in excavation chamber is taken as 0.15-0.2 mpa, and that FER, FIR and CF of foam are taken as 8-15, 30-50% and 3-5% respectively, and that the amount of synchronization grouting is 8-10 m3 per ring along with the injecting pressure of 0.3-0.4 mpa, and that the second phase injection is employed to control the further settlement of existing tunnels when necessary, and that the advance speed is taken as 8-10 mm/min, and as steady as possible. Meanwhile, adjustments according measured data must be performed when necessary. Moreover, the real-time monitoring and a collaborative-work environment among the Parties involved in project are also very crucial to facilitate the risk management of the below-crossing.


We derive a weighted least squares approximate restricted likelihood estimator for a k-dimensional pth-order autoregressive model with intercept. Exact likelihood optimization of this model is generally infeasible due to the parameter space, which is complicated and high-dimensional, involving pk-super-2 parameters. The weighted least squares estimator has significantly reduced bias and mean squared error than the ordinary least squares estimator for both stationary and nonstationary processes. Furthermore, at the unit root, the limiting distribution of the weighted least squares approximate restricted likelihood estimator is shown to be the zero-intercept Dickey--Fuller distribution, unlike the ordinary least squares with intercept estimator that has a different distribution with significantly higher bias. Copyright 2010, Oxford University Press.


Abstract Biological transmission of arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) to vertebrate hosts by hematophagous insects poses a global threat because such arboviruses can result in a range of serious public health infectious diseases. Sindbis virus (SINV), the prototype Alphavirus, was used to track infections in the posterior midgut (PMG) of Aedes aegypti adult mosquitoes. Females were fed viremic blood containing a virus reporter, SINV [Thosea asigna virus-green fluorescent protein (TaV-GFP)], that leaves a fluorescent signal in infected cells. We assessed whole-mount PMGs to identify primary foci, secondary target tissues, distribution, and virus persistence. Following a viremic blood meal, PMGs were dissected and analyzed at various days of post blood-feeding. We report that virus foci indicated by GFP in midgut epithelial cells resulted in a 9.8% PMG infection and a 10.8% dissemination from these infected guts. The number of virus foci ranged from 1 to 3 per individual PMG and was more prevalent in the PMG-middle > PMG-frontal > PMG-caudal regions. SINV TaV-GFP was first observed in the PMG (primary target tissue) at 3 days post blood-feeding, was sequestered in circumscribed foci, replicated in PMG peristaltic muscles (secondary target tissue) following dissemination, and GFP was observed to persist in PMGs for 30 days postinfection.


Although humans rely primarily on hearing to process speech, they can also extract a great deal of information with their eyes through lipreading. This skill becomes extremely important when the acoustic signal is degraded by noise. It would, therefore, be beneficial to find methods to reinforce acoustic speech with a synthesized visual signal for high noise environments. This paper addresses the interaction between acoustic speech and visible speech. Algorithms for converting audible speech into visible speech are examined, and applications which can utilize this conversion process are presented. Our results demonstrate that it is possible to animate a natural-looking talking head using acoustic speech as an input.


Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is a major health problem throughout the world. The best survival rates are achieved when trained people provide OHCA victims with basic life support (CPR). This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of training on  improving knowledge and skills  basic life support in lay people. One group pretes posttest design was conducted in this study in integrated laboratory Widyagama Husada School of health. A total 15 participants were ware selected by Consecutive Sampling. Data were collected on  respondent characteristics, knowledge and practical skills basic life support. Data were analyzed using paired  t-tests. The mean score in knowledge and skills ware 54,67 and 33,67 at pretest and 76,3 and 85,07 (p = 0.000) at posttest. The Training significant on  improving Knowledge and Skills  Basic Life support in Lay People.


—The state-of-the-art scheduler of containerized cloud services considers load-balance as the only criterion and neglects many others such as application performance. In the era of Big Data, however, applications have evolved to be highly data-intensive thus perform poorly in existing systems. This particularly holds for Platform-as-a-Service environments that encourage an application model of stateless application instances in containers reading and writing data to services storing states, e.g., key-value stores. To this end, this work strives to improve today's cloud services by incorporating sensitivity to both load-balance and application performance. We built and analyzed theoretical models that respect both dimensions, and unlike prior studies, our model abstracts the dilemma between load-balance and application performance into an optimization problem and employs a statistical method to meet the discrepant requirements. Using heuristic algorithms and approaches we try to solve the abstracted problems. We implemented the proposed approach in Diego (an open-source cloud service scheduler) and demonstrate that it can significantly boost the performance of containerized applications while preserving a relatively high load-balance.


'The Dynamics of the Disc' is an oral history project that makes an important contribution to an under-researched area of Canadian sport history. Using a variety of analytical approaches this study traces the growth and development of the sport of Ultimate in Canada. And by examining the thematic links between and across stories told by Ultimate players, it provides a nuanced understanding of what Ultimate means to the people who play.
 Ultimate has rapidly evolved into a worldwide competitive amateur sport, and enjoyed exponential growth as a popular recreational game that is currently played in organized leagues in most major urban centres across North America by men, women, and youth. Often described as an alternative sport, Ultimate also prides itself on a (real or imagined) difference from mainstream sporting conventions. Ultimate is, therefore, subject to two over-arching, and sometimes conflicting, narratives -- a postmodern narrative of difference, and a liberal narrative of growth and progress – that players struggle to reconcile.
 Yet to many of the people who play, Ultimate is more than a sport, it is a community. Ultimate players form strong attachments to the game, but also to its spaces and places, ideas and practices, and to the people with whom they share their experiences. Through the use of narrative, myth, ritual, symbol, performance and commemoration, this community articulates its difference and celebrates its accomplishments while simultaneously policing its boundaries and disciplining its members. Looking at sport through the lens of community reveals that sport is not just about the human body at play but can also be a site where powerful feelings of belonging converge.


A stability indicating HPLC method was developed and validated for modafinil quantification in bulk and tablet dosage forms. Aligent zorebax SB C18 analytical column (250 mm x 4.6 mm, 5 μm particle size) was used with mobile phase consisting of 0.1 M sodium dihydrogen phosphate and methanol in ratio 60:40 (v/v), flow-rate 1.0 ml/min, UV-detection at 230 nm and controlled temperature at 30°C. The linearity was found in the concentration range of 5-150 μg/ml. The method was validated as per the ICH guidelines. The drug was exposed to acidic, basic, oxidation, photo degradation and dry heat conditions. As the developed method can efficiently separate the modafinil from its degradation products, it can be employed as stability-indicating method.


Recent advancements in diffusion models have enabled the generation of realistic deepfakes by writing textual prompts in natural language. While these models have numerous benefits across various sectors, they have also raised concerns about the potential misuse of fake images and cast new pressures on fake image detection. In this work, we pioneer a systematic study of the authenticity of fake images generated by state-of-the-art diffusion models. Firstly, we conduct a comprehensive study on the performance of contrastive and classification-based visual features. Our analysis demonstrates that fake images share common low-level cues, which render them easily recognizable. Further, we devise a multimodal setting wherein fake images are synthesized by different textual captions, which are used as seeds for a generator. Under this setting, we quantify the performance of fake detection strategies and introduce a contrastive-based disentangling strategy which let us analyze the role of the semantics of textual descriptions and low-level perceptual cues. Finally, we release a new dataset, called COCOFake, containing about 600k images generated from original COCO images.


