Most new cars today come with a host of advanced safety features including automated systems that assist the drive in maintaining control of the car and warning the driver of possible dangers. The problem, however, is that while these kinds of features greatly increase the safety of a car, they are exorbitantly expensive and only available in new, high-end cars not in old, low-end cars. This research paper aim at creating forward collision mitigation system that provide a level playing ground for all vehicles, regardless of make, age, type or model, when it comes to possible safety risk one can face on the road and at a minimal cost. The system will detect the distance between two vehicles moving in the same lane, in the same direction and alert the driver whenever he or she is in danger range using a microcontroller and ultrasonic sensor. The distance is measured by an ultrasonic and an audio visual alarm to effectively alert the driver and/or the passengers.


CMOS technology scaling is becoming difficult beyond 70nm node, raising new design challenges for high-performance and low-power microprocessors. This paper discusses some of the key paradigm shifts required. Circuit techniques to combat (i) increasing switching and leakage power dissipation, (ii) poor leakage tolerance of large-signal cache arrays and register files, (iii) worsening global on-chip interconnect scaling trend, and (iv) high-performance robust datapath circuits enabling up to 10GHz ALU and instruction scheduler loops in 130nm dual-Vt CMOS technology are described.


In present situation, the increase in the utilization of computers, laptops,uninterruptable power supplies, telecom and bio-medical equipments has become uncontrollable as its growth is rising exponentially. Hence, increase in functionality of such equipments leads to the higher power consumption and low power density which provided a
large market to distributed power systems (DPS). The development of these DPS posed challenges to power engineers for an efficient power delivery with stringent regulating standards; this is the motivation and driving force of this research work. The objective is to minimize the switching losses of front-end converters employed in DPS, with the primary aim of achieving nearly unity power factor operation of converters.Single-phase and three-phase rectifiers are increasingly used in the field of alternating
current – direct current (AC-DC) power converters as front-end converters in DPS. For power factor correction (PFC) stage, conventional single-phase AC-DC PFC boost converter
is the most suitable topology because of its inherent advantages. These PFC boost converters exhibit poor dynamic regulation of output voltage owing to low pass filter in the voltage feedback loop. Research effort has been made to mitigate this problem of AC-DC PFC boost converters. An extended pulse width modulation switching technique has been investigated and proposed especially for single-phase and three-phase AC-DC PFC boost converters to improve the dynamic response of output voltage during transient periods.


Imaging with X-rays is a challenging field, due to the optical properties of X-rays. The fabrication of appropriate optics is usually expensive and requires an elaborate manufacturing process. One simpler and less expensive possibility of imaging high energy radiation is coded aperture imaging, a technique well established in astrophysics and also used in nuclear medicine or radiation detection, e.g., for nuclear decommissioning. Our aim is to adapt coded aperture imaging for X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy in the nearfield. In this work we show theoretical considerations and preliminary simulations of image formation through a coded aperture and three different reconstruction methods to prepare the experiments. We used a new mask based on an inverted modified uniformly redundant array (MURA) that could be used for the construction of a decoding mask for all investigated geometrical arrangements. The most commonly used reconstruction method, convoluting the detected image with a decoding mask, does not always deliver satisfactory results. This is more noticeable for small distances between the object, mask and detector. Hence, we developed two new reconstruction methods, one based on iterative algebraic optimization and another one based on a genetic algorithm. Both show good performance even in those cases where the convolution method fails. This provides a basis for further investigations of the ideal parameters for near field coded aperture imaging and refinements of the algorithms. We performed first measurements with a coded aperture at the BAMline at BESSY II and could successfully reconstruct a test object from the obtained recorded images.


Automatic processing of bank checks is a challenging research topic in the field of document analysis and recognition. Bank check processing is the process of automatic segmentation and recognition of the different data fields present on the bank check. In this process, the user entered handwritten information is automatically extracted from the check and recognized by a computer. Authentication is performed by comparing the handwritten signatures with the reference samples provided by the user. For the purpose of check processing, we have proposed a generic method for the automatic segmentation and identification of the information fields on a bank check. The uniqueness of this approach lies in the fact that it doesn't necessitate any prior information about the layout of the check and requires minimum human intervention. The various fields are segmented on the basis of their connectivity. Recognition of the fields is achieved based on the four newly devised fuzzy features, namely, average response, entropy, energy and quotient response. In addition to the proposed fuzzy features, Zernike moments have also been explored. A simple fuzzy logic based recognition approach is used to identify the various fields. The fuzzy features are able to identify all fields with reasonable accuracy but Zernike moments are found to distinguish the written matter from the printed matter only; hence these are used for coarse classification only. Automatic verification of handwritten signatures is fundamental to the authentication of bank checks. This thesis presents two approaches for handwritten signature verification using two different sets of features. In the first approach, additive fuzzy modeling has been employed to track the intrinsic variations in signatures samples of an individual for the twin purposes of signature verification and forgery detection. Innovative normalized angle features that uniquely characterize a signature are extracted by constructing a special grid which encloses the signature and divides it into ninety six local boxes. These features are then fuzzified by an exponential membership function, which has been modified to include two structural parameters. The structural parameters are devised to deal with innumerable variations in handwriting styles and personal characteristics. The membership functions constitute weights in the Takagi-Sugeno (TS) fuzzy model. The optimization of the output of the TS model with respect to the structural parameters yields their estimated values. Two cases are considered. In the first case, the coefficients of the consequent part of the rule are fixed so as to yield a simple form of TS model and in the second case, the coefficients are adapted. In this formulation, each fuzzy rule is constituted by a single feature and is implemented on the signature database. In the second formulation, only one rule encompassing all the features is considered. Experimental results demonstrate that the simple form of TS model in the first formulation is better than the one with coefficients adapted. In the second approach, edge features based on direction and hinge distribution are extracted from the signatures to create the knowledge base. Signature recognition is then performed using the fuzzy model derived from the Choquet integral. The output function in this model combines the fuzzy measures from input fuzzy sets and the resulting system is called non-additive fuzzy system unlike the output function in TS model where each coefficient corresponds to its own fuzzy set. This system is meant for modelling of the input fuzzy sets that have overlapping information. However, the performance of this system is found to be inferior to that of the additive fuzzy system as it is not able to detect forgeries effectively. To improve its performance, the decision from its model is fused with the decision of the simple TS model and a neural network classifier. Experimental results illustrate that although the fusion of verification algorithms produces better performance than any of the fused methods individually, it is still worse than the first approach using the grid features. Finally, a comparative analysis of well known static signature verification schemes is made on our signature database. The results clearly demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed methods.


OBJECTIVES
To conduct a follow-up to the National Pharmacist Immunization Survey of 1998 to determine changes in pharmacist involvement in immunizations and obstacles to pharmacy-based immunization services and to assess the descriptive information about pharmacy-based immunization services provided.

DESIGN
Cross-sectional mail survey.

SETTING
United States.

PARTICIPANTS
A randomly selected national sample of 6,000 pharmacists.

INTERVENTIONS
None.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
An updated version of the 1998 study questionnaire was used to collect data about pharmacists' current involvement in adult or childhood immunizations, perceived obstacles to such involvement, and characteristics of pharmacist-administered immunization services.

RESULTS
Four mailings in fall 2001 yielded a response rate of 21.2% (1,266 completed, usable surveys out of 5,958 deliverable surveys). Immunization activities that reportedly increased during this period, compared with results from the 1998 survey, include counseling about adult immunizations (increase from 11.9% to 14.7%), nurse-administered childhood immunizations (6.3% to 7.8%), nurse-administered adult immunizations (16.2% to 30.2%), pharmacist-administered childhood immunizations (0.9% to 1.3%), pharmacist-administered adult immunizations (2.2% to 6.8%), and immunization promotion (18.9% to 27.3%). Only counseling for childhood immunizations appears to have decreased slightly, from 13.4% to 8.9%. Willingness to provide all of the above immunization services also increased during the 1998-2001 period. In addition to flu shots and pneumococcal vaccines, pharmacists were administering vaccines for hepatitis A and B, Lyme disease, tetanus, and chicken pox, but flu shots accounted for the majority of immunizations being administered.

CONCLUSION
Pharmacist involvement in childhood and adult immunizations has increased significantly in the last few years. Pharmacists perceived obstacles to their involvement in immunizations as less problematic.


Gender and women's studies is one of the most challenging fields within the social sciences- the dynamics of gender relations and the social and cultural implications of gender constructions offer a lively forum of debate.

The Handbook of Gender and Women's Studies presents a comprehensive and engaging review of the most recent developments within the field, including the study of masculinity, the feminist implications of postmodernism, the `cultural turn' and globalization. The authors review current research and offer critical analyses of women's and gender studies in work, the welfare state, family, education, religion, violence and war and feminist global politics.

Edited by three leading academics from Europe and the United States, and with 25 chapters written by scholars based throughout the world, the Handbook situates the most important debates in the field within a uniquely international and interdisciplinary context. The Handbook is a useful introduction to gender theory and an exciting starting-point for fresh debates.


In factory communication systems, wireless networks are likely to complement wired automation networks, rather than replacing them. There is therefore an increasing interest in the way wireless and wired systems will interact and form a hybrid network. The hybrid network architecture proposed in this paper specifically addresses WLAN infrastructures in industrial environments. The paper discusses design challenges and describes the proposed system architecture and its main components.


