BACKGROUND
Smoking is a risk factor for several cancers and may also limit the efficacy of treatment. In this study, we evaluated the influence of cigarette smoking during radiation therapy on the efficacy of treatment in patients with head and neck cancer.

METHODS
Using a questionnaire, we obtained information on smoking behavior at base line and weekly during therapy in 115 patients with head and neck cancer who were treated with radiation therapy with or without fluorouracil. The side effects of therapy were evaluated weekly, and response was assessed 13 weeks after treatment was completed. The main outcomes measured were treatment response and survival.

RESULTS
The prognostic variables were similar among the patients who smoked and those who did not smoke during treatment. The 53 patients who continued to smoke during radiation therapy had a lower rate of complete response (45 percent vs. 74 percent, P = 0.008) and poorer two-year survival (39 percent vs. 66 percent, P = 0.005) than the 62 patients who did not smoke or who had quit before treatment. Among the nonsmoking patients, mortality was influenced by the length of time between quitting and treatment, with a risk reduction (relative to that for patients who continued to smoke) of 40 percent for patients who had quit less than 12 weeks before diagnosis and of 70 percent for patients who had quit more than 1 year before diagnosis. After adjustment for other variables with proportional-hazards regression analysis, smoking remained an independent prognostic factor (P = 0.002), with a relative risk of 2.5 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.4 to 4.4) favoring the patients who abstained from smoking. The results could not be explained by the type of chemotherapy received, the presence of coexisting morbid conditions, differences in the side effects of radiation, or the number of interruptions of treatment.

CONCLUSIONS
Patients with head and neck cancer who continue to smoke during radiation therapy have lower rates of response and survival than patients who do not smoke during radiation therapy.


In the first part of our paper we investigate what the law and the official curriculum say about the use of dialect in primary schools in Denmark, Sweden, the Swedish-speaking part of Finland and Norway. In (2) we take a look at the language attitudes of pupils and teachers towards dialect, while (3) deals with the question if, when and by whom dialect is used during the lessons. In countries with a standard language education is generally based on this standard. Pupils speaking other varieties are said to have problems at school. What kind of problems are signalled in Scandinavia is dealt with in (4). In (5) we discuss what solutions, in the form of experiments with different methods of integrating the mother tongue and the standard language, are found. In this paper we contrast Denmark, Sweden and Finland with Norway. The first three countries have both a written and a spoken standard language, and all pupils are supposed to learn to understand, read, write and speak this standard in a more or less rigid form. Norway has over a hundred years experience in dialect integration, since its 1879 Education Act says that education should be given as much as possible in the children's own language. There is no official spoken standard language, but there are two officially recognized written standards. These are however, not as rigid as those in Denmark, Sweden and Finland. We conclude with recommendations given by Scandinavian experts on education, with regard to the integration of dialect in education (6).


Anaphylaxis in the isolated, perfused hearts of cats has been shown to be accompanied by a considerable, though transient, increase in coronary flow. This result is contrasted with that observed in the hearts of guinea pigs and rabbits in which the coronary arteries are constricted during anaphylaxis. Attention is directed to the fact that, in the hearts of these three species, the effects of anaphylaxis and of histamine are qualitatively parallel. The characteristic anaphylactic response in the isolated hearts of guinea pigs has been evoked: (a) in the organs removed from immune animals, (b) by each of two antigens (horse serum and egg albumen) under conditions of double sensitization, and (c) upon exposure of the hearts of passively sensitized animals to the type-specific polysaccharide of the pneumococcus. It is evident that, among the effects of anaphylaxis upon smooth muscle in various organs, there must be considered that upon the coronary arteries.