We examined the kinetics of shedding of the soluble TNF receptors (TNF-Rs) in response to TNF leakage during isolated limb perfusion procedures and correlated them to the resulting hemodynamic effects. Shedding of the TNF-Rs started 7 min after TNF leakage into the systemic circulation. Three waves of shedding were observed peaking at 1, 8-12, and 48-72 h both in vivo and in cell cultures. The soluble receptors prolonged the half-life of TNF in the systemic circulation to 2.5-6 h. Excess shedding of the p75 compared with p55 TNF-Rs was noted during the first wave. The amount and speed of shedding of the p75 TNF-Rs were proportional to the serum TNF levels (P < 0.001). A maximal shedding capacity was attained only during the first wave of shedding, at TNF concentrations of approximately 1.5 ng/ml. Above this level, the linearity between TNF and its soluble receptors was lost. TNF-induced hypotension coincided with the initial imbalance between the concentrations of TNF and its soluble receptors. Despite the spontaneous correction of this imbalance at 8-12 h, the hemodynamic and biochemical alterations persisted and were further aggravated at 18 h, suggesting that other factors induced earlier by TNF are responsible for the perpetuation of the hemodynamic instability. This study may provide the basis for a more physiological therapeutic approach to TNF neutralization in septic shock patients.


Pigeons were trained under a 2-sec matching to sample schedule. Diazepam, phencyclidine and pentobarbital all decreased matching accuracy. Chronic administration of diazepam after the session produced no effect on matching accuracy on the next day; however, two weeks of postsession diazepam administration produced tolerance to the effects of presession diazepam administration and cross tolerance to phencyclidine, but not to pentobarbital. After 6 weeks without chronic diazepam administration, both the tolerance to the effects of diazepam on matching accuracy and the cross tolerance to phencyclidine had disappeared.


The complexity of geological units in Iran because of several unique events like tectonics and orogenic activities in this region led to extensive investigations for Moho recovery by seismic methods therein. In this research, three gravimetric methods have been evaluated by some point-wise seismic data. We applied collocation method as an iterative process as well as modified forms of Sjoberg and Jeffrey's theory of isostasy for local Moho depth recovery. The gravity data has been generated by GOCO03S model reduced by topography/bathymetry, sediment and consolidated crust effects. Although the iteration process in collocation approach only slightly changed the estimated depths, this method led to a better agreement with seismic data rather than others. Differences between collocation, Jeffrey and Sjoberg's solutions with seismic studies are similar but Jeffrey and Sjoberg's methods displayed a systematic bias. The standard deviations of the residuals among seismic data and gravimetric solutions are around 6 km. Overall, the evaluation of these approaches indicated that Moho from gravimetric approaches reduced only slightly the standard deviation of seismic Moho estimates. Significant discrepancies with seismic data have been detected in Makran subduction zone, Oman Sea, Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea. The explanation of such inconsistency can be partially due to the poor quality of CRUST1.0 data in these areas, as this model has been used to correct the gravity values that were input in the inversion procedures.


For permanent cement-base formwork, due to stay-in-place with concrete during all the service life and minor size of the end surface, the splicing methods of traditional formworks are not adapted to be used. In allusion to natures of the cement-base formwork, this paper presents ten types of splicing methods. For each method, a group of specimens are prepared and whose capacity and deformation performance are investigated. And meanwhile, stress and deformability of the full specimens without joint are researched under the same conditions. Through above splicing experiments, some reliable splicing method is obtained. The experimental results provided by this paper present a gist for investigation and application of the permanent cement-base formwork.


The early recognition of functional impairment of the kidney, which will sooner or later terminate in uremia, is one of the most important problems in the diagnosis and treatment of the various forms of renal disease. Recent progress in chemical analysis of the blood has been great, particularly with regard to the accumulation of nitrogen waste products as a sign of renal insufficiency. Yet often one will be disappointed in diagnosis and prognosis if too much stress is laid on the nonprotein nitrogen, the urea nitrogen, the uric acid or the creatinine readings of the blood. For one may find excessive amounts of these substances in patients who die of myocardial insufficiency, and in whom, apart from passive congestion, the kidneys show no anatomic changes. If such patients recover, improvement of the function of the heart also quickly ameliorates the chemical condition of the blood. In cases of pneumonia or


A kinetic equation for rouleau formation in a simple shear flow is derived, based on several assumptions. These are (a) colliding rouleaux stick to one another with a certain probability to form a single rouleau; (b) simultaneous collisions between more than two rouleaux are negligible; (c) rouleaux are broken by a viscous force exerted by the suspending fluid on the surfaces of rouleaux; (d) when a rouleau is broken by viscous forces, only two fragments are formed. Based on a simple mathematical model, collision rate, sticking probability and degradation rate are obtained as functions of applied shear rate. From the solution of the kinetic equation, the average size of rouleaux is obtained as a function of time with shear rate as a parameter. It is shown that the average size of rouleaux increases monotonically with increasing time and tends to an equilibrium size. The average size of rouleaux in a dynamical equilibrium decreases monotonically with increasing shear rate and tends to one cell as shear rate approaches infinity. It is also found that the initial rate of rouleau formation increases with increasing shear rate at very low shear rate, but this trend is reversed at higher shear rates. The theoretical results are compared quantitatively with experimental data.


In analysis of different types of dams, i.e. arch, gravity, rockfill and Roller Compacted Concrete (RCC) dams, the effect of hydrodynamic water pressure as an effective factor must seriously be taken into consideration. In present study, the hydrodynamic effect is precisely deliberated in RCC dams and compared to hydrostatic pressure effect. For this purpose, Kinta RCC dam in Malaysia is selected and 2D finite element (FE) model of the dam is performed. The Lagrangian approach is used to solve the dam-reservoir interaction, fluid–structure interaction (FSI), and in order to evaluate the crack pattern, Concrete Damaged Plasticity (CDP) model is implemented. Comparisons show that hydrodynamic pressure significantly changes the dam behaviour under seismic excitations. Moreover, the hydrodynamic effect modifies the deformation shape of the dam during the ground motions, however, it increases the magnitudes of the developed stresses causing more extensive tension crack damages mostly in the heel and upstream zones of the dam.