Apple (Malus domestica) is an important fruit crop in the Netherlands, with a total production of 418,000 tons in 2011. Symptoms of apple bitter rot were observed on 'Golden Delicious' apples in the Netherlands in July 2013 after 9 months of storage in a packing house at controlled atmosphere. Lesions were round, 1 to 5 cm in diameter, gray and dry with acervuli, producing orange spore masses in concentric rings. Fruit were rinsed with sterile water, and lesions were sprayed with 70% ethanol until droplet runoff. The skin was removed aseptically with a scalpel, and tissue under the lesion was isolated and placed onto Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA). The PDA plates were incubated at 20°C in the dark, and single-spore isolates were propagated on PDA. The isolates were identified as Colletotrichum sp. based on culture morphology, having light gray to pale orange mycelium and, when viewed from the reverse side, ranged from pink to reddish orange. The cultures carried yellowish spore masses and dark melanized structures similar to acervuli that oozed orange conidia. Conidia were cylindrical to fusiform, pointed at one or both ends, and measured 8.0 to 17.0 μm × 3.5 to 5.0 μm. Both cultural and morphological characteristics of the pathogen were similar to those described for C. acutatum, causal agent of bitter rot of apple. A representative isolate (PPO-44377) was used for multilocus gene sequencing (Damm et al. 2012). Genomic DNA was extracted using the LGC Mag Plant Kit (Berlin, Germany) in combination with the KingFisher method (Waltham, USA) and six loci were amplified and sequenced. Primer pairs ACT-512F + ACT-783R, CHS-354R + CHS-79F, GDF1 + GDR1, CYLH3F + CYLH3R, BT2Fd + BT4R, and ITS1 and ITS4 (White et al. 1990) were used for amplification of parts of the actin (ACT), chitin synthase (CHS-1) gene, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), histone H3 (HIS3), beta-tubulin (TUB2) and ITS region of the rDNA gene, respectively. One sequence for each locus has been deposited in GenBank under Accession Nos. KR180290 (ACT), KR180292 (CHS-1), KR180293 (GAPDH), KR180294 (HIS3), KR180295 (TUB2), and KR180296 (ITS). MegaBLAST analysis revealed that the ITS sequences matched with 98.9 to 100% identity to Colletotrichum spp. belonging to C. acutatum species complex (including C. godetiae). The phylogenetic trees constructed using sequences of ACT, CHS-1, GAPDH, HIS3, and TUB2 of our strain (PPO-44377), and available sequences from GenBank confirmed the identity of this strain as C. godetiae. Koch's postulates were performed on 15 'Golden Delicious' apples. Surface-sterilized fruit were inoculated with 20 μl of a spore suspension (105 conidia/ml) prepared from a 15-day-old PDA culture after wounding with a needle. Inoculated fruits were sealed in a plastic bag and were incubated in darkness at 20°C. Symptoms appeared after 4 to 6 days on 80% of the fruits while mock-inoculated controls with water remained symptomless. Fungal colonies isolated from the lesions and cultured on PDA had morphological characteristics that resembled the original isolate from the infected apples. There are few reports of symptoms associated with C. godetiae on apple in Europe (Baroncelli et al. 2014; Ivic et al. 2013; Munda 2014). This is the first report of bitter rot caused by C. godetiae on apple fruit in the Netherlands. Currently, bitter rot is not an important disease in apples in the Netherlands. However, it is ranges worldwide and is considered one of the most important diseases, causing considerable crop losses, and may become an emerging problem in the Netherlands in the near future.


A qualitative comparison is presented between three current North American and U.K. design cooling load calculation methods. The methods compared are the ASHRAE Heat Balance Method, the Radiant Time Series Method and the Admittance Method, used in the U.K. The methods are compared and contrasted in terms of their overall structure. In order to generate the values of the 24 hourly cooling loads, comparison was also made in terms of the processing of the input data and the solution of the equations required. Specific comparisons are made between the approximations used by the three calculation methods to model some of the principal heat transfer mechanisms. Conclusions are drawn regarding the ability of the simplified methods to correctly predict peak-cooling loads compared to the Heat Balance Method predictions. Comment is also made on the potential for developing similar approaches to cooling load calculation in the U.K. and North America in the future.


Effect of the re-deposition layers formed on plasma-exposed stainless steel type 316L (SS316L) in QUEST on the retention and depth profile of tritium has been studied by both methods of tritium exposure experiments and numerical analyses of X-ray spectra observed by the β-ray-induced X-ray spectrometry (BIXS). Both samples of plasma-exposed and non-exposed SS316L were exposed to tritium gas under given temperature, time and pressure conditions. Surface of the former sample was covered with re-deposition layers after exposing to the plasma experiments. After tritium exposure, X-ray spectra induced by β-rays emitted from tritium atoms retained in the surface layers and/or dissolved into the bulk were measured using an ultra-low energy X-ray detector consisting of pure Ge semiconductor, and numerical analysis of the observed spectrum was conducted to estimate a tritium depth profile in the sample. As a result, it was found that the amount of tritium in surface layers of the plasma-exposed sample was about five times larger than that of the non-exposed sample, and the tritium depth profile for the plasma-exposed sample was about half depth in comparison with that for the non-exposed sample although the degassing temperature and tritium exposure conditions were the same for both samples. It was suggested, therefore, that the re-deposition layers played a role of diffusion barrier of tritium atoms formed on the sample surface.


Exploring high-performance electrocatalysts is of great importance for developing clean and renewable energy conversion systems such as fuel cells and metal–air batteries. Hybrid nanostructures with transition metal nanoparticles embedded in a carbon matrix exhibit outstanding electrocatalytic activity and have emerged as promising low-cost alternatives to precious metal catalysts for a variety of electrochemical reactions. Herein, we report a convenient synthesis route to prepare a three-dimensional porous nanoarchitecture with Co nanoparticles (Co NPs) inlayed in nitrogen-doped macroporous carbon (Co/N-MC). The hybrids show an outstanding electrocatalytic activity for the oxygen reduction (ORR) and glucose oxidation reaction (GOR) due to the synergistic contribution of the Co NPs and nitrogen doping in macroporous carbon. Benefitting from their outstanding electrocatalytic activity in the ORR and GOR, a home-made glucose fuel cell (GFC) was set up using Co/N-MC as the anode and cathode material, delivering a considerable power density with decent stability.


The extraosseous and intraosseous vascular anatomy to the fifth metatarsal as visualized in a group of below-the- knee amputation specimens has been described. The extrinsic circulation to the area is provided by the dorsal metatarsal artery, the plantar metatarsal arteries, and the fibular plantar marginal artery. These three source arteries supply branches to the metatarsal and adjacent joints. The intraosseous vascularity consists of a periosteal plexus, a nutrient artery, and a system of metaphyseal and capital vessels.


Objective: The Purpose of this systematic review was to evaluate the contemporary in vivo scientific evidence for resin infiltration (RI) in aesthetic and restorative dentistry. Materials and Methods: The PubMed database was searched for randomized controlled trials that evaluated the in vivo effect of RI as an adjuvant treatment in aesthetic and restorative dentistry and recent trends in this contest. The keywords used were 'resin infiltration, recent trends', 'resin infiltration, aesthetic dentistry', 'resin infiltration, restorative dentistry', with the 'clinical trial' filter activated. Among the 170 articles originally identified with these keywords, only 04 were included for this review. Results: All 4 articles reported on resin infiltration with respect to aesthetic and restorative dentistry. One of the studies had been conducted on 21 consecutive subjects with 39 quadrants in each group in which Resin infiltration improves the esthetic appearance of demineralized teeth. The results showed enough durability for over 6 months. The quality of the studies was assessed to be high with respect to simple randomization, controlled trial design. All the researches included showed color stability and improvement with respect to adjacent enamel surfaces after treatment with RI when compared with the baseline control group over a specific period. Conclusion: This systematic review revealed that RI appeared to be an effective method to improve an aesthetic and restorative outcome in terms of appearance and longevity of the restoration.


This chapter explores Romanian dancers' participation in organized dance competitions, both within Romania and internationally, and investigates the informal competition that exists between the members of the Banat Romanian dance community. It includes three themes. The first traces a historical trajectory on the changing importance of performances of local, regional, and national identity in dance competitions. The second theme examines the challenges faced by the judges during formal dance competitions, revealing that judgments are made according to their personal backgrounds, and their desire to encourage maximum participation through making positive commentary rather than stressing the exclusivity of individual participants. The final theme explores informal competitiveness between dancers and leaders; the author proposes that this reinforces the sense of community among dancers, and that notions of formal competition and informal competitiveness coexist in the minds of both the dancers and the leaders.


[1] Automatically detected and located tremor epicenters from episodic tremor and slip (ETS) episodes in northern Cascadia provide a high-resolution map of Washington's slow slip region. Thousands of epicenters from the past four ETS events from 2004 to 2008 provide detailed map-view constraints that correlate with geodetic estimates of the simultaneous slow slip. Each of these ETS events exhibits remarkable similarity in the timing and geographic distribution of tremor density and geodetically inferred slip. Analysis of the latest 15-month inter-ETS period also reveals ageodetic tremor activity similar both in duration and extent to ETS tremor. Epicenters from both ETS and inter-ETS tremor are bounded between the 30- and 45-km plate interface depth contours and locate approximately 75 km east of previous estimates of the locked portion of the subducting Juan de Fuca plate. Inter-ETS tremor overlaps but is generally downdip of ETS tremor and does not yet correlate with geodetically observed slip, but this is likely because the slip is below current GPS detection levels. Based on the tremor and slip correlation and the tremor-duration and slip magnitude relationship, we suggest that the well-resolved, sharp updip edge of tremor epicenters reflects a change in plate interface coupling properties. The region updip of this boundary may accumulate stress with the potential for coseismic shear failure during a megathrust earthquake. Alternatively, plate convergence in this region could be accommodated by continuous slow slip with no detectable tremor or by slow slip events with sufficiently long recurrence intervals that none have been detected during the past 10 years of GPS observations.