The frequency-energy plots (FEPs) of two-degree-of-freedom linear structures attached to piecewise nonlinear energy sink (PNES) are generated here and thoroughly investigated. This study provides the FEP analysis of such systems for further understanding of nonlinear targeted energy transfer (TET) by the PNES. The attached PNES incorporates a symmetrical clearance zone of zero stiffness content about its equilibrium position where the boundaries of the zone are coupled with linear structure by linear stiffness elements. In addition, linear viscous damping is selected to be continuous during PNES mass oscillation. The underlying nonlinear dynamical behaviour of the considered structure-PNES systems is investigated by generating the fundamental backbone curves of the FEP and the bifurcated subharmonic resonance branches using numerical continuation methods. Accordingly, interesting dynamical behaviour of the nonlinear normal modes (NNMs) of the structure-PNES system on different backbones and subharmonic resonance branches has been observed. In addition, the imposed wavelet transform frequency spectrums on the FEPs have revealed that the TET takes place where it is dominated by the nonlinear action of the PNES.


Approximately 1.8 million students in the United States are homeschooled, according to 2012 data from the National Center for Education Statistics (Redford et al.). However, researchers have only begun to examine how these homeschooled students reflect on their own literacy development, especially once they have entered college. Using the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives (DALN), I gather and analyze eighteen literacy narratives of currently and formerly homeschooled students, exploring how these students reflect on their own developing literacies, especially as they contrast their experiences with those of their traditionally-schooled classmates. The results of this study reveal, first, that these homeschoolers participate in a wide variety of literacy practices that both respond to and redefine those of the "traditional" classroom. Second, many of the narratives tend to embrace the "child prodigy" literacy structure, as identified and defined by Kara Alexander (2011) and Stephanie Paterson (2001). Third, four narratives reveal problems that can occur in homeschooling: namely, a parent-educator's perceived lack of authority, and, in two cases, a tendency to trap students in unhealthy family environments. Despite these exceptions, most narratives reveal their family network as a place of vibrant literary sponsorship; and a few students narrate the "pedagogic violence" that may occur when they transition from this warm family environment into traditional secondary schools (Worsham 121). Overall, I argue that as participants in a non-dominant mode of education, these homeschoolers feel the need either to justify or to repudiate their literacy acquisition process against the dominant group. More quantitative research is needed to understand whether these experiences represent trends across the homeschooling movement.


Thanks to the popularity of digital photography and user-generated Internet content, interest in experimental photographic techniques continues to build. This unique guide helps photographers go beyond the snapshot, flex their creative muscles, and push the boundaries of their art. Rick Doble presents a wealth of imaginative concepts, from creating ambience through a mix of flash and available light to panning the camera and zooming the lens during an exposure. He explains how to manipulate time and motion in an image, use inventive white balance methods, and paint with light in time exposures. There are even original self-portrait techniques. Put these procedures in practice and youll make photography a riveting, even surreal, art form!


Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) have pre-determined selectivity for specific substrate. These polymers have binding characteristics that are analogous to the biological antibodies. From the time when introduced, MIPs gained much importance from research point of view. However, its applicability on large scale needs further improvement because of their potential for wide-ranging applications in biomedical, biosensors, catalysis, food manufacturing, processing, analysis and quality control. The further developments in this field need to be explored and to study their overall aspects. The development of true understanding of various aspects will help in design and application of new and improved molecularly imprinted polymer system. In the present review an attempt is made to focus the various aspects of MIPs for better understanding and to provide a road map for the future development in this field. The article is divided into different sections to overview the various aspects of MIPs, from basics to applications.


AIM: To investigate the association of serum glucocorticoid kinase gene-1 (SGK-1) DNA variants with chronic central serous chorioretinopathy (CSC). ·METHODS: We enrolled 32 eyes of 32 patients who were diagnosed with chronic CSC and composed 32 normal eyes as a control group. Peripheral blood was used for DNA extraction and polymerase chain reaction amplification. SGK1 gene was sequenced by using BigDye誖 Terminator v3.1 cycle sequencing Kit (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA). The SGK-1 gene and its variants were investigated in CSC patient group and control group. ·RESULTS: We identified a new polymorphism M32V in two person in the patient group [Minor allele frequency (MAF) =0.009] on the region of 1 -60 amino acids. The rs1057293 was located in the encoder region of the SGK1 gene but not associated with CSC ( =0.68). An intrinsic rs1743966 is also not associated ( =0.28). ·CONCLUSION: The new polymorphism M32V is located on the region of 1-60 amino acids which is necessary for localization to the mitochondria in CSC patient. This mutation is probably important for the energy metabolism and plays an important role in the cellular response to hyperosmotic stress and other stress stimuli. Both rs1057293 and rs1743966 are not associated with CSC. ·


The Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI; Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, 2003) is a widely used very brief measure of the Big Five personality dimensions. Oshio, Abe, and Cutrone (2012) have developed a Japanese version of the TIPI (TIPI-J), which demonstrated acceptable levels of reliability and validity. Until now, all studies examining the validity of the TIPI-J have been conducted in the Japanese language; this reliance on a single language raises concerns about the instrument's content validity because the instrument could demonstrate reliability (e.g., retest) and some forms of validity (e.g., convergent) but still not capture the full range of the dimensions as originally conceptualized in English. Therefore, to test the content validity of the Japanese TIPI with respect to the original Big Five formulation, we examine the convergence between scores on the TIPI-J and scores on the English-language Big Five Inventory (i.e., the BFI-E), an instrument specifically designed to optimize Big Five content coverage. Two-hundred and twenty-eight Japanese undergraduate students, who were all learning English, completed the two instruments. The results of correlation analyses and structural equation modeling demonstrate the theorized congruence between the TIPI-J and the BFI-E, supporting the content validity of the TIPI-J.


Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer among women worldwide. Infection with Human Papillomavirus (HPV) is essential but not the only contributing factor in cervical cancer development. HPV integration is reported to be present in over 80% of cervical cancers and disruption of HPV genome through integration leads to high levels of HPV oncogene expression. DNA damage and repair pathways are thought to induce HPV integration since HPV is detected at fragile sites in the human genome. There is controversy as to whether integration is an early or late event in cervical oncogenesis and there are no published studies to date that have investigated HPV integration using sensitive, DNA based, techniques at the nucleotide level in cervical precancers. This study aimed to test the hypothesis that integration is an early event in cervical neoplasia and episomal loss causes malignant transformation through transcription of integrated HPV. Also, this study served to pilot whether HPV integration can predict high-grade cervical disease in women with cytological abnormalities with an aim to improve current cervical screening methods. Assays to detect integration and E2 as a marker of episomal state were developed for HPV16, HPV18 and HPV45 and applied to cervical smears and biopsies from women with varying disease grades. The data presented in this thesis highlight that integration may not be essential for cervical cancer progression and different modes of disease progression may exist between young women and older women. Integration was detected at chromosome fragile sites but was more prevalent at SINE or LINE repeat elements; this implies a role for retroelements in the mechanism of integration. Finally, the data here suggest that integration induces a unique selective process in each individual and clonal selection may arise due to altered HPV oncogene expression and/or disruption to human gene expression.


The relative frequency of stones composed chiefly of calcium and phosphorus in the urinary tract as compared with their occurrence in other excretory systems such as the lower intestine, biliary and pancreatic systems and the salivary glands has made a study of the local metabolism of these elements by the urinary tract of some importance. I 1 have indicated elsewhere in a preliminary report the rather unexpected action of the urinary tract on certain connective tissues in the production of bone. These observations will be discussed in detail in this article, and further observations relative to osteogenesis will be presented. The presence of bone elsewhere than in the skeleton has been of considerable interest to the students of osteogenesis. An extensive literature dealing with this subject exists, of which a few striking examples may be cited. Apparently the most frequent site of heteroplastic bone is the sclerotic artery; 2 next