Adrenocortical microsomes possess a single population of Ins(1,4,5)P3-specific binding sites [IC50 5.9 +/- 0.9 nM; Palmer, Hughes, Lee & Wakelam (1988) Cell. Signalling 1, 147-156]. Competition studies showed that Ins(1:2-cyclic,4,5)P3 exhibits a 21-fold lower affinity for the site than Ins(1,4,5)P3 (IC50 124 +/- 16 nM). The affinity of the binding sites for Ins(1,4,5)P3 was not influenced by the non-hydrolysable GTP analogues GTP gamma S and Gpp[NH]p or by preincubation of the binding protein with a preparation of partially purified protein kinase C in the presence of ATP and TPA (12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol 13-acetate). These observations are discussed with reference to the identify and function of the Ins(1,4,5)P3 binding site.


This paper presents a theoretical and experimental investigation of the self-focusing of a single infrared laser beam in the photorefractive semi-conductor InP : Fe for applications in the telecommunications wavelengths as reconfigurable optical switching. The temporal response of two-wave-mixing in photorefractive InP:Fe under a dc electric field at different temperatures has been studied showing that the temperature as well as the intensity can be used to tune the photorefractive response time. In that way, we analyze both experimentally and theoretically the space-charge field build-up with respect to time and space and provide strong hints on the short time self-focusing of an infrared laser beam in InP:Fe with time response in the range of the microseconds.


In this contribution, the effect of substitution on biaryl-based phosphine-sulfonate nickel catalysts is investigated. A series of [κ2-(P,O)-2-(P-PhAr)-1-benzenesulfonato]NiPh(PPh3) nickel complexes (Ni–OMe, Ar = 2-[2′,6′-(OMe)2-C6H3]-C6H4; Ni–H, Ar = 2-(C6H5)-C6H4; Ni–OiPr, Ar = 2-[2′,6′-(OiPr)2-C6H3]-C6H4; Ni–F, Ar = 2-[2′,6′-F2-C6H3]-C6H4) are prepared and applied to the polymerization of ethylene as well as its copolymerizations with polar functionalized norbornene comonomers. These nickel complexes are highly active toward ethylene polymerization without the requirement of any cocatalyst. Specifically, the Ni–F complex exhibits high stability and high activity (up to 3.0 × 106 g mol−1 h−1), and catalyzes the formation of polyethylene of high molecular weight (Mn up to 216 200) and high melting point (Tm up to 139.6 °C). The polyethylene molecular-weight distribution from this system is very sensitive to the steric demand of the ligand, as well as the nature of the coordinating base, polymerization temperature, and ethylene pressure. This, in turn, provides a simple and efficient strategy for the control of the polyethylene molecular-weight distribution, which is an important parameter that determines multiple material properties such as viscosity, stiffness, and crystallinity. Ni–F also exhibits good ethylene-copolymerization behavior toward polar-functionalized norbornene comonomers, leading to moderate comonomer incorporation in copolymers of moderate molecular weight and high melting point.


Ampicillin resistance in Haemophilus influenzae is most often due to the plasmid-mediated production of TEM beta-lactamase. We studied four strains with high-level ampicillin resistance (MIC of 32 micrograms/ml with an inoculum of 10(5) CFU on solid media) which did not produce detectable beta-lactamase activity with two different detection methods. Two of the four strains contained extrachromosomal DNA by agarose gel electrophoresis. Conjugation failed to transfer ampicillin resistance; in contrast, transformation yielded ampicillin-resistant transformants in three of the four strains. These transformants did not contain detectable extrachromosomal DNA. In addition, mobilization of the resistance determinant by transformation to, or conjugation with, recombination-deficient strains was unsuccessful. DNA-DNA hybridization experiments revealed no homology of the DNA of these strains with two R plasmids (one coding for ampicillin resistance, the other for chloramphenicol and tetracycline resistance). We conclude that the genetic basis of the non-beta-lactamase ampicillin resistance in these strains appears to be chromosomally mediated. We investigated the mechanism of resistance in these strains. Enzymatic modification of penicillin was not detected by autoradiography of a thin-layer chromatogram of cell sonic extracts of three ampicillin-resistant transformant strains incubated with [14C]penicillin. To assess changes in permeability of the cell envelope, a plasmid coding for beta-lactamase was conjugated into these strains, and the hydrolysis of penicillin by intact cells and cell sonic extracts was compared. Only one of three transformant strains had significantly diminished permeability. Outer membrane proteins of these strains analyzed by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis revealed apparent differences in comparison with the isogenic ampicillin-susceptible recipient strain. Autofluorography of a sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of Sarkosyl-solubilized crude membrane (the putative inner membranes) from these ampicillin-resistant transformant strains incubated with [3H]penicillin compared with the isogenic ampicillin-susceptible recipient strain revealed reduced binding to PBP 3 and 6, 3 and 4, or 4. In addition, affinity binding studies revealed decreased affinity of PBP 4 for ampicillin of all four transformants tested. We conclude that the major mechanism of resistance in these strains is altered penicillin-binding proteins; however, other mechanisms, including permeability, may also play a role.


We propose a novel approach to the design and analysis of VLSI architectures for the soft-input soft-output a posteriori probability (SISO-APP) decoding algorithm used in iterative decoders such as turbo decoders. The approach is based on a tile-graph composed of recursion patterns that model the resource-time scheduling of the forward-backward recursion equations of the algorithm. The problem of constructing a SISO-APP architecture is formulated as a three-step process of constructing and counting the patterns needed and then tiling them. The problem of optimizing the architecture for high speed and low power reduces to optimizing the individual patterns and the tiling scheme for minimal delay and storage overhead. The various forms of the sliding and parallel-window (PW) architectures in the literature are instances of the proposed tile-graph. Using the tile-graph approach, a new PW architecture controlled by the window width r is proposed that achieves for r = 10 a 45%, a 71 %, a 51%, and a 25% reduction in decoding delay, state, input, and output metrics storage respectively, compared to a conventional architecture with a 10% increase in resources.


A market of potato commodity for industry scale usage is engaging several types of actors. They are farmers, middlemen, and industries. A multi-agent system has been built to simulate these actors into agent entities, based on manually given parameters within a simulation scenario file. Each type of agents has its own fuzzy logic representing actual actors' knowledge, to be used to interpreting values and take appropriated decision of it while on simulation. The system will simulate market activities with programmed behaviors then produce the results as spreadsheet and chart graph files. These results consist of each agent's yearly finance and commodity data. The system will also predict each of next value from these outputs.


In recent decades corporate social responsibility attracted significant attention in the realm of management studies and was investigated as a strategic lever able to foster firms' competitiveness while creating a shared value for all relevant stakeholders. The present study proposes an in-depth analysis of Brunello Cucinelli, that perfectly embodies the concept of a socially responsible firm and also represents a story of success and pride of Made in Italy in the world. Therefore, this case study is used to explore the topic of corporate social responsibility as a strategic orientation able to influence corporate identity and culture but also to give products a unique and distinctive positioning.