In this study, the relations between organizational communication and organizational cynicism have been analyzed. The sample of the study consists of 274 teachers working in state secondary schools in Palandöken County of Erzurum, in 2013-2014 academic year. "Organizational Cynicism Scale" and "Organizational Communication Scale" have been used to collect data. In this descriptive study, standard deviation, mean, Pearson Product-Moment Correlation coefficient and multiple linear regression analyses have been done in the analysis of the data. The results of the study show that the dimensions (cognitive, affective and behavioral) of organizational cynicism have negative and significant relations with all the dimensions of organizational communication. According to the regression analysis results, it has been found that the affective dimension of the organizational cynicism is predicted negatively and significantly by the duty based communication dimension of organizational communication, only the attitude and behavior based communication dimension of organizational communication predicts cognitive, affective and behavioral dimensions of organizational cynicism negatively and significantly.


In this study Phenolic compounds of aerial parts from four wild plants belongs to Asteraceae family that grown in Anbar land located western of Iraq was employed. These are: Achellia, Artemisia, Wild lettuce ( Lactuca ), and Silypum .Extraction was carried on by the method of cold maceration with 75% Ethanol. Qualitative estimation was done using thin layer chromatography technique (TLC) to detect types of simple phenols that these plants rich with. While total phenols of all these plants were estimated quantitatively through Gallic acid standard curve applied from Folin- ciocalteu colorimetric reaction for total phenols estimation. An investigation for the antioxidant activity using DPPH free radical scavenger was employed in this study. Qualitative results indicated that these plants may contained some important phenolic compounds such as Pyrogallole, cinammic acid, gallic acid and Hydroquinone in different range in each of the corresponding plant included in this study. Quantitatively; the result concluded that wild Artemisia possess the major content of total phenols reach to about 1.5% of plant dried leaves. The less phenolic content was about 0.224% found in wild Silypum.The antioxidant activity for the phenolic extract of the four plants was showed that Wild lettuce ( Lactuca ) extract possessed the potent activity , while the lowest activity was showed by wild Silypum.


Afforestation of bottomland hardwood species has increased in the Lower Mississippi River Alluvial Valley (LMRAV) in recent years. Rising demand for hardwood nursery stock and poor performance of some planted seedlings has created concern regarding the quality of seedlings currently available for afforestation in the LMRAV. Furthermore, no definitive guidelines for optimal seedling morphological quality of bottomland hardwoods in the LMRAV have been developed. We measured initial morphology of green ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica Marsh.) and water oak (Quercus nigra L.) seedlings from 3 nurseries and examined field response after planting with or without chemical weed control on a LMRAV site in Mississippi. Seedlings from different nurseries varied significantly in initial morphology and field performance during the first growing season. Weed control had a relatively minor influence on seedling survival, but growth was significantly increased when weed control was applied. Seedlings exhibited considerable transplant shock during the first growing season, and this stress was most pronounced in seedlings with larger shoot heights, implying possible shoot-to-root imbalance. Though we currently present only preliminary results from a portion of data collected, our results suggest that morphological quality of hardwood seedlings available for afforestation in the LMRAV varies considerably depending on nursery source, and this variation leads to differences in plantation performance.Individual papers from this publication


We discuss the production of W bosons at large transverse momentum in p pbar collisions at the Tevatron Run I and II. W boson hadroproduction is a process of relevance in testing the Standard Model and in estimates of backgrounds to new physics. The next-to-leading order cross section in the region of large transverse momentum is dominated by threshold soft-gluon corrections which arise from incomplete cancellations near partonic threshold between graphs with real emission and virtual graphs due to the limited phase space available for real gluon emission. In this contribution it is shown how, by including next-to-next-to-leading-order (NNLO) soft-gluon corrections, the transverse momentum distribution of the W at the Tevatron is modestly enhanced and the dependence on the factorization and renormalization scales is significantly reduced.


The term »inverse apologetics« refers to an idea-political maneuver which does not attack the opponent frontally but integrates him or her subtly into one's system. This contribution briefly discusses three prominent constellations – secularization, »god is dead« theology and atheism – under this aspect. It ventures on to debate the question of which forms of atheism could be interesting for theology today and which are the characteristics of a genuinely »atheistic theology« that has positive idea-political prospects and can contribute to dogmatic theology in a


In this paper, we describe basis-based speaker adaptation techniques using the matrix representation of training models. Bases are obtained from training models by decomposition techniques for matrix-variate objects: two-dimensional principal component analysis (2DPCA) and generalized low rank approximations of matrices (GLRAM). The motivation for using matrix representation is that the sample covariance matrix of training models can be more accurately computed and the speaker weight becomes a matrix. Speaker adaptation equations are derived in the maximum-likelihood (ML) framework, and the adaptation equations can be solved using the maximum-likelihood linear regression technique. Additionally, novel applications of probabilistic 2DPCA and GLRAM to speaker adaptation are presented. From the probabilistic 2DPCA/GLRAM of training models, speaker adaptation equations are formulated in the maximum a posteriori (MAP) framework. The adaptation equations can be solved using the MAP linear regression technique. In the isolated-word experiments, the matrix representation-based methods in the ML and MAP frameworks outperformed maximum-likelihood linear regression adaptation, MAP adaptation, eigenvoice, and probabilistic PCA-based model for adaptation data longer than 20 s. Furthermore, the adaptation methods using probabilistic 2DPCA/GLRAM showed additional performance improvement over the adaptation methods using 2DPCA/GLRAM for small amounts of adaptation data.


Yttria-stabilized cubic zirconia is well known the material that possesses high oxygen ionic conductivity and chemical stability over wide ranges of temperature and oxygen partial pressure and thus it is widely used as an oxygen sensor, thermal barrier and solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) electrolyte. In the present study, 8 mol% yttria-stabilized cubic zirconia with SiO2 addition up to 10 wt% was studied with respect to the microstructure, fracture toughness and hardness. XRD results showed that SiO2 had very limited solubility of 0.3 wt% in cubic zirconia. This suggests that only small part of SiO2 dissolved in cubic zirconia and the rest of SiO2 segregated at grain boundaries and multiple junctions. This glassy phase also wetted the zirconia grains and prevented the grain growth and the formation of facetted grains. Both hardness and fracture toughness were measured using a Vickers indenter. It is observed that the introduction of SiO2 decreased the hardness and increased the fracture toughness of cubic zirconia. The hardness and fracture toughness also showed the same trend with increasing SiO2 content.


The issues of purposeful development of occupationally important qualities (OIQ) of the pilots using a specially devised set of psychological, pedagogical, psychophysiological methods are studied. Evidence for an effect of the applied methods on the development of OIQ, success and reliability of flying activity is presented. Some mechanisms of creating an integral system of OIQ during pilot training are discussed. The peculiarities of OIQ influence on specific aspects and parameters of pilot activity including a real flight are considered. The views on the patterns of creating the professional flying abilities, their place in the structure of a pilot fitness for flying are discussed. Language: ru


3035 Focal Adhesion kinase (FAK) localized in focal adhesions influences the dynamic equilibrium of actin cytoskeleton (AC) regulating cell motility and invasion. We have recently identified a novel, specific signalling pathway regulating actin cytoskeleton dynamics and cell motility in malignant breast and prostate human epithelial cells. Incubation of MCF7 breast cancer cells with the opioid agonist αs1 casomorphin and LNCaP prostate cells with testosterone-BSA (testo-BSA) stimulated actin reorganization. This was associated with FAK phosphorylation and subsequent phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase (PI-3K) and Rac1 activation. In the present study we first investigated whether the FAK/PI-3K pathway operates in MCF-7 cells upon treatment with a different stimulus. Since membrane androgen receptors have also been identified in breast cancer cells we investigated the effect of testo-BSA on MCF7 cell line. Immunofluorescence microscopy with testo-BSA FITC confirmed the presence of membrane androgen receptors in MCF7 cells. Treatment with testo-BSA resulted in early actin reorganization associated with rapid FAK and PI3K activation. To test whether actin rearrangement affects cell motility wound healing assay was performed demonstrating a significant inhibition of wound closure. We next investigated the functional role of the FAK/PI-3K-actin signalling pathway in cells of different origin, the A375 melanoma cell line. Incubation with αs1 casomorphin for 15 min to up to 24 h resulted in early significant actin reorganization. In line with this, morphological analysis showed increased number of lamelipodia and stress fibers equally distributed to the cytoplasm. Casomorphin also induced significant early phosphorylation of FAK and PI-3K. FAK phosphorylation was still evident in cells pretreated with the PI-3K inhibitor wortmanin, indicating that FAK activation occurs upstream of PI-3K. Affinity precipitation with a GST-fusion protein corresponding to the p21-binding domain of PAK1 performed in cell lysates confirmed Rac-1 activation. Wound healing assay revealed that casomorphin significantly inhibited cell motility. In conclusion, actin reorganization through FAK and subsequent PI3-K/Rac-1 activation operates in various human cancer cell systems supporting a broader role for FAK in controlling cell motility and underlines the importance of FAK as a new therapeutic target in cancer.