While many algorithms for computing stereo correspondence have been proposed, there has been very little work on experimentally evaluating algorithm performance, especially using real (rather than synthetic) imagery. In this paper we propose an experimental comparison of several different stereo algorithms. We use real imagery, and explore two different methodologies, with different strengths and weaknesses. Our first methodology is based upon manual computation of dense ground truth Here we make use of a two stereo pairs: one of these, from the University of Tsukuba, contains mostly fronto-parallel surfaces: while the other, which we built, is a simple scene with a slanted surface. Our second methodology uses the notion of prediction error, which is the ability of a disparity map to predict an (unseen) third image, taken from a known camera position with respect to the input pair. We present results for both correlation-style stereo algorithms and techniques based on global methods such as energy minimization. Our experiments suggest that the two methodologics give qualitatively consistent results. Source images and additional materials, sach as the implementations of various algorithms, are available on the web from http;//www.research.microsoft.com/ ∼ szeliski/stereo.


High quality blood glucose monitoring systems are required for adequate self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG). In this study, system accuracy of 18 current-generation SMBG systems from different manufacturers was evaluated based on the international standard ISO 15197:2013 with 1 lot each against 2 comparison methods. Manufacturers were selected by their respective market share in Europe. Each lot was tested on 100 capillary blood samples from different subjects and compliance with accuracy criterion A stipulated in ISO 15197 (at least 95% of results within ±15% or ±15 mg/dL of the comparison method's results for BG concentrations above or below 100 mg/dL, respectively) was assessed. Glucose oxidase (GOD) and hexokinase (HK) were used as comparison methods (GOD: YSI 2300 STAT Plus, YSI Incorporated, OH, U.S.A.; HK: Cobas Integra® 400 plus, Roche Instrument Center, Switzerland). In total, 14 of 18 systems had ≥95% of results within ±15% or ±15 mg/dL of the result obtained with the respective manufacturer's measurement method. Individual systems showed 89 to 100% of results within these limits. Results within ±10% or ±10 mg/dL of the respective comparison method results ranged from 71 to 99.5% with 3 systems showing ≥95% of results within these more stringent limits. In this evaluation, 14 out of 18 systems met the minimum system accuracy criterion A of ISO 15197 with the tested lot. Although only current-generation systems available on the market were used, more than 20% of systems did not meet ISO 15197 accuracy criteria. Disclosure S. Pleus: None. A. Baumstark: None. N.R. Jendrike: None. J. Mende: None. C. Haug: None. G. Freckmann: Advisory Panel; Self; Abbott, Novo Nordisk Pharma GmbH, Sensile Medical AG. Consultant; Self; Metronom Health Europe, Roche Diabetes Care, Sanofi. Speaker's Bureau; Self; Ascensia Diabetes Care, Dexcom, Inc., Ypsomed AG. Funding AgaMatrix Europe Limited; Ascensia Diabetes Care GmbH; Beurer GmbH: i-SENS GmbH; LifeScan Scotland Limited; Roche Diabetes Care GmbH


Devices and systems for facilitating the flow of menses through the cervix and for shortening the duration of menstruation include a pressure oscillations generating unit insertable into a vagina and configured for delivering pressure oscillations and/or acoustic waves and/or shock waves to the vagina and cervix to change the flow properties of menses fluid. The pressure oscillations generating unit may include one or more vibratable or movable members for generating pressure oscillations which may be powered by an internal or external power source. The devices may optionally include an absorbing member or a menses collecting member. A method of menstruation duration shortening includes placing the device within the vagina and applying pressure oscillations to the vagina or to a vaginal chamber formed within the vagina for increasing the flow rate of menses and shortening menstruation duration.