The purpose of the study is an evaluation of food industry workers' perceptions about varied competency dimensions. The study consists of workers that are employed in a firm operating at food industry in Turkey. As a quantitative research, this study uses survey method to collect data directly from target group. Sample is formed by voluntary participation. Survey is consisted of demographic questions and competency related questions. In order to clarify questionnaire' items the competency related questions section (which was originally 24 item survey) is transformed into a 31 item survey. The sample is narrowed as "the employees who are hired according to competency based recruiting applications" by first question of survey. With this regulation the expectation about this study is to maintain perceptions of workers who are recruited by competency based applications. The involved ideas of workers who are directly affected by competency based management are intended to be the mainly expected finding. After organization process of questionnaires forms, 225 of them selected as qualified. Data is entered to SPSS program from these qualified sources. The measured reliability of data is ,89 according to Cronbach's Alpha Reliability analysis. In addition to exposure interactions among competency dimensions; variations between these dimensions depending on demographic variables are found out


The exact DNA mutation produced by cellular repair of a CRISPR/Cas9-generated double strand break determines its phenotypic effect. It is known that the mutational outcomes are not random, and depend on DNA sequence at the targeted location. Here, we present a systematic study of this link. We created a high throughput assay to directly measure the edits generated by over 40,000 guide RNAs, and applied it in a range of genetic backgrounds and for alternative CRISPR/Cas9 reagents. In total, we gathered data for over 1,000,000,000 mutational outcomes in synthetic constructs, which mirror those at endogenous loci. The majority of reproducible mutations are insertions of a single base, short deletions, or long microhomology-mediated deletions. gRNAs have a cell-line dependent preference for particular outcomes, especially favouring single base insertions and microhomology-mediated deletions. We uncover sequence determinants of the produced mutations at individual loci, and use these to derive a predictor of Cas9 editing outcomes with accuracy close to the theoretical maximum. This improved understanding of sequence repair allows better design of editing experiments, and may lead to future therapeutic applications.


This case report illustrates a patient who underwent supra-annular mechanical aortic valve replacement then suffered from prosthesis dysfunction, increasing pressure gradient with aortic valve. She was successfully underwent aortic valve re-replacement, sub-annular pannus removing and aortic annulus enlargement procedures through combined cardiac incision passing through aortic root, right atrium (RA), and upper atrial septum. This incision provides optimal visual operative field and simplifies dissection.


The identification of plant pathogens often requires rapid, effective and reliable
sampling techniques for pathogens or -infected plant tissues. The first and
critical step to a PCR-based identification from the processing of sampled
tissues is the extraction and purification of template DNA of suitable quality
for PCR. Many DNA extraction techniques for plant and fungal DNA are time consuming
and/or require sophisticated laboratory equipment. Whatman
International Ltd from Flinders Technology Associates (FTA) has patented
cards which offer a simple and rapid method for the room temperature
collection, transport and storage (short and long term) of DNA. Direct capture
of plant pathogen DNA in the field, achieved by squashing infected tissue
(either symptomatic or asymptomatic) and/or pathogen structures onto cards,
will facilitate the detection and identification o~ the pathogen. DNA sampling
with these cards provides many advantages for a plant pathologist such as
increasing the number of samples that can be collected, stored and transported
in the field, especially in remote locations. It circumvents any requirement for
travelling with collection containers, cumbersome equipment or labile buffers.
It is particularly useful when the isolation of a pathogen is either not possible,
as for an obligate pathogen, or only achieved with a low rate of success.
The aims of the research in this thesis were to investigate the applicability of
FTA cards as a new method for DNA sampling from fungal and infected plant
material associated with forest diseases. After DNA sampling and capture on
the card, the DNA extractions were subjected to PCR, DNA sequencing and
species-specific PCR. There were three main sources of material squashed onto
the FTA cards; fungal material (cultures, fruitbodies and spores); asymptomatic
or symptomatic plant material (root, leaves, and seeds); water and soil that
were likely to contain infective propagules.
DNA was easily obtained from fungal cultures squashed onto cards and the
DNA thus harvested is suitable for PCR, DNA sequencing and species specific
PCR. With the latter type of PCR, caution must be exercised when
using the card in order to avoid contamination. In case studies of forest
diseases involving the squashing of infected material onto FTA cards, several
fungal pathogens were identified based on sequencing of the PCR product
obtained from the DNA captured by the FTA card; Fusarium oxysporum,
Cylindrocladium spp., Phoma spp., and Phytophthora spp. were detected and
identified. The use of FTA cards to sample the DNA of certain fungal
propagules such as rust spores or the fungal propagules contained in soil or
water did not prove very successful.
These preliminary results clearly demonstrate the potential of FTA cards to
assist forest pathologists in disease detection and identification. Further
modifications to FTA card sampling techniques are discussed so that the DNA
of a wide range of forest pathogens can be successfully obtained from plant
tissue, soil or water.


Exuviae collections have considerable value in population studies of Odonata, but methods for standardizing collections or estimating densities and detection probabilities have been little studied. I measured sampling rates for Anisoptera exuviae and used a maximum likelihood, four-pass, depletion population estimator to standardize collections and to estimate exuvial densities and detection probabilities along 10 riverbank stations in Wisconsin. First-pass sampling rates averaged slower than the overall average for experienced collectors (0.53 m min–1 compared to 0.90 m min–1) because more exuviae were present on the first pass, increasing picking and handling time. Neither bank vegetation type (grassy versus forested) nor amount of prior precipitation affected sampling rate. Exuviae detection probabilities for a single pass ranged from 0.49 to 0.75, and averaged 0.64. The mean cumulative probability of detection increased to 0.87 after two passes, 0.95 after three passes, and 0.98 after four passes. A strong negative relationship existed between detectability and the amount of prior precipitation. Bank vegetation type did not affect detection probability. Smaller exuviae had an 8% lower probability of detection than larger exuviae. If four sampling passes are cost-prohibitive for some exuviae studies, making just two passes may provide an adequate estimate of sampling efficiency. The assumption that exhaustive collecting efforts will find all or most of the exuviae along vegetated natural banks is unfounded.


OBJECTIVE
We observed sensory features in toddlers ages 12-24 mo with risk factors for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and explored their relationship to general development and early signs of ASD.

METHOD
Participants (N = 46) included toddlers with higher risk for ASD. All participants were administered standardized assessments of sensory features, early signs of ASD, and general development at a single study visit.

RESULTS
Sensory features in toddlers were characterized as either adaptive or reactive. Toddlers with more difficulties in oral sensory processing displayed more early signs of ASD. Typical oral and auditory processing were associated with higher cognitive function, and toddlers with fewer sensory features overall had more mature language skills.

CONCLUSION
Specific sensory features were associated with both early signs of ASD and less mature general development. Replication of this preliminary study is required.