Recuperater is used in micro gas turbine to recover the waste heat from the turbine13; exhaust and boost the thermal efficiency of the gas turbine. Effectiveness of the recuperater depends on13; the many factors; one among these is surface area for heat transfer per unit volume. This paper describes13; various fin geometries considered for improving the effectiveness of the recuperater used in Micro Gas13; Turbine. Through CFD analysis it was shown that inclined corrugated fins having 45 deg. inclination13; has higher effectiveness compared to conventional flat or straight corrugated fins. The flow within the13; corrugated channels was studied in detail to understand flow physics.


The study explores the use of social media in accelerating the teaching and learning process of English language. It was conducted in the Girls college of Al Namas, University of Bisha, Saudi Arabia. The electronic questionnaire consisted of multiple closed questions to acquire both qualitative and quantitative results. The participants are undergraduate students of the English Department of the above-mentioned college. The data was analyzed using pie chart and histogram. During the period of teaching English language, we, as lecturers, noticed that the students are very efficient in the use of modern technology, but unfortunately, they do not use them in the target language, instead they use all the social media networks in their mother tongue, i.e, Arabic. This way even being coherent to the modern technology they do not use it to improve their second language skill. Their disposition of using Arabic language everywhere and everything creates a big hindrance for them to avail the benefits of social media networks in learning English language. Through this paper we tried to motivate the students to enhance their capabilities to utilize social media network in boosting their English language skills. At the same time, we have tried to make the English language as an interesting subject to facilitate the teaching and learning process.


We describe a project to capitalize on newly available levels of computational resources in order to understand human cognition. We will build an integrated physical system including vision, sound input and output, and dextrous manipulation, all controlled by a continuously operating large scale parallel MIMD computer. The resulting system will learn to "think" by building on its bodily experiences to accomplish progressively more ab-stract tasks. Past experience suggests that in ati tempting to build such an integrated system we will have to fundamentally change the way artificial intelligence, cognitive science, linguistics, and philosophy think about the organization of intelligence. We expect to be able to better reconcile the theories that will be developed with current work in neuroscience.


Generalised inverse limits were introduced in 2006 by Ingram and Mahavier as a generalisation of the classical notion of inverse limit of an inverse system of topological spaces. There followed a rather intensive period of research on the subject with many results established, some of which are direct generalisations of classical results, and others that attest more to the differences between the classical and the generalised notions. It is well-known that inverse limits of spaces are precisely categorical limits in the category of spaces and continuous functions. It is also known that generalised inverse limits are not limits in the category of spaces and upper semicontinuous multivalued functions. In this work we present a categorical extension of the notion of limit in a category to what we call Mahavier limit. We show that the new concept is a generalisation of categorical limit, and that generalised inverse limits of spaces are precisely Mahavier limits in the category of spaces and upper semicontinuous multivalued functions. Foundational categorical tools are extended to the new setting, which are then applied to topological spaces to obtain results regarding a subsequence theorem and mapping theorems.


Whether a regolith is unmixed or mixed is critical to determining its erosion rate or age from in situ-produced cosmogenic nuclides. We use in situ-produced 10Be and 26Al in quartzite clasts extracted from depth profiles to investigate mixing of a periglacially-sorted till blanketing a plateau in the northern Swedish mountains. Our data indicate significant intra-site variations from a completely unmixed to a fully mixed regolith. We conclude that caution must be exercised in assuming that an entire regolith is either unmixed or mixed from interspersed depth profiles and that the degree of mixing may differ significantly from that indicated by observation of surface features. From the difference between the surface isotope concentration of an unmixed profile and the average isotope concentration of a fully mixed profile, we confirm that the regolith is a glacial till and that it could have been emplaced in a single event. Incorporating isotope concentrations, 26Al/10Be ratios, and an isostasy and ice sheet burial model we date the till emplacement to the Saalian glaciation (~ 200 to 130 ka).


The field of lung cancer molecular pathology is rapidly changing due to advances in our understanding of the molecular pathogenesis of tumors. In the past ten years, the identification of new molecular targets has provided unique opportunities to attack cancer with targeted therapies in a personalized manner. Recent advances in expanding the available non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) targeted therapies require the analysis of a broad panel of molecular abnormalities in tumor specimens, including gene mutations, amplifications, fusions and expression by applying different methodologies to frequently small tumor tissue (biopsy) and cell (cytology) samples. In addition, there is growing consensus that tumor tissue specimens must represent the setting of the disease to be treated, and increasingly, more tissue samples are being obtained for molecular testing of advanced, metastatic and chemo-refractory NSCLC tumors (e.g., MD Anderson BATTLE Lung Cancer Program). Currently available methodologies and technologies, including microarrays and next-generation sequencing, have variable applicability for the molecular and genomic analysis of these small specimens. Thus, the role of the pathologist is becoming increasingly important to adequately integrate routine histopathology assessments and molecular testing with clinical pathology for the most accurate tumor diagnosis and subsequent selection of the most appropriate therapy. In addition, applying high-throughput molecular methodologies currently used in studying established tumors to epithelial cell samples obtained from the airway of high-risk individuals and lung cancer patients is expanding our understanding of the early pathogenesis of lung cancer. Earlier studies have highlighted a field cancerization phenomenon in which histologically normal-appearing tissue adjacent to neoplastic and preneoplastic lesions display molecular abnormalities some of which are in common with those in the tumors. There is consensus that advances in the understanding of this field phenomenon will help to the development of biomarkers for early detection of and personalized chemoprevention of lung cancer. Citation Format: Ignacio I. Wistuba. Promises and challenges of applying molecular profiles to lung cancer treatment and early diagnosis. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR-IASLC Joint Conference on Molecular Origins of Lung Cancer; 2014 Jan 6-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Clin Cancer Res 2014;20(2Suppl):Abstract nr IA11.


Alternative investments include a wide variety of investment strategies. While traditional alternative investment strategies such as real estate, private equity, and hedge funds dominate the alternative investment landscape, other alternative investments such as oil and gas as well as timber investment are increasingly being considered as potential investments by large financial institutions as well as wealthy individuals. In this issue's trading strategy forum, timber investment is discussed as an investment vehicle. This issue's trading forum provides readers with a clearer and more informed understanding of the investment potential for timber investment in capturing the return/risk trade-offs within the strategy.


An integrated 3/spl times/8 element phased array receiving antenna combined with a 4/spl times/8 element transmit antenna for 5.8 GHz DSRC D_edicated S_hort R_ange C_ommunication has been built. The number of analog phaseshifters and antenna elements has been optimized to meet the specific requirements of the application and of the DSRC-standard. A sophisticated concept for the integration of analog beamformer, RF-chain, and array antenna has been developed to enable a design of the complete antenna system on a thin multilayer structure. The size of the whole antenna is 280 mm/spl times/400 mm/spl times/20 mm.


SUMMARY We compared the cost-effectiveness (CE) of an active case-finding (ACF) programme for household contacts of tuberculosis (TB) cases enrolled in first-line treatment to routine passive case-finding (PCF) within an established national TB programme in Peru. Decision analysis was used to model detection of TB in household contacts through: (1) self-report of symptomatic cases for evaluation (PCF), (2) a provider-initiated ACF programme, (3) addition of an Xpert MTB/RIF diagnostic test for a single sputum sample from household contacts, and (4) all strategies combined. CE was calculated as the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) in terms of US dollars per disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) averted. Compared to PCF alone, ACF for household contacts resulted in an ICER of $2155 per DALY averted. The addition of the Xpert MTB/RIF diagnostic test resulted in an ICER of $3275 per DALY averted within a PCF programme and $3399 per DALY averted when an ACF programme was included. Provider-initiated ACF of household contacts in an urban setting of Lima, Peru can be highly cost-effective, even including costs to seek out contacts and perform an Xpert/MTB RIF test. ACF including Xpert MTB/RIF was not cost-effective if TB cases detected had high rates of default from treatment or poor outcomes.


This paper presents data obtained from a physiological study conducted in the spring of 2018 on Triticum aestivum spp vulgare, Ciprian cv. The species was cultivated on a slightly gleized cambic chernozem specific for Banat Area, also found in the Didactic Station of BUASVM Timișoara, Romania. Due to the large scale use and different doses and combinations of chemical fertilizers in the agricultural practice, we chose to fertilize the wheat with nitrogen in five experimental variants: 0, 50, 100, 150 and 200 kg active substance ha. Balancing the N rate, water use efficiency and yield are important problems in our country. Thus a proper use of fertilizers in general, and N in particular became a necessity. The plants were collected and transported in the laboratory where the leaves were separated using a scalpel. These were weighted, dried and incinerated. Some gravimetric parameters including leaves fresh weight, dry weight and ash content were determined. Next, organic and mineral content, but also OC / MC ratio were calculated. FW of the leaves increased proportionally with N dose. Leaf fresh weight is directly impacted by technological factors like N fertilizer rates. Consequently, regarding this parameter, significant differences between the five variants were observed, FW being significantly higher for N 200 probes when compared with other leaves from the plots fertilized with a lower amount of N. Same trend was observed for DW and AC, respectively. MC values varied between the N doses. From this point of view, the smallest mineral content in leaves was obtained for N 100 and N 150 variants, suggesting a possible remobilization of minerals in wheat plant with respect to N dose. Regarding OC, the maximum value was obtained for N 200. Despite the fact that OC and MC varied without a clear trend, OC / MC ratios had followed a clear polynomial increase together with the increase of N dose, varying between 4.9236 for N 0 and 10.2368 for N 200 variant. ANOVA revealed some significant differences. AC was the only parameter with homogenous data, FW, DW, OC, MC and OC/MC ratio being heterogeneous.