Seddon Construction Ltd has obtained planning consent to deliver the proposed redevelopment of land at Hopes Carr in Stockport (centred on NGR 389925 390256).
The site was occupied formerly by a number of industrial premises, the archaeological importance of which has been highlighted in a desk-based assessment of the site that was produced by the University of Manchester Archaeological Unit in 2004. In the light of the conclusions drawn from the desk-based study, the Greater Manchester Archaeological Advisory Service recommended that a programme of archaeological investigation was carried out in advance of development.
In March 2013, Oxford Archaeology North (OA North) was commissioned by Seddon Construction Ltd to carry out an appropriate scheme of works, which comprised an archaeological building investigation of the Orchard Street range of the former Churchgate Mill, and the excavation of a series of evaluation trenches.
The archaeological building investigation was carried out in September 2013, immediately prior to the demolition of the building. Once the building had been cleared, three evaluation trenches were placed across this part of the development site, which has been referred to as Plot 4.


This paper seeks to explore and to critically evaluate, from an economic standpoint, Joseph Schumpeter's theory of the decline of capitalism, as put forward in his Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. It begins by exploring and criticizing Schumpeter's entrepreneurial theory, and then explains how this flawed theory led to Schumpeter's conclusion vis-a-vis capitalist evolution into socialism. It then introduces into the theory of capitalist evolution an uncertainty-bearing entrepreneur, and re-examines the theory on this basis, both in general and, in the appendix, for the specific case of artificial increases in the supply of bank credit. The conclusion reached is that Schumpeter's argument cannot hope to explain the decline of capitalism into socialism. However, while not valid for a truly capitalist system, Schumpeter's theory is nevertheless applicable to an interventionist economy.


Summary

An attempt has been made in this paper to show that culture fair tests have some problems associated with them. These tests should be examined and reviewed closely before being used and should not be regarded as the answer to testing the culturally disadvantaged.

The following points were made in this paper:

Culture fair tests measure different psychological functions. Culture fair tests today measure such functions as spatial visualization, abstract reasoning, perceptual speed, etc.

Culture fair tests vary considerably in format. Some are pencil and paper tests, some are performance tests. Some use verbal instructions, others do not. There are many test parameters along which culture fair tests now vary.

Some evidence suggests that culture fair tests possibly increase the differential between the culturally disadvantaged and the more advantaged population. Use of these tests may not be in the best interests of minority groups.

It is not yet definite about the kind of items on which culturally disadvantaged people perform poorer. Some evidence suggests that they do better on verbal items and worst on perceptual items, which is in contrast to the assumption of most proponents of culture-fair tests.

The validity of culture fair tests has not been shown to be better than more traditional tests. In contrast, some research even indicates that they do not show relationships as high.

What is to be done, if anything, about the test differentials between the culturally disadvantaged and the majority population? Some individuals (Lorge, 1964; Coffman, 1964) agree that the elimination of group differences on tests is futile and argue that the real task at hand is a realistic attempt to study the behavioral significance of test differences. In essence, this is an all out attempt to collect validation information. Does a particular score for a black have the same behavioral implications of a higher (or lower) test score for a white? Are there criterion differences that are related to test differences? Do differential validities exist for various subgroups? Are the standard errors of estimates different for different groups? This approach is essentially what has been pursued by individuals investigating the "moderating" effects of subgrouping by race and/or socio-economic factors. The investigation of test differences within and between subgroups is called for.

In my opinion, attempting to mask test differentials by using culture fair tests may in actuality have a reverse effect than what was intended. Test differentials may actually increase, making it more difficult for culturally disadvantaged individuals to be selected into schools, jobs, etc.

Clearly, the construction of culture fair tests is not the only answer to testing the disadvantaged.