The International Linear Collider (ILC) is being designed to explore particle physics at the TeV scale. The design of the Very Forward Region of the ILC detector is considered in the presented work. The Beam Calorimeter one of two electromagnetic calorimeters situated there is the subject of this thesis. The Beam Calorimeter has to provide a good hermeticity for high energy electrons, positrons and photons down to very low polar angles, serve for fast beam diagnostics and shield the inner part of the detector from backscattered beamstrahlung remnants and synchrotron radiation. As a possible technology for the Beam Calorimeter a diamond-tungsten sandwich calorimeter is considered. Detailed simulation studies are done in order to explore the suitability of the considered design for the Beam Calorimeter objectives. Detection efficiency, energy and angular resolution for electromagnetic showers are studied. At the simulation level the diamondtungsten design is shown to match the requirements on the Beam Calorimeter performance. Studies of polycrystalline chemical vapour deposition (pCVD) diamond as a sensor material for the Beam Calorimeter are done to explore the properties of the material. Results of the measurements performed with pCVD diamond samples produced by different manufacturers are presented.


Brainstem cavernous malformations (CMs) are complex lesions associated with hemorrhage and neurological deficit. In this review, the authors describe the anatomical nuances relating to the operative techniques for these challenging lesions. The resection of brainstem CMs in properly selected patients has been demonstrated to reduce the risk of rehemorrhage and can be achieved relatively safely in experienced hands.


The present comparative postcolonial analysis aims at drawing thematic parallels between two postcolonial novels: The Conscript (1950) by Ghebresus Hailu (Eritrea, Horn of Africa) and The Glass Palace(2000) by Amitav Ghosh, India. Though the novels are productions of two different geographical space, cultural and colonial experience, they have stark similarities. In The Conscript Hailu paints a picture of his colonized country men under Italian masters similarly, Ghosh in The Glass Palace attempts to delineate the life of Indo-Burmese people under the British Empire. Although a lot of research has been carried out on Anglophone and Francophone colonial literature, there hardly exists any analysis of Italian colonial literature. In this regard comparative analysis of The Conscript (a novel written in Tigrigna, a language spoken in Eritrea, East Africa and translated into English by Ghirmay Negash, a professor in Ohio University) and The Glass Palace, I believe will provide additional knowledge concerning Italian colonial experience visà-vis wide existing Anglophone and Francophone literature. The thematic commonalities drawn between The Conscript and The Glass Palace in this paper are native role and complicity, racism and interiorization, dislocation, colonial order, traumatic effects of colonialism in the colonized, decolonization strategies, and anticolonial consciousness. I will explore and analyze the relations of the two novels based on afore mentioned aspects. Then following the discussion I will conclude by revisiting some general points concerning the texts. This paper mainly frames its arguments on theoretical frameworks of Rene Wellek, Robert Young, Edward Said, and Franz Fanon about notions of comparative literature, resistance, and representation, exploitation, and interiorization.


Abstract The sensitivity and uncertainty analysis tools of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory SCALE nuclear modeling and simulation code system that have been developed over the last decade have proven indispensable for numerous application and design studies for nuclear criticality safety and reactor physics. SCALE contains tools for analyzing the uncertainty in the eigenvalue of critical systems with realistic three-dimensional Monte Carlo simulations but currently can only quantify the uncertainty in important neutronic parameters such as multigroup cross sections, fuel fission rates, activation rates, and neutron fluence rates with one- or two-dimensional models. A more complete understanding of the sources of uncertainty in these design-limiting parameters using high-fidelity models could lead to improvements in process optimization and reactor safety and help inform regulators when setting operational safety margins. A novel approach for calculating eigenvalue sensitivity coefficients, known as the CLUTCH (Contributon-Linked eigenvalue sensitivity/Uncertainty estimation via Track length importance CHaracterization) method, was recently explored as academic research and has been found to accurately and rapidly calculate sensitivity coefficients in criticality safety applications. The work presented here describes an extension of the CLUTCH method, known as the GEneralized Adjoint Responses in Monte Carlo (GEARMC) method, that enables the calculation of sensitivity coefficients and uncertainty analysis for a generalized set of neutronic responses using high-fidelity continuous-energy Monte Carlo calculations. Several criticality safety systems were examined to demonstrate proof of principle for the GEAR-MC method, and GEAR-MC produced response sensitivity coefficients that agreed well with reference direct perturbation sensitivity coefficients.


Pediatric patients with organic and congenital gastrointestinal disorders, including gastroesophageal reflux, may benefit from metoclopramide therapy. In addition, the weight gain, secondary to metoclopramide therapy, as experienced by the patient in this report, may enhance patient tolerance to corrective surgical procedures. Further research is necessary to define proper dosage recommendations and to determine those patients who will be successfully treated.


Bacterial wilt caused by Ralstonia solanacearum (Rs) is one of the most important diseases found in ginger; however, the disease resistance mechanisms dependent on root bacteria and exudates are unclear. In the present study, we analyzed the changes in the composition of rhizobacteria, endobacteria, and root exudates during the pathogenesis of bacterial wilt using high-throughput sequencing and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Rs caused bacterial wilt in ginger with an incidence of 50.00% and changed the bacterial community composition in both endosphere and rhizosphere. It significantly reduced bacterial α-diversity but increased the abundance of beneficial and stress-tolerant bacteria, such as Lysobacter, Ramlibacter, Pseudomonas, and Azospirillum. Moreover, the change in rhizobacterial composition induced the changes in endobacterial and root exudate compositions. Moreover, the upregulated exudates inhibited ginger bacterial wilt, with the initial disease index (77.50%) being reduced to 40.00%, suggesting that ginger secretes antibacterial compounds for defense against bacterial pathogens.


OBJECT
The authors describe their experience with a technique for robotic implantation of depth electrodes in patients concurrently undergoing craniotomy and placement of subdural monitoring electrodes for the evaluation of intractable epilepsy.

METHODS
Patients included in this study underwent evaluation in the Dartmouth Surgical Epilepsy Program and were recommended for invasive seizure monitoring with depth electrodes between 2006 and the present. In all cases an image-guided robotic system was used during craniotomy for concurrent subdural grid electrode placement. A total of 7 electrodes were placed in 4 patients within the time period.

RESULTS
Three of 4 patients had successful localization of seizure onset, and 2 underwent subsequent resection. Of the patients who underwent resection, 1 is now seizure free, and the second has only auras. There was 1 complication after subpial grid placement but no complications related to the depth electrodes.

CONCLUSIONS
Robotic image-guided placement of depth electrodes with concurrent craniotomy is feasible, and the technique is safe, accurate, and efficient.