The effects of the mineralocorticoid antagonist mespirenone on the development and maintenance of aldosterone-induced hypertension in Sprague-Dawley rats has been studied. Uninephrectomized saline-drinking male Sprague-Dawley rats were injected with either 0.2 ml olive oil, 50 g aldosterone, 1 mg mespirenone, 50 g aldosterone plus 500 g mespirenone, or 50 g aldosterone plus 1 mg mespirenone, each dissolved in 0.2 ml olive oil. Administration of aldosterone alone significantly increased the systolic blood pressure (SBP) from a control value of 114 +/- 3.6 to 162 +/- 4 mmHg by the end of the 3-wk experimental period. Mespirenone given alone had no effect on SBP. However, mespirenone given in combination with aldosterone reversed the hypertension caused by aldosterone in a dose-dependent manner. Saline consumption and urinary output were slightly increased in aldosterone-treated rats compared with the other groups, but the body and organ weights were comparable in all groups. Microscopic examination of kidney and heart showed no abnormalities due to mespirenone. These results suggest that in vivo administration of mespirenone to Sprague-Dawley rats effectively prevents the aldosterone-induced hypertension.


Religious believers claim their religions are peaceful and genuine believers are peacekeepers and peacemakers. In substantiating justification to their claim, they very often refer to religious scriptures. Yet, on the contrary, their claim is confronted by an opposite claim: many wars were fought and are being fought in the name of religion; and a great deal of violence can be ascribed to the religious believers. In addition, religious scriptures and history of religions do attest, to a certain extent, permissibility of using physical offence or defence. As a result, a question arises: Is the violence credited to religious believers, due to religions? Or is it because of certain secular causes in which religious texts get invoked very often? In responding to the question, the study relied on the theoretical criticism and justification. The study argued that religions, considering their historical inception, are fundamentally aimed at attaining holistic peace for their immediate subjects and subsequent followers, both spiritually and physically. The study by referring to major religions of the world generally and Islam particularly, argued that in contributing to build global peace, religious believers can plausibly turn to primary peaceful intentions of the religions, if they are provided with a feasible atmosphere. Keywords : Religious violence, Religious dialogue, Religion and peace.


DN A-dependent RNA polymerase has been isolated from Rhodomicrobium vannielii. Like those from other eubacteria, the enzyme contained four subunits: beta and beta prime ( M , 155000), alpha (M, 38000), and sigma (M, 98000). Analysis by isoelectric focussing showed that both alpha and sigma had several forms with different isoelectric pH values. The enzyme was sensitive to rifampicin (5 ng rifampicin ml-l gave 50% inhibition) and capable of specific promoter selection with DNA from R. vannielii, calf thymus and phage T7D111.


The gross features of nuclear morphology can be summarized as follows. Nuclei have shapes similar to a diffusesurfaced, liquid drop. The interior density is rather uniform, and also constant from nucleus to nucleus. The constancy of nuclear density implies an A⅓ law for the mean nuclear radius, the proportionality constant being 1.07 x 1O–13 centimeter. The surface region is diffuse, the nuclear density falling from 90 to 10 percent of the central value in a distance of about 2.4 x 10–13 centimeter, independently of nuclear mass number. Nuclear shapes can vary rather widely, with doubly magic nuclei preferring spherical symmetry. Some nuclei execute volume-preserving oscillations about spherical shape, while others possess permanent spheroidal deformations. The values of the deformation parameter, ε, for such spheroids possibly attains 0.85 for some light nuclei and 0.4 for some intermediate weight nuclei. There is some evidence, based on the occurrence of "inversion" spectra and asymmetrical fission, that pear-shaped nuclei may also exist.


Over recent years, safety has become a way of life for construction and industrial workers in the US. A new safety culture has emerged. In fact, the incidence rate for all recordable nonfatal injury and illness for construction workers has decreased from 13.1% in 1992 to 5.4% in 2007 (BLS, 2002)(BLS, 2008). This decline is due to standards set forth by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the efforts of owners, contractors, subcontractors and designers (Farooqui, 2008). The benefits of safety programs are widely apparent and become more evident as companies focus on improving these programs. Are there benefits to focusing on occupational health and wellness of the workers? The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 defines occupational safety and health standard as, "a standard which requires conditions, or the adoption or use of one or more practices, means, methods, operations, or processes, reasonably necessary or appropriate to provide safe or healthful employment and places of employment" (OSHA, 2009). OSHA regulations do not delineate between occupational safety and occupational health, therefore legal compliance does not involve promoting the health of workers. Under OSHA incident reporting guidelines, injury and illness are recorded under the same category (OSHA, 2003). The health and safety programs being implemented need to include a wider scope than just preventing injuries and fatalities. The scope of occupational health should include the physical and mental wellness of workers, including illness and disease, as a result of working conditions or situations to which they are exposed, also encompassing the treatment or diagnosis of problems through medical testing and health surveillance. The health and wellness of workers should be equally important as safety to the construction and industrial industries since it can affect the bottom line of companies. An unhealthy worker or work environment, often leads to lost productivity for companies, lost wages for employees and unsafe working conditions. An even greater cost to companies can be long-term costs of workers compensation and litigation. Furthermore, occupational health of workers has an impact on the workers' wellbeing, state of mind, overall attitude and morale; therefore the safety, quality of work and inevitably the profitability of the company is affected. This paper explores the possible benefits of focusing on the occupational health and wellness of construction and industrial workers as a separate category from safety. Could the development of an international occupational health standard be a useful tool for construction and industrial industries?Key Words: Occupational Health; Safety; Wellness; Health Monitoring; Health Surveillance


Over the past few years there has been a surge of interest in Britain on grandparenting - although it is still a long way behind the USA and several European countries in research in the area. The driving impetus for research is coming from parenting organizations and government departments concerned about the effects on female employment of shortages in nursery places, and about the effect of "parenting deficits" on children. Greater involvement of grandmothers in caring for children has seemed to offer a solution to many related problems. It promises to improve care within the family, and enable mothers to take on paid work with fewer fears for the consequences, without removing other working adults in the family from their jobs. This text discusses how today's grandmothers are changing the image and role that they filled in the past.


Cyclic loading of metallic engineering components at constant elevated or fluctuating temperature causes a complex evolution of damage which be can hardly be described in a unique and straightforward manner. Often the thermal behaviour of the base metals is to weak, so thermal barrier coatings were needed. Nickel is generally used for such thermal barrier coatings. Therefore it is necessary to study the thermo-mechanical fatigue (TMF) of this material. The lifetime of these coatings is very strong affected by the temperature loading in general, both described by nodal temperatures and their local gradient. The thermal cyclic loading takes place as thermo-mechanical and low cycle fatigue (LCF) damage regime. To classify the thermo-mechanical failure mechanism of pure nickel, OP (out of phase) and IP-TMF (in phase) test series were examined. The use of damage parameters like the unified energy approach make sense, a more detailed life time calculation for pure Nickel can be done by using the Neu-Sehitoglu model. Summary, thermomechanical loadings activate multiple damage mechanism. Surface embrittlement by oxidation is the major distinctive mechanism in addition to pure fatigue damage. Different lifetime approaches were tested and analysed to fulfil the requirements for the fatigue analysis of nickel made components.


Machines with moving parts give rise to vibrations and consequently noise. The setting up and
the status of each machine yield to a peculiar vibration signature. Therefore, a change in the
vibration signature, due to a change in the machine state, can be used to detect incipient
defects before they become critical. This is the goal of condition monitoring, in which the
informations obtained from a machine signature are used in order to detect faults at an early
stage. There are a large number of signal processing techniques that can be used in order to
extract interesting information from a measured vibration signal.
This study seeks to detect rotating machine defects using a range of techniques including
synchronous time averaging, Hilbert transform-based demodulation, continuous wavelet
transform, Wigner-Ville distribution and spectral correlation density function. The detection
and the diagnostic capability of these techniques are discussed and compared on the basis of
experimental results concerning gear tooth faults, i.e. fatigue crack at the tooth root and tooth
spalls of different sizes, as well as assembly faults in diesel engine. Moreover, the sensitivity
to fault severity is assessed by the application of these signal processing techniques to gear
tooth faults of different sizes.


High emission efficiency and finite molecular conjugation in aggregate state are two desirable features in violet-blue emitters. Aggregation-induced emission luminogens (AIEgens) have emerged as promising luminescent materials that offer these features. Herein, we report the design and synthesis of a group of violet-blue AIEgens with photoluminescence quantum yields over 98% in their film states. When utilizing these AIEgens as non-doped emitting layers, the fabricated organic light-emitting diode ex-hibits a maximum external quantum efficiency of 4.34% with Commission Internationale de L'Eclairage (CIE) coordinates of (0.159, 0.035), which is amenable to next generation ultra-high definition television (UHDTV) display standard.


INTRODUCTION
Research has shown that social support has a significant impact on quality of life. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to determine the relationship between perceived social support, perception of disease and quality of life, and the factors affecting these, in patients with cancer in Turkey.

METHODS
The study data were collected from two hospitals. Data were collected using the face-to-face interview method from patients diagnosed with cancer between March and August 2018. No sampling was performed, and the entire population was studied.

RESULTS
The mean age of the patients in the study was 61.37 ± 14.89 years. Married patients had better social support than single individuals (t = 2.129; p = 0.035). Significant negative correlation was found between the illness perception scale and total quality of life scale score (r = -0.163; p = 0.026), and physical well-being (r = -0.224; p = 0.002) and social well-being (r = -0.199; p = 0.006) subscales.