This thesis redresses a major gap in the literature on population movement, especially population studies in Tanzania where there have been few attempts to study and understand the movement of people within and between rural areas. Largely owing to political concerns for rural - urban movements, more money has been made available for scholars to study this phenomenon. As a consequence, explanations of movement have focused on rural poverty, privileged economic based models of analysis, and ignored the dynamic nature of the bulk of the population who live in contiguous rural areas not only of Tanzania but also neighbouring Kenya and Uganda. This urban bias is reinforced by a methodological unwillingness to study population movements that do not fit this economic rationale. I argue that to understand population movement in and between rural areas, attention needs to be refocused on non-economic motives, give more emphasis to cultural continuity and to understanding the meanings of movement as the people engaged in it see it for themselves. In this study, I use an ethnographic approach to explore the movement of people in Karagwe rural district. This district receives movers from Ankole (Southern Uganda) and Rwanda inspired by cultural considerations that become understood by listening and seeing the movement in their own worldview. The Banyankole and Banyarwanda perceive movement as a "homeward journey" best described by the metaphor of 'omuka/oweitu' (home to home) as people move within their cultural territory to live with relatives of consanguinity, affinity and African blood pacts. The network of these relationships evolved out of historical movements, intermarriages, norms and customs created and shared over many years to give a sense of oneness or common identity in a shared cultural space. During the field study in 2000, these homeward movements revealed in the family life histories were part of a strategy to cement the bonds of kinship and a return to the roots/ ancestral homes. This understanding and interpretation of movement in a constructed cultural space is revealed through listening to the life histories of family movement and experiences as well as the language used to express the event of movement. In this cultural space where they negotiate a living, long-term movement is perceived, as 'okutaha' (to go home) and 'okutura' (to settle or stay) while short-term movements are captured by the metaphors that revolve around the theme of 'visits'. The origin and destination points for these movements are "home" meaning a place where one resides or where one is born. In both meanings the mover has relatives of kin and is in a familiar environment/cultural territory. Movement is one that leads a person outside the created cultural space often disassociated with and considered as disappearing into the unknown. This suggests that intra-rural and inter-rural movements are culturally inspired and are strategies to maintain and activate relationship networks between people as described in a language and the worldview of the movers - the world they live in.


The purpose of the present study was to test the design consistency of modern retailing or malls with the concept of biophilia. Building on the attention restoration theory (ART), the researchers used four sub-dimensions of being away, extent, fascination, compatibility to serve as variables that illustrate the potential of restoration of malls as the center of a new lifestyle of metropolitan consumers in the digital era. The present study used a sample of 120 respondents in the city of Surabaya, East Java. The research method used a 2 x 2 experimental design with the MANOVA and ANOVA methods in two experimental studies. Study 1 found that, as a whole, consumers regarded the lifestyle center of nature nuances as more likely to be comfortable, relative to those consumers not seeing plants, and experienced three of the four environmental characteristics (sub-dimensions) that represent the restorative environment. Study 2 found no significant differences between shopping purposes and the four sub dimensions that served as the dependent variables.


A new family of soluble low-bandgap star-shaped molecules based upon triphenylamine (TPA) and containing benzothiadiazole (BTD) acceptor moieties have been designed and synthesized for organic photovoltaic (OPV) applications. The design results in the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) being spatially distributed on the periphery of the molecule, allowing facile photo-induced electron transfer to the fullerene phenyl C61 butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM). Photoluminescence quenching studies indicate efficient quenching of excitons, while time-resolved microwave conductivity experiments demonstrate effective separation of charges. Adjunct electron-withdrawing moieties allow tuning of the LUMO level. Theoretical calculations indicate three derivatives with LUMO levels in varying proximity to that of PCBM, which allows empirical testing of the theorized need for a 0.3 eV LUMO offset to ensure efficient charge transfer to PCBM. Design, characterization and bulk heterojunction device results for the new materials will be presented.


The Channel Islands have been self-governing dependencies of the British Crown since 1204, but their geographical location, indigenous languages and older cultural traditions are much closer to Normandy (north-west France).
However, acculturation to English language and customs has accelerated in the last 200 years, and is now pervasive. This paper examines the situation of the indigenous languages of the islands, which are now highly endangered:
practically all native speakers are aged over 70. The island varieties of Norman have traditionally had low status, which contributed to their decline, but in recent
years there have been attempts to raise their status and to raise awareness of their imminent disappearance; these attempts have borne fruit with a degree of support from the islands' governments. The paper first describes some of the
linguistic features of Channel Island Norman, and then discusses efforts to preserve this aspect of island culture. The outcomes of the various revitalisation
measures are also considered.