Magnetospheric radiation belt electron transport in the presence of ULF waves and a convection electric field is investigated using a model that includes a nightside plasma sheet source and electron losses by magnetopause shadowing. Narrow‐band ULF waves launched from a prescribed dayside magnetopause source are shown to interact with trapped and untrapped equatorially mirroring electrons within the magnetosphere. For magnetic moments less than 8 keV/nT and a strong convection electric field (in the order of 5 mV/m), we find that a limb of untrapped plasma sheet electrons extending across the dayside magnetosphere into the afternoon sector provides a phase space density (PSD) source for injection to lower L‐shells by ULF waves, causing a rapid enhancement in PSD. However, the same ULF wave activity gives rise to a rapid dropout in PSD for electrons with a higher magnetic moment or in the presence of a weaker convection electric field, since in this case the plasma sheet electrons escape through the magnetopause before they reach the afternoon sector. In their place, a lack of PSD, or PSD "holes" can be periodically injected from the magnetopause to lower L‐shells by ULF waves, leading to the rapid depletion in average PSD. In each case, the magnitude and extent in L‐shell of the PSD enhancement or depletion is strongly dependent on the amplitude of ULF waves in the afternoon sector, and is significantly augmented by the overlap of drift‐resonant islands and an associated stochastic transport layer.


another paper at this conference. The DAPHNE data acquisition system is designed to collect data at high rates from CAMAC instruments and to analyze the data on-line with multiple single-board computers using the National 32016 micoprocessor. It will be the standard data acquisition system used on all instruments at the Argonne Tandem-Linac Accelerator (ATLAS), a heavy ion accelerator. The system includes a programmable Event Handler to acquire the data from CAMAC instruments, Event Processors operating in parallel to analyze the data, an Event Distributor to supply the data to the parallel processors, and an intelligent Event Processor Interface to control the Event Processors and transfer data between the host computer and the Event Processors. Functional characteristics of each of these system components will be discussed and the design of the custom Event Distributor and intelligent Event Processor Interface will be described in detail.


Aim of the study: Aloe vera is a medicinal plant widely distributed in the various parts of India. Aloe Vera is
a major medicinal plant when it comes to treating and protecting the skin. Used externally, it is very effective
on burns and sunburn, as well as a variety of skin diseases (eczema, pruritus, psoriasis, acne) – it is extremely
constructive and protective. Root contains resinous matter and fat. It is used as Stomachic hepato-biliary
affections etc. The present research was aimed to evaluate the potential hepatoprotective activity of ethanol
and aqueous extracts of stem using in vivo models to validate the folkloric use of the plant.
Materials and methods: The hepatoprotective activity of the ethanol and aqueous extracts of stem were
studied on male albino wistar rats, liver damage induced by paracetamol (2.5gm/kg, p.o.) by monitoring
biochemical parameters. Various biochemical parameters were studied to evaluate the hepatoprotective
activity of ethanol and aqueous extracts in serum like glutamic pyruvic transaminase (sGPT), serum glutamic
oxaloacetic transaminase (sGOT) and serum alkaline phosphatase (sALP), total bilirubin (sB), total protein,
total cholesterol and histopathological changes in liver were also studied along with silymarin (100mg/kg,
p.o.) as standard hepatoprotective agents were determined to assess the effect of the ethanol and aqueous
extracts of stem of Aloe vera (100 and 200 mg/kg) on the paracetamol induced hepatic damage.
Results: The phytochemical investigation of the extracts showed presence of carbohydrates, proteins, steroids
and flavonoids. Pre-treatment of the rats with ethanol and aqueous extracts prior to paracetamol
administration caused a significant reduction in the values of sGOT, sGPT, sALP and sB (P<0.01) almost
comparable to the silymarin. The hepatoprotective was confirmed by histopathological examination of the
liver tissue of control and treated animal.Conclusions: The results indicate that this plant possesses potential hepatoprotective properties and has
therapeutic potential for the treatment of liver diseases.


This chapter commences from a position that accepts the patriarchal nature of western societies, that is, the law, or rule of the father. Such societies will feature male domination in a broad and cultural sense and in institutions such as the legal system where a male standpoint and interests preside. Drawing on this universally accepted feminist position, this chapter explores how gender relates to victimisation. The content is organised around three main headings, feminism and victimhood, sexual crimes and victimisations, and responses to victimisation. Under these themes the chapter applauds the theoretical, policy, practice and research achievements of feminist approaches. It explores how feminist thinking has furthered both our knowledge about serious forms of violent victimisation and gendered theorising of perpetrators and victims of crime. It illustrates the patterns and processes associated with victimisation and highlights how gender matters most in respect of revealing the nature and extent of sexual crimes (Davies 2014). The example of rape is used to illustrate the influences of feminist voices in our understanding of victimisation. This organising framework facilitates a reflexive discussion whereby gender-wise approaches alongside some seemingly intractable feminist conundrums that appear to be impeding feminist theorising particularly in areas of victimisation that affect women and children affected by sexual abuse.


This paper describes a model for the prediction of micro-plastic material transformation and associated residual stress field development in bearing steels during over-rolling. The high and mainly hydrostatic pressure field induced by the rolling element load, leads to the development of micro-plastic deformation in the subsurface layer of the rolling contact. The resulting plastic strain distribution gives rise to an associated self-equilibrating residual stress field that can be experimentally quantified using X-ray diffraction methods. A novel three-dimensional elastic-plastic over-rolling solution is used to evaluate the plastic strains and material transformation. Central to this plastic contact formulation is the incremental approach to deal with nonlinear material behavior. The Prandtl-Reuss constitutive equations in conjunction with Huber-Mises-Hencky yield criterion and Ramberg-Osgood strain-hardening relationships are applied to describe the plastic behavior of common hardened bearing steels. A nonlinear isotropic law is applied to describe the transformation of the retained austenite during stress cycles and changes in the strain-hardening behavior of the material microstructure. Application of this model with an incremental solution scheme based on the Conjugate Gradient Method (CGM) gives good convergence properties and fast solution for each cycle. Comparison between experimentally obtained residual stresses and stress fields derived from the present micro-plastic contact model, indicates good agreement. Numerical simulations, carried out to derive the maximum operating contact pressures in the elastic regime are also in agreement with published data. The model opens new possibilities in the evaluation of steels and heat treatments used in rolling bearings. Furthermore, this micro-plastic contact model may help the interpretation of the load history leading to a given pattern of residual stress measured in bearing rings.


With CMOS technology scaling, design for reliability has become an important step in the design cycle and increased the need for efficient and accurate aging simulation methods during the design stage. NBTI-induced delay shifts in logic paths are asymmetric in nature, as opposed to the averaging effect due to recovery assumed in traditional aging analysis. Timing violations due to aging, in particular, are very sensitive to the standby operation regime of a digital circuit. In this paper, by identifying the critical moments in circuit operation and considering the asymmetric aging effects, timing violations under NBTI effect are correctly predicted. The unique contributions of this work include the following: 1) Accurate modeling of aging-induced gate delay shift due to transistor threshold voltage (Vth) shift, using only the delay dependence on supply voltage from cell library, is presented; 2) an efficient simulation flow for asymmetric aging analysis is proposed and conducted at critical points in circuit operation; and 3) timing violations due to NBTI aging are investigated in sequential circuits and the proposed framework is tested in VLSI applications such as DDR memory and SRAM caches. This methodology is comprehensively demonstrated with ISCAS89 benchmark circuits using a 45-nm Nangate standard cell library characterized using predictive technology models. Our proposed failure assessment provides design insights and enables resilient techniques for mitigating digital circuit aging.