CONCLUSION
Patients' social support and quality of life were at moderate levels. Married participants had better social support than single participants, and operated participants had better social support than unoperated participants. As illness perception decreased, quality of life, physical well-being and social well-being increased.


Background: Timely diagnosis of child physical abuse is of paramount importance. The added value of bone scintigraphy (BS) after a negative radiological skeletal survey (RSS) in children with suspected physical abuse has never been evaluated. Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the extent to which BS could improve the detection rate of skeletal injury in children with suspected physical abuse with an initial negative RSS. Methods: We used discharge codes to retrospectively identify children evaluated for suspected physical abuse in a university hospital (Nantes, France). We included all consecutive children younger than 3 years old who underwent both RSS and BS, with an interval of ≤96 h between tests, from 2013 to 2019. BS and RSS results were interpreted independently during the study period. We specifically analyzed BS results for children with a negative RSS to assess the value of BS as an add-on test. Results: Among the 268 children ≤3 years old with suspected physical abuse who underwent RSS, 140 (52%) also underwent BS within 96 h and were included in the analysis. The median age was 6 months old (interquartile range: 3–8). The detection rate of ≥1 skeletal injury with RSS alone was 49% (n = 69/140, 95% CI: 41–58%) vs. 58% (n = 81/140, 50–66%) with RSS followed by add-on BS, for an absolute increase in the detection rate of 9% points (95% CI: 4–14%). The number of children with a negative RSS who would need to undergo BS to detect one additional child with ≥1 skeletal injury was 6 (95% CI: 4–11). Conclusion: In young children with suspected physical abuse with a negative RSS, add-on BS would allow for a clinically significant improvement in the detection rate of skeletal injuries for a limited number of BS procedures required. Prospective multicenter studies are needed to confirm these findings.


In this paper, we present an approach to solve the problem of secure execution of semantic web service composition plans. The integrated components of this approach include our OWL-S service matchmaker, OWLS-MX, the service composition planner, OWLS-XPlan, and the security checker module for formally verifying the compliance of the created composition plan to be executed with given data and service security policies using type-based information flow analysis.


Climate change is a global phenomenon and has adverse effects and impact on agricultural crops growth and productivity. Over the years, this has periodically reduced the harvest yields and economic value of the crops. In the context, Maize (Zea mays) was taken as a case study and it is one of the most consumed staple crops in the world and can easily be grown globally. Climate change has tremendous impact on its growth and productivity too. This paper reviews effects of Climate Variability in Relation to Biotic and Abiotic Stress, the abiotic stress which has increased due to climate change includes Drought is the most pervasive limitation to the realization of yield potential in maize, heat in which at the end of this century the growing season temperatures will exceed the most extreme seasonal temperatures recorded in the past century. Biotic stresses account for a significant proportion of maize yield losses worldwide which includes the plants diseases and insects pests. In plants diseases, climate changes have the potential to modify host physiology and resistance, and alter both stages and rates of pathogen development. In insects pest; increased temperature as a result of climate change can speed up the life cycle of insects leading to a faster increase in pest populations. It has been estimated that a 2°C increase in temperature has the potential to increase the number of insect life cycles during the crop season by one to five times. This paper also reviewed the strategies for mitigating climate related effects of biotic stresses and abiotic stresses on maize yields. For the biotic stresses mitigation, the following strategies and approaches were suggested, Conventional breeding, Molecular breeding, Precision and High Throughput Phenotyping. For the abiotic stresses mitigation, planting of Drought tolerant maize seedlings could help that boost farmers' yields and incomes, in the face of climate change. In conclusion, varieties with increased resilience abiotic and biotic stresses will play an important role in adaptation and resilience to climate change. Improvedmaize seeds production and deployment, effective policies and management strategies globally will be of a great win.


The AUSRIVAS modelling package is the most sophisticated rapid biological assessment technique available for assessing the health of Australian rivers. Macroinvertebrate samples are collected, and the observed taxa are compared to those expected to be present if the site was in pristine condition. However, the method relies on only a single sample collected from each site to be assessed. Multiple macroinvertebrate samples were collected from sites upstream and downstream of four wastewater treatment plants in the lower Hunter Valley, New South Wales, Australia, to assess the impacts of effluent discharge on creek health, and to investigate the implications of the within-site variability of AUSRIVAS outputs for impact assessment. Preliminary data demonstrate that the AUSRIVAS model can produce a range of outputs for a single site, and that this variability is then amplified creating greater uncertainty when sites are compared to quantify the actual ecological impact of each wastewater treatment plant.


The mobile agent security against malicious hosts is one of the most important subjects in mobile agent technology. An extended requirement for an agent security in different applications is to provide it with anonymity property in such a way that the agent can travel in the network without exposing its owner identity and its itinerary. For this purpose, an agent anonymity protocol is proposed to maintain the anonymity of the agent owner and the agent itinerary. The introduced anonymous agent is also applied to disarm the host against the agent instead of using an armed agent, that is, an agent equipped with protection mechanisms. The analytical discussion demonstrated that this protocol preserves the autonomy of the agent in choosing the migration path and is also resistant against known traffic analysis attacks in mobile agent systems with plausible assumption. Moreover, it is feasible and adjustable regarding the required level of anonymity.


The factors capable of modifying the activity of a given drug may be divided into two categories: those related to the patient (age, sex, weight, state of health, genetic factors, etc.) and those related to the drug (pharmaceutical formulation, dose, dose frequency, interaction with other drugs taken more or less simultaneously and administration mode). One example of a drug whose action varies according to the mode of administration adopted is offered by the estrogens which may be given orally (estradiol valerianate, estriol, conjugated estrogens, etc.) or parenterally (estradiol valerianate intramuscularly; conjugated estrogens and estriol vaginally, estradiol as a skin gel, by subcutaneous implant or transdermally). Blood concentrations of estradiol and estrogen after the same dose vary considerably according to the administration mode adopted so that doses may have to be adjusted in order to achieve the same levels of the circulating hormone. Having no first pass effect on the liver, parenteral administrations have less influence than oral ones on the synthesis of certain proteins by the liver (increased SHBG, CBG, TBG, transferrin, ceruloplasmin, angiotensinogen, clotting factors VII, IX, X and X complex; decreased antithrombin III and anti Xa) and on lipid metabolism (increased biliary cholesterol, triglycerides and HDL, especially HDL2; reduced LDL). In particular, it has been found that estradiol (differently from other estrogens) when administered transdermically is able to relieve menopausal symptoms at doses which do not influence the liver synthesis of proteins.


This is not a short work. I take up in some detail two of the three principal judge-made limitations – more or less understood to be part of Florida constitutional law – addressing constitutional amendments: the distinction between self-executing and non self-executing constitutional provisions, and the ballot summary accuracy requirement. I have discussed a third such limitation – the initiative single subject requirement – in a previous article (I summarize that analysis in the appendix at the close of the manuscript.) These limitations are not unique to Florida, of course, but they are applied either with notable frequency in Florida or appear to have special significance in the state's constitutional law, in part because constitutional amendment is such a prominent and recurring part of the Florida scheme. Notably, although there is much good writing about state constitutional amendments, direct democracy, and the like, Florida law receives very little attention in that literature (which tends to be more West Coast focused.) The approach that I pursue is distinctive – if it is – because I treat amendment questions as presenting problems of constitutional organization, as opposed to, say, questions as to what voters need to know. I group drafters, voters, and subsequent interpreters as all engaged in one level in the same project (albeit at different stages.) As a result I am able to sketch three models of constitutional organization and associate the models with questions about Florida constitutional amendments that presented themselves at various points in time. I use the third model – complex organization – as a starting point for developing an approach to both the self-executing and ballot summary problems (as well as the single subject problem as sketched in the appendix.) The last part of the article connects the Florida discussion with issues evident in the larger academic discussion nationally.


. These days the rapid development of the internet has transformed Internet banking into an elective channel to approach new clients. Banks see the appropriation of virtual banking among youthful grown-ups as another approach to contend with their opponents and increase a more prominent piece of the pie. It is consequently vital for banks to have profound information into the determinants of Internet based financial use. This Research plans to examine and comprehend the Internet banking usage among youth and elderly population and furthermore to realize what influence the utilization of Internet banking administrations. This paper exhibited an observational research, which utilized sample of various age groups just to know use of Internet banking among them. The information is additionally gathered by a questionnaire consisting of relevant question related to the research. The results revealed that convenience, accessibility, security, ease of use, reliability and costs of internet banking tend to influence youth' use of Internet banking. Besides there is differentiating picture between utilization of web banking among old population as there are individuals which agrees with the Convenience, usefulness, security, usability and unwavering quality advantages, which structure a positive effect however there are groups of old individuals who feels there isn't much wellbeing included and hazard factor is high. Such individuals have dread of robbery or fraud and furthermore delay in exercises where there personal data is gathered. There is certain association with understudies' usage of Internet based banking while cost shapes a negative association with the Internet banking use. The discoveries from this venture will help bank officials and showcasing officers to accomplish a superior understanding about there distinctive age group's customers' needs and inclination as for Internet based banking. This will help supervisors of banking partnerships to create powerful showcasing efforts which tailor to the necessities of various age bunch clients so as to advance Internet banking use in this market segment.