The effect of adding small amounts of copper oxide (CuO) on the sintering and mechanical properties of alumina ceramic was studied. Samples were prepared and fired in air atmosphere at temperatures ranging from 1400oC to 1600oC. Sintered samples were characterized to determine phase present, bulk density, hardness and grain size. The results indicated that all the doped samples could be sintered to high density > 3.85 Mgm−3 when compared to the undoped alumina. According to the XRD analysis, the α-Al2O3 phase was not disrupted by the dopant addition. Although the hardness of the CuO-doped material was higher when sintered below 1550°C, the maximum hardness of 21 GPa was measured for the undoped ceramics when sintered at 1600°C. The lower hardness of the doped samples could be attributed to the increased in grain size with increasing sintering temperature.


Information Systems are subject to a perpetual evolution, which is particularly pressing in Web Information Systems, due to their distributed and often collaborative nature. Such continuous adaptation process, comes with a very high cost, because of the intrinsic complexity of the task and the serious rami¿cations of such changes upon database-centric Information System softwares. Therefore, there is a need to automate and simplify the schema evolution process and to ensure predictability and logical independence upon schema changes. Current relational technology makes it easy to change the database content or to revise the underlaying storage and indexes but does little to support logical schema evolution which nowadays remains poorly supported by commercial tools. The PRISM system demonstrates a major new advance toward automating schema evolution (including query mapping and database conversion), by improving predictability, logical independence, and auditability of the process. In fact, PRISM exploits recent theoretical results on mapping composition, invertibility and query rewriting to provide DB Administrators with an intuitive, operational workbench usable in their everyday activities—thus enabling graceful schema evolution. In this demonstration, we will show (i) the functionality of PRISM and its supportive AJAX interface, (ii) its architecture built upon a simple SQL–inspired language of Schema Modi¿cation Operators, and (iii) we will allow conference participants to directly interact with the system to test its capabilities. Finally, some of the most interesting evolution steps of popular Web Information Systems, such as Wikipedia, will be reviewed in a brief "Saga of Famous Schema Evolutions".


After World War Ⅱ Japanese economy has undergone three periods: the rapid industrialization period, the industrial structure adjustment period and the economy depression period. Affected by the speed of economic development, industrial structure and other factors, Japanese energy consumption has shown different features during specific period of time. This article use the LMDI model, analyze the effect of different factors on Japanese energy consumption which include economic development, energy intensity, energy consumption structure and population size, research on the weight of specific factors during each developing period. The results show that all the factors show positive effect in the rapid industrialization period; in the industrial structure adjustment period, economic development factor shows positive effect while energy consumed factor shows negative; and in the depression period, the trend of all the factors contribution rate are slowly, economic development and energy consumption structure also show negative effect besides the energy intensity factor.


Background & Aim: Burnout as a common phenomenon among nurses is related to a number of factors. The study aimed to determine the role of social support and self-efficacy in the prediction of nurses' burnout. Material & Methods: It was a descriptive, correlational study. The statistical population consisted of all nurses of Isfahan working in the hospitals of this city in 2011-2012. A total of 165 nurses were recruited by random cluster sampling. Data was collected by Social Support Questionnaire of Samavati & Najarians, General Self-efficacy Questionnaire of Schwarzer & Jerusalem's and Maslash Burnout Inventory (MBI) and analyzed by person correlation & stepwise regression tests using SPSS (v.20). Results: Social support and self-efficacy were correlated with burnout subscales of personal accomplishment r=0.32 and r=0.47, depersonalization, r=-0.32 and r=-0.23 and emotional exhaustion r=-0.26 and r=-0.27 respectively (P< 0.01). The regression results also showed that self-efficacy and social support predict burnout. Conclusion: The results showed that self-efficacy and social support predict the nurses' burnout. The results would help the hospitals' administrators to reduce the nurses' burnout by awareness of their general self-efficacy and social support.