Nozzle is one of key parts in the diesel engine. The cavitation erosion of needle-sealing surface in the pintle nozzle has important influence on the fuel atomization, combustion and power performance of diesel engine. In order to investigate the effect of hardness of needle-sealing surface on cavitation erosion, two kinds of nozzles were selected and operated in S195 diesel engine for 10 hours. One nozzle is heat-treated one which has lower surface hardness; the other with higher surface hardness is real commercial nozzle. The surface appearances of original and operated nozzle-sealing surface were observed by SEM. It was found that the cavitation erosion on the seal surface of nozzle with lower hardness was severer than that of nozzle with higher hardness. However, their wear ways and formations are similar.


Abstract HIV-positive women of reproductive age face challenges in decision making related to pregnancy. Understanding factors influencing repeat pregnancies in women with known HIV status are necessary to guide interventions and counseling strategies to better inform and support them. We compared three groups of women attending a large antenatal clinic in Pune, India. They include: Group A – 63 HIV-positive women comingfor care for a repeat pregnancy after being diagnosed in a previous pregnancy; Group B – 64 HIV-negative (repeat) pregnant women attendingthis antenatal clinic; and Group C – 63 HIV-positive non-pregnant women currently enrolled in an ongoing clinical trial. Comparisons of Group A and B indicate that the likelihood of unplanned repeat pregnancies was significantly higher in HIV-positive (70%) than HIV-negative (36%) women (OR=4.1, CI: 2.0–8.7). Inability to terminate the pregnancy (31%) and familial obligations (40%) appear to be important for continuing the unplanned repeat pregnancy. Despite high reported contraceptive use by HIV-positive women, pregnancies still occurred. Death of their youngest child is an important factor as 21% of HIV-positive pregnant women lost their youngest child compared with 3% of HIV-negative women and 3% of HIV-positive non-pregnant women (p<0.001). Repeat pregnancies were more likely to occur for women who did not disclose their HIV status to their spouse. Thus the majority of the repeat pregnancies for HIV-positive women were both unplanned and unwanted.


This is a history of 60 years of the Ryder Cup, which was founded in 1927. America has long dominated the game of golf and there have been many stirring matches since the first event in Massachusetts. The book uses first person accounts by many leading protagonists of the game.


: A study was conducted to assess the deformities in children with leprosy. Eyes, hands and feet were examined for leprosy-related deformities. The influence of age, sex, duration of disease, type of disease, occurrence of leprosy reactions and anti-leprosy treatment on the occurrence of deformities was studied. In our urban leprosy project the percentage of children (0-14 years) suffering from leprosy is 7% of the total number of leprosy patients. The response to multidrug therapy, health education and physiotherapy was good.


The lysosomal storage disorder glycogenosis type II is caused by acid alpha-glucosidase deficiency. In this study we have investigated the possible applicability of mannose 6-phosphate receptor-mediated enzyme replacement therapy to correct the enzyme deficiency in the most affected tissues. Bovine testes acid alpha-glucosidase containing phosphorylated mannose residues was intravenously administered to mice and found to be taken up by heart (70% increase of activity) and skeletal muscle (43% increase); the major target organs. The uptake of nonphosphorylated human placenta acid alpha-glucosidase by heart and skeletal muscle appeared to be significantly less efficient, whereas uptake of dephosphorylated bovine testes enzyme was not detectable. The phosphorylated bovine testes acid alpha-glucosidase remained present in mouse skeletal muscle up to 9-15 d after administration, with a half-life of 2-4 d. Besides being measured in skeletal muscle and heart, uptake of phosphorylated bovine testes and nonphosphorylated human placenta acid alpha-glucosidase was measured in several other organs, but not in brain. The increase of acid alpha-glucosidase activity was highest in liver and spleen. We concluded that application of mannose 6-phosphate receptor-mediated enzyme replacement therapy may offer new perspectives for treatment of glycogenesis type II.


This paper develops a new formulation for short-term multiple-fuel constrained generation scheduling. In the formulation, the power balance constraint, generator operation limits, fuel availability factors of generators, efficiency factors of fuels and the supply limits of fuels are taken fully into account. A fuzzy set approach is included in the formulation to find the fuel schedules, which meet the take-or-pay fuel consumption as closely as possible or maximise the utilisation of the cheap fuels, within a generation schedule. The new formulation is combined with genetic algorithms (GAs), simulated-annealing (SA) and hybrid genetic/simulated-annealing optimisation methods to establish new algorithms for solving the problem. A method for forming the initial candidate solutions in the GA-based and hybrid-based algorithms is also developed. This method has also been incorporated into the simulated-annealing-based algorithm. The new algorithms are demonstrated by applying them to determine the most economical generation schedule for 25 generators in a local power system and its fuel schedule for 4 different types of fuels.


The prtT gene, coding for trypsinlike proteolytic activity, has been isolated from Porphyromonas gingivalis ATCC 53977. This gene is present immediately downstream from the sod gene on a 5.9-kb DNA fragment from the organism isolated in Escherichia coli. The complete nucleotide sequence of the gene was determined, and the deduced amino acid sequence of the enzyme corresponds to a 53.9-kDa protein with an estimated pI of 11.85. Gelatin-sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis zymography also indicated a similar molecular size for the protease. The enzyme was purified to near homogeneity following anion-exchange and gel-filtration chromatography. The purified enzyme also exhibited a single protein species with a size of approximately 53 kDa. Enzyme activity was strongly dependent upon the presence of reducing agents (dithiothreitol, cysteine, and 2-mercaptoethanol) and was also stimulated in the presence of calcium ions. A comparison of the properties of the prtT gene product with comparable parameters of proteases previously purified from different strains of P. gingivalis suggested that the cloned protease represents a previously uncharacterized enzyme.


Congenital diaphragmatic defects (CDDs) may occur in malformation syndromes of varied causes. Syndromic cases of CDDs due to chromosomal defects, autosomal recessive, autosomal dominant, or X-linked inheritance have been described. In order to determine the frequency and nature of syndromes, malformations, and chromosome abnormalities associated with CDDs, we reviewed the records of all patients with CDDs evaluated over a 4-year period. During the 4-year interval, a total of 60 patients was evaluated. Of these, 29 had a therapeutic or spontaneous abortion, and 31 received postnatal care. On prenatal ultrasonography, 20 of 60 (33%) of patients with CDDs had additional anomalies. Additional anomalies, besides CDDs, were present in 15 of 31 (48%) of liveborn patients on newborn evaluation. In total, 16 patients with multiple anomalies were evaluated. Of these, 12 of 16 (75%) had additional abnormalities detected by prenatal ultrasonography. The 4 of 16 (25%) without additional anomalies on prenatal sonography had multiple anomalies found neonatally, lethal multiple pterygium syndrome being diagnosed in one case. Prenatal chromosome analysis was performed in 7 of 16 patients, and all had postnatal karyotypes. All initial karyotypes were normal. Tetrasomy 12p was documented on postnatal fibroblast analysis in one case who had percutaneous umbilical blood sampling (PUBS). Syndromes diagnosed postnatally in 7 of 16 patients (44%) include: Fryns syndrome (2), Simpson-Golabi-Behmel syndrome (2), tetrasomy 12p (1), Brachmann-de Lange syndrome (1), and lethal multiple pterygium syndrome (1). We were unable to make a specific diagnosis in 9 of 16 patients (56%) with multiple malformations. In patients with CDDs, a normal prenatal karyotype, especially if obtained by PUBS, and absence of other detected abnormalities by fetal ultrasonography, do not exclude the presence of other major anomalies, including chromosome abnormalities and severe multiple malformation syndromes.