For the biosynthesis of punicic acid (18:3Delta9Z,11E,13Z) a (11,14)-linoleoyl desaturase activity has been proposed. To isolate this acyl-lipid-desaturase, PCR-based cloning was used. This approach resulted in the isolation of two complete cDNAs. The first isolated full-length cDNA harbors a sequence of 1350 bp encoding a protein of 395 amino acids. The second cDNA was 1415 bp long encoding a protein of 387 amino acids. For functional identification proteins encoded by the cDNAs were expressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and formation of newly formed fatty acids was analyzed by gas chromatography-free induction decay (GC-FID) and GC/MS. The expression of the heterologous enzymes resulted in the first case in a significant amount of linoleic acid and in the second case, after linoleic acid supplementation, in formation of punicic acid. The results presented here identify one cDNA coding for a classical Delta12-acyl-lipid-desaturase. The other one codes for a new type of (1,4)-acyl-lipid-desaturase that converts a cis double bond located in the Delta12-position of linoleic acid or gamma-linolenic acid, but not in alpha-linolenic acid, into a conjugated cis-trans double bond system.


Studies have shown that antifibrinolytic (aprotinin, tranexamic acid, or ϵ-aminocaproic acid) reduce blood loss in orthopedic surgery. However, most lacked sufficient power to evaluate the efficacy and safety on clinical outcomes. This meta-analysis aims to evaluate whether intravenous antifibrinolytics, when compared with placebo, reduce perioperative allogeneic erythrocyte transfusion requirement in adults undergoing orthopedic surgery and whether it might increase the risk of venous thromboembolism. From MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, the authors identified 43 randomized controlled trials in total hip and knee arthroplasty, spine fusion, musculoskeletal sepsis, or tumor surgery performed to July 2005 (for aprotinin, 23 trials with 1,268 participants; tranexamic acid, 20 with 1,084; ϵ-aminocaproic acid, 4 with 171). Aprotinin and tranexamic acid reduced significantly the proportion of patients requiring allogeneic erythrocyte transfusion according to a transfusion protocol. The odds ratio was 0.43 (95% confidence interval, 0.28–0.64) for aprotinin and 0.17 (0.11–0.24) for tranexamic acid. Results suggest a dose–effect relation with tranexamic acid. ϵ-Aminocaproic acid was not efficacious. Unfortunately, data were too limited for any conclusions regarding safety. Although the results suggest that aprotinin and tranexamic acid significantly reduce allogeneic erythrocyte transfusion, further evaluation of safety is required before recommending the use of antifibrinolytics in orthopedic surgery.


ABSTRACT The type I interferons (IFNs) are potent mediators of antiviral immunity, and many viruses have developed means to block their expression or their effects. Semliki Forest virus (SFV) infection induces rapid and profound silencing of host cell gene expression, a process believed to be important for the inhibition of the IFN response. In SFV-infected cells, a large proportion of the nonstructural protein nsp2 is found in the nucleus, but a role for this localization has not been described. In this work we demonstrate that a viral mutant, SFV4-RDR, in which the nuclear localization sequence of nsp2 has been rendered inactive, induces a significantly more robust IFN response in infected cells. This mutant virus replicates at a rate similar to that of the parental SFV4 strain and also shuts off host cell gene expression to similar levels, indicating that the general cellular shutoff is not responsible for the inhibition of IFN expression. Further, the rate of virus-induced nuclear translocation of early IFN transcription factors was not found to differ between the wild-type and mutant viruses, indicating that the effect of nsp2 is at a later stage. These results provide novel information about the mode of action of this viral IFN antagonist.


ABSTRACT Pandemics are characterized by extreme uncertainty and effective communication is critical to help the public manage this uncertainty. We summarized scholarship on public communication related to uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic, synthesizing insights published from January 2020–February 2022. We reviewed key findings and arguments from 39 empirical papers and 21 nonempirical papers with a particular focus on the theories and concepts that underpinned them. While this work shed light on elements of effective communication, conceptual and operational treatments of uncertainty varied considerably, and less than half of papers used a theory to analyze or discuss uncertainty-related communication. In all, this review highlights opportunities to strengthen our field's theoretical and practical contributions to public communication in uncertain situations.


Galaxy cluster outskirts are described by complex velocity fields induced by diffuse material collapsing towards filaments, gas, and galaxies falling into clusters, and gas shock processes triggered by substructures. A simple scenario that describes the large-scale tidal fields of the cosmic web is not able to fully account for this variety, nor for the differences between gas and collisionless dark matter. We have studied the filamentary structure in zoom-in resimulations centred on 324 clusters from the threehundred project, focusing on differences between dark and baryonic matter. This paper describes the properties of filaments around clusters out to five R200, based on the diffuse filament medium where haloes had been removed. For this, we stack the remaining particles of all simulated volumes to calculate the average profiles of dark matter and gas filaments. We find that filaments increase their thickness closer to nodes and detect signatures of gas turbulence at a distance of ${\sim}2 \rm {{{~h^{-1}\,{\rm Mpc}}}}$ from the cluster. These are absent in dark matter. Both gas and dark matter collapse towards filament spines at a rate of ${\sim}200 \,\rm {km ~ s^{-1}\, h^{-1}}$. We see that gas preferentially enters the cluster as part of filaments, and leaves the cluster centre outside filaments. We further see evidence for an accretion shock just outside the cluster. For dark matter, this preference is less obvious. We argue that this difference is related to the turbulent environment. This indicates that filaments act as highways to fuel the inner regions of clusters with gas and galaxies.


Sociological research on suicidal ideation has often focused on structural factors, such as marital status, when analyzing the protective effects of social integration; however, less is known about how the quality of romantic relationships shapes suicidality among young adults. This study uses the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to examine the association between romantic relationship quality and suicidal ideation in young adulthood. Results indicate that simply being in a romantic relationship is unrelated to suicidal ideation. In fact, odds of reporting suicidal ideation are comparable for respondents who are married or cohabiting and respondents who are single or dating. Findings show that respondents who report greater romantic relationship quality in any romantic relation type are less likely to report suicidal ideation. This study contributes to previous research in the sociology of mental health by extending our understanding of the protective role of relationship quality.


The comparative morphological and anatomical investigations of the leaves in the genus Sansevieria Thunb. on example of species S. thyrsiflora Thunb. and S. grandis Hook. f., which are critical for systematics of this taxon, were carried out. There were found a few characters which are identical for the leaves structure in both species. In addition, some important features of the leaves morphology and anatomy were reaveled to be considerably modified in both comparable species. In particular, they could be differed from each other by the following characters: the leaves organography, the form of transversal projections of the epidermal cells, the degree of thickening of both outer and lateral cellular walls, the degree of the development of sclerenchyma fibers as well as their placing manner, the ability to accumulate oils.


Introduction. Critical care patients have a high probability of presenting adverse drugs reactions because the polytherapy that they receive usually include schemes with two or more antibiotics. Most antibiotics have high toxicity risk, which can be potentialized when being associated with other drugs. Objective. Adverse reactions were detected and described in patients treated with antibiotics in a pediatric and neonatal intensive care. Materials and methods. A follow up, descriptive and observational study of a cohort was made without control group. A daily follow-up was administered for a three month period for each patient. Causality was evaluated on the basis of the Naranjo scale. Results. Eighty-five patients were included in the study, 36.5% from the neonatal intensive care unit and 63.5% from the pediatric clinic. Of twenty-seven antimicrobial medications administered, 97 adverse reactions were detected for 15 of these, in 37 patients (20 newborn and 17 older children). They were classified as mild (65%), moderate (35%) and serious (0). According to scale of Naranjo, 68% were possible, 32% probable, and defined, none. Based on laboratory test results, renal toxicity was detected in 38.1%, hematotoxicity in 24.7%,electrolytic abnormalities in 21.6% and hepatotoxicity in 15.5%. The distribution of adverse antibiotic reactions was as follows: gentamycine 20.6%, vancomycin 17.5%, amikacine 16.5%, ceftriaxone 15.5% and piperaciline tazobactam 13.4%. Conclusions. The proportion of adverse reactions was of 43.7%. 55.6% of antibiotics produced adverse reactions. A program of institutional pharmacovigilance coordinated by a medical pharmacologist or pharmaceutical chemist was recommended by these data.


Background/objectives: This study attempts to examine a systematic relationship between air quality index (AQI) and the performance of stock markets in India. India has ranked among the bottom five countries in environmental performance index (EPI) by World Economic Forum (WEF). Previous studies in this field conducted in other parts of the world indicate a direct relation between environmental performance and market performance; however, the case of India may prove to be different considering the Indian environmental policy, environmental accountability, population, and income and development aspects. Methods: We have employed linear regression technique to ascertain the impact of AQI on stock returns. AQI data from 13 stations across India are the dependent variables. These dependent variables are each regressed individually for each stock market index from Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) equity index, Sensex. Therefore, there are 17 models where AQI from the chosen 13 stations has been regressed with each of the industry specific index. A descriptive analysis is also performed to know the yearly averages of the AQI across stations used in the study. Findings: Our results confirm that there exists a negative association between AQI and stock returns for top-performing growth stocks. The results also indicate that there is a positive association between AQI and capital intensive industry stocks, while a negative association was observed in the case of labor-intensive industries. The findings indicate that AQI is a predictor for stock returns in India in the short term. Application: Environmental influences on stock market performance are becoming more potent than ever before as the negative externalities of pollution impact the financial performance of corporations.