This article utilizes the synthetic analysis method to propose the proposition of excellent engineers' quality training. Excellent engineers are those who are outstanding and better than general engineers. The paper discusses the background and the practical demand of excellent engineers' developing, it also expounds the basic qualities that excellent engineers should possess and clarifies the trainning of excellent engineers is the higher project education's sacred mission. The conclusion is: it should take the way of co-production and learning, and the government departments should provide support in politics, economy, law and so on, then it will help to improve the enterprises' initiative to participate in engineering talents's training.


Communities of practice are important social structures for creating and sharing knowledge and it has been suggested that organizations should develop and support communities of practice for effective knowledge management. As a result, there is growing interest in the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to enable and support geographically dispersed communities of practice. In this paper, we report on a vibrant and productive, geographically dispersed community of practice that has spontaneously emerged over the last decade. The members of this community are computer support technicians, working within a large Australian university. Our results indicate that ICT can support a community of practice and this involves knowledge sharing as well as socialization. We describe the community, the interactions between members, the way the community is organized and managed, and the way it is enabled by ICT.


CurT represents a cyanobacterial homolog of the Arabidopsis CURVATURE THYLAKOID1 protein family, which is involved in grana formation in chloroplasts. Inactivation of the curT gene has recently been shown to cause severe alterations of the thylakoid membrane architecture affecting in particular PSII biogenesis. The CurT protein localized with high local abundances in regions, where the thylakoids converge towards the plasma membrane. Interestingly, CurT relocalized to the plasma membrane under salt and osmotic stress. Consistent with a potential role of this protein during stress response, the curT- mutant exhibited a high sensitivity towards both high exogenous salt and osmotic concentrations. This study demonstrates that curT- is still able to accumulate compatible solutes in amounts and dynamics similar to wild-type cells. In conclusion, accumulation of compatible solutes is not sufficient to provide protection from osmotic stress. Moreover, CurT-dependent membrane stabilization appears to be required to enable cells to resist high levels of osmotic stress.


Integrated hygienic ration value of organized and nonorganized nutrition of miners has been carried out. It's demonstrated that the structure of nutrition of miners doesn't provide the observing of principles of balance and energetic adequacy and is characterized by marked deficiency of food additives. Irrational subterranean nutrition doesn't provide the miners with elementary protection from harmful agents of industrial environment.


The operation of free-electron lasers (FEL's) with axial electron beams and high-power electromagnetic wiggler fields such as those produced by high-power gyrotrons is discussed. The use of short wavelength electromagnetic wigglers in waveguides and resonant cavities can significantly reduce required electron beam voltages, resulting in compact FEL's. Gain calculations in the lowand high-gain Compton regime are presented, including the effects of emittance, transverse wiggler gradient, and electron temperature. Optimized scaling laws for the FEL gain and the required electromagnetic wiggler field power are discussed. Several possible configurations for FEL's with electromagnetic wigglers powered by millimeter wavelength gyrotrons are presented. Gyrotron powered wigglers appear promising for operation of compact FEL's in the infrared regime using moderate energy (< 10 MeV) electron beams.


CONTEXT
Adults with GH deficiency (GHD) have a decreased life expectancy. The effect of GH treatment on mortality remains to be established.

OBJECTIVE
This nationwide cohort study investigates the effect of GH treatment on all-cause and cause-specific mortality and analyzes patient characteristics influencing mortality in GHD adults.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS
Patients in the Dutch National Registry of Growth Hormone Treatment in Adults were retrospectively monitored (1985-2009) and subdivided into treatment (n = 2229), primary (untreated, n = 109), and secondary control (partly treated, n = 356) groups.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Standardized mortality ratios (SMR) were calculated for all-cause, malignancy, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality. Expected mortality was obtained from cause, sex, calendar year, and age-specific death