This paper describes a model for the response of the volume of a tumor to a single treatment or a series of identical treatment fractions. The model is built on three assumptions: a fixed proportional cell killing for each treatment fraction, a constant removal rate of dead cells and a constant growth rate of the remaining clonogenic cells. For each individual tumor these parameters may be estimated from sequential tumor volume measurements. The model is applied to volume measurements of 173 rhabdomyosarcoma tumors implanted in the flanks of female rats after single or fractionated radiation with total doses between 0 and 90 Gy, with or without hyperthermia. Although the assumptions on which the model is built are evidently too strong, the model serves as an acceptable first-order approximation. A comparison between fitted and measured volumes showed the best fits for single radiation treatments in the period between treatment and regrowth to about the original volume. The overall shape of the fitted and observed growth curves of tumors exposed to fractionated radiation or combined treatment with hyperthermia were similar but, especially in the period of volume reduction, the fit was moderate. The model offers the opportunity for an alternative computation of growth delay and other parameters for the effect of treatment, and for the efficient planning of experiments based on the treatment of a few animals.


We present constrained stochastic approximation algorithms for computing the locally optimal policy of a constrained average cost finite state Markov decision process. The stochastic approximation algorithms require computation of the gradient of the cost function with respect to the parameter that characterizes the randomized policy. This is computed by novel simulation based gradient estimation schemes involving weak derivatives. The algorithms proposed are simulation based and do not require explicit knowledge of the underlying parameters such as transition probabilities. We present three classes of algorithms based on primal dual methods, augmented Lagrangian (multiplier) methods and gradient projection primal methods. Unlike neuro-dynamic programming methods such as Q-Learning, the algorithms proposed here can handle constraints and time varying parameters.


Background. Jacobsen syndrome is a rare syndrome with variable phenotypic expression depending on the breakpoints and the size of 11q deletion. There is presented a wide range of phenotypes of varying severity. Detailed molecular cytogenetic analysis leads to better knowledge of genetic causes of this syndrome.
Materials and methods. Molecular cytogenetic analysis using subtelomeric FISH and array CGH was performed for a patient with Jacobsen syndrome.
Results. Subtelomeric FISH detected an unbalanced translocation 46,XY,der(11)t(11;13)(q24.2;p11.2) of our patient. Array CGH analysis revealed a 13.95 Mb terminal deletion of the 11q23.3 region (breakpoint positions 120, 505, 418–134, 452, 384, NCBI build 36). FISH and GTG banding analysis identified a balanced translocation 46,XX,t(11;13) (q24.2;p11.2) of patient's mother.
Conclusions. The results of this case report suggest the need of combining both molecular cytogenetic methods: array CGH and FISH for precise analysis of patients with Jacobsen syndrome.


Explaining deep learning models and their predictions is an open question with many proposed, but difficult to validate, solutions. This difficulty in assessing explanation methods has raised the question on the validity of these methods: What are they showing and what are the factors influencing the explanations? Furthermore, how should one choose which one to use? Here, we explore saliency-type methods, finding that saliency maps contain network "fingerprints", by which the network which generated the map can be uniquely identified. We test this by creating datasets made up of saliency maps from different "primary" networks, then training "secondary" networks on these saliency-map datasets. We find that secondary networks can learn to identify which primary network a saliency map comes from. Our findings hold across several saliency methods and for both CNN and ResNet "primary" architectures. Our analysis also reveals complex relationships between methods: a set of methods share fingerprints, while some contain unique fingerprints. We discuss a potentially related prior work that may explain some of these relationships; some methods are made up of 'higher order derivatives'. Our simple analytical framework is a first step towards understanding ingredients of and relationships between many saliency methods.


The legume lectins are widely used as a model system for studying protein-carbohydrate and protein-protein interactions. They exhibit a fascinating quaternary structure variation, which becomes important when they interact with multivalent glycoconjugates, for instance those on cell surfaces. Recently, it has become clear that certain lectins form weakly associated oligomers. This phenomenon may play a role in the regulation of receptor crosslinking and subsequent signal transduction. The crystal structure of DB58, a dimeric lectin from the legume Dolichos biflorus reveals a separate dimer of a previously unobserved type, in addition to a tetramer consisting of two such dimers. This tetramer resembles that formed by DBL, the seed lectin from the same plant. A single amino acid substitution in DB58 affects the conformation and flexibility of a loop in the canonical dimer interface. This disrupts the formation of a stable DBL-like tetramer in solution, but does not prohibit its formation in suitable conditions, which greatly increases the possibilities for the cross-linking of multivalent ligands. The non-canonical DB58 dimer has a buried symmetrical alpha helix, which can be present in the crystal in either of two antiparallel orientations. Two existing structures and datasets for lectins with similar quaternary structures were reconsidered. A central alpha helix could be observed in the soybean lectin, but not in the leucoagglutinating lectin from Phaseolus vulgaris. The relative position and orientation of the carbohydrate-binding sites in the DB58 dimer may affect its ability to crosslink mulitivalent ligands, compared to the other legume lectin dimers.


The objective of this paper was to assess the performance of Hydrus-2D model to simulate the effects of different on-farm irrigation strategies applied on potato crop. The ability of the model to simulate the stress coefficient (Ks), obtained as the ratio between actual and maximum transpiration, and to define the productive function of potato crop under the semi-arid conditions of central Tunisia were also evaluated. Experiments were carried out on potato crop under full (FI) and deficit irrigation (DI) and two different water qualities supplied by means of a subsurface drip irrigation system. Results evidenced that the model, despite some discrepancies locally observed, can fairly accurately predict soil water contents and electrical conductivity around buried emitters. Furthermore, under water and salt stress conditions, "measured" Ks, based on crop water stress index (CWSI) obtained on thermal images, resulted in a good correlation with the corresponding estimated by the model (R2 = 0.8). The database collected during the three growth seasons also allowed the definition of the crop productive function represented by a linear relationship between the relative yield loss and Ks. This function represents a useful guidelines for the sustainable use of irrigation water in countries characterized by a semi-arid climate and a limited availability of water for irrigation.


We investigated six historical  Malayopython reticulatus  museum specimens thought to have been collected from mainland India and examined their validity. Most specimens offered insufficient data to support collection from present-day mainland India and were discounted. Despite this, one specimen (UIMNH 62394) collected in "Calcutta, India" prior to 1965 cannot be so easily dismissed and may represent the first legitimate  M. reticulatus  specimen from continental India. We address the likelihood of this finding and discuss its implications regarding the occurrence of  M. reticulatus  on the Indian mainland.