This paper extends the use of peak-load pricing (PLP) to the context of the European Air Traffic Management system, as EU regulation No 391/2013 allows the modulation of en-route charges to avoid network capacity-demand imbalance in a specific area or on a specific route at specific times. In particular, we propose a centralised approach to PLP (CPLP) where a Central Planner (CP) is responsible for setting en-route charges on the network and Airspace Users (AUs) assess the routing of each flight. Set en-route charges should guarantee that air navigation service providers (ANSPs) are able to recover their operational costs, and that AUs perform their flights avoiding imbalances between demand and available airspace capacity. Like in the current charging system, in CPLP AUs react to en-route charges (which are imposed by CP instead of ANSPs) by choosing alternative and cheaper routes. Hence, we model this relationship between the CP and the AUs as a Stackelberg game where a leader (CP) makes his/her decision first, with complete knowledge on how the follower(s) (AUs) would react to it. The Stackelberg equilibrium is obtained by means of an optimisation problem formulated as a bilevel mixed-integer linear programming model, where the CP sets, for each ANSP, one peak and one off-peak en-route charge and the AUs make their routing choice. Preliminary results on real data instances on a regional scale are presented.


This paper addresses complexity and coupling issues in cooperative decision and control of distributed autonomous UAV teams. In particular, the recent results obtained by the inhouse research team are presented. Hierarchical decomposition is implemented where team vehicles are allocated to subteams using set partition theory. Results are presented for single assignment and multiple assignment using network flow and auction algorithms. Simulation results are presented for wide area search munitions where complexity and coupling are incrementally addressed in the decision system, yielding radically improved team performance.


This study introduces Landslide4Sense, a reference benchmark for landslide detection from remote sensing. The repository features 3799 image patches fusing optical layers from Sentinel-2 sensors with the digital elevation model and slope layer derived from Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) phased array-type $L$ -band SAR (PALSAR). The added topographical information facilitates an accurate detection of landslide borders, in which recent research has shown to be challenging using optical data alone. The extensive dataset supports deep learning (DL) studies in landslide detection and the development and validation of methods for the systematic update of landslide inventories. The benchmark dataset has been collected at four different times and geographical locations: Iburi (September 2018), Kodagu (August 2018), Gorkha (April 2015), and Taiwan (August 2009). Each image pixel is labeled as belonging to a landslide or not, incorporating various sources and thorough manual annotation. We then evaluate the landslide detection performance of 11 state-of-the-art DL segmentation models: U-Net, ResU-Net, pyramid scene parsing network (PSPNet), ContextNet, DeepLab-v2, DeepLab-v3+, FCN-8s, LinkNet, FRRN-A, FRRN-B, and SQNet. All models were trained from scratch on patches from one-quarter of each study area and tested on independent patches from the other three quarters. Our experiments demonstrate that ResU-Net outperformed the other models for the landslide detection task. We make the multisource landslide benchmark data (Landslide4Sense) and the tested DL models publicly available at https://www.iarai.ac.at/landslide4sense, establishing an important resource for remote sensing, computer vision, and machine learning communities in studies of image classification in general and applications to landslide detection in particular.


Improper heat treatment may result in unsatisfactory microstructure and mechanical properties for P91 steel. In this work, the effect of abnormal heat treatment on microstructure and properties of P91 steel were studied. Results showed that with the normalization temperature increased from 860°C to 1000°C, the microstructures of P91 steel are ferrite, mixture of ferrite and martensite, and tempered martensite correspondingly. Cooling rate after austenization has important influence on microstructure and properties. The tempered microstructure has a gradual transition from coarse inhomogeneous ferrite to finer martensite when the cooling rate increased from 1 to 3°C/min. The reduced temperature normalization has no significant effect on hardness even as low as 860°C under aircooling condition, whereas the hareness is inadequate when the cooling rate is too slow. Incomplete austenization and transformation in dual phase zone may account for the phenomenon.


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Metal owns the ability of self-healing to some extent, and the ability of the internal crack healing is most desirable for improving the reliability of metal. A molecular dynamics simulation has been further developed to investigate the evolution of a nanoscale crack in body centred cubic Fe crystal under the conditions of heating or compressive pressure. When system temperature drops, the evolution of the crack that was at elevated temperature has been studied for the first time. N-body potential according to the embedded atom method has been adopted. The original nanoscale crack is expressed by removing some atoms in the centre of the cell, and the minimum vertical distance between the atoms on the top and bottom crack surfaces has been defined as Dm for assessing the process of crack evolution. The results show that a crack healing process can be accelerated significantly with an increase of temperature. When the system temperature decreases, Dm of the crack that was in healing process does not change significantly but fluctuates in a narrow range. This means that the crack healing is the result of Fe atoms diffusing into the crack area but not the thermal stress incurred in the simulation cell at elevated temperature. The pre-compressive pressure under the condition of both biaxial and uniaxial loadings can help promote the crack healing significantly and results in more uniform distribution of defects after healing.


Crab cavities have been installed in the KEKB B-factory rings to compensate the crossing angle at the collision point and thus increase luminosity. The beam operation with crab crossing has been done since February 2007. This is the first experience with such cavities in colliders or storage rings. The crab cavities have been working without serious issues. While higher specific luminosity than the geometrical gain has been achieved, further study is necessary and under way to reach the prediction of simulation.


Properly maintained medical records carry a longlasting medico-legal significance. The Royal College of Surgeons of England recommends that the hospital records must be maintained in a tidy condition and proper maintenance ensured. The King's Fund filing guidance suggests that no papers should be left loose in the notes, and records should be bound and stored properly, so that loss of documents is minimised. We performed a random cross-sectional observational study on 100 case notes of hospital inpatients in an orthopaedic firm in a university teaching hospital of the UK, with regard to their existing filing standards. We found that the quality of filing standards of case notes is poor. Good filing is important for the longevity of the files. Voluminous loading with unnecessary contents in the file and its pocket leads to premature file fracture and pocket perforation. Better education of the junior and nursing staff and ward clerks, and regular auditing of medical records could improve this.


The article is dealt with organization of agencies of U.S. federal government responsible for control of food safety and quality. An organizational chart of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of Department of Health and Human services is shown in great details. The U.S. federal legislation on food safety and quality is also described. Legal terms and definitions set by Federal Food, Drug and Safety Act for food safety and quality as well as basis requirements set in U.S.A. for food operation facilities are also discussed.


The discipline of Materials Science is, we believe, in the midst of the second transformation. The research and education of most of the Materials Science and Engineering departments in the United States have traditionally emphasized hard materials. The recent surge in research of soft materials and our perceptions that the Materials Science Methodology (both experimental and numerical) holds the advantage in the research of the soft materials prompt us to expand the area of soft materials at the expense of hard materials. Clearly the struggle between the two types of materials will continue for some time to come. The current struggle in weighting will be described in an historical fashion comparing it to the struggle in the first transformation that took place in the 1950's and 1960's.


A visual presentation, either a demonstration or an illustrated talk, is a teaching method in which the presenter shares information with an audience with the assistance of visual aids such as posters, models, and computer presentation software. This 4-page fact sheet covers the method of delivery, the plan, the visuals, how to look sharp and to have a sharp presentation. Written by Stacey Ellison, and published by the UF Department of 4-H Youth Development, June 2015.
4HGCO59/4H163: Do a Visual Presentation (ufl.edu)


Economists have argued that a high concentration of land holdings in a country can create powerful interest groups that retard the creation of economic institutions, and thus hold back economic development. Could these arguments apply beyond underdeveloped countries with backward political institutions? We find that in the early 20th century, the distribution of land in the United States is correlated with the extent of banking development. Correcting for state effects, counties with very concentrated land holdings tend to have disproportionately fewer banks per capita in the 1920s. Banks were especially scarce both when landed elites' incentive to suppress finance, as well as their ability to exercise local influence, was higher, suggesting support for a political economy explanation. Counties with high land concentration and fewer banks also had higher interest rates and lower loan to value ratios, consistent with more restricted access to finance. Interestingly, counties with greater land concentration had fewer loan losses during the Great Depression, consistent with borrowers in those counties being less risky, even while they had more limited access to credit in the years leading up to the Depression. We draw lessons from this episode for understanding financial and economic development.


Lacustrine sedimentary archives provide clue information on past Human-climate-environment interactions in order to predict the future responses of societies and ecosystems to global climate change. Within a multidisciplinary project aiming at documenting these interactions during the Holocene in the French Alps, we have examined by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry the lipid content of a sedimentary series covering the last 6 ka, drilled in Lake le Bourget (France). Miliacin, a pentacyclic triterpene methyl ether (PTME) originating from gramineae, was found in significant amounts in some levels, whereas no other PTME was detected. Due to the resistance of PTME to diagenesis, miliacin was most probably the only PTME produced in significant proportions within the watershed. The list of gramineae reputed to exclusively synthesize miliacin as a PTME was confronted to an archaeobotanical survey realised on the Gresine site, dated back to the Bronze Age. This inventory gave a comprehensive panorama of the vegetation assemblage in the region for this period. Since Panicum miliaceum (common millet) is the only miliacin-exclusive producer reported, we conclude that miliacin attests to its presence in the catchment. This is further supported by the first occurrence of miliacin in the record at ca. 1500 BC that matches the known introduction of millet in the region. The comparison of miliacin relative abundances with local hydrology emphasizes the interactions between climate and agriculture. For example, the lower values of miliacin relative abundances during the La Tene period are related to the hydrological crisis that forced the abandonment of lake-dwelling habitats. The final decrease and disappearance of miliacin in more recent samples can be either attributed to hydrological changes or to the replacement of millet by other crops. These results provide the first continuous record of agricultural activities from a sedimentary archive in the French Alps. The refinement of the temporal resolution is in progress and this approach will be extended to other sites. As a matter of fact, other PTME are produced by economically important cereals such as rice. Applying this method worldwide will give invaluable insight on the coupled dynamics of agriculture, climate and environment through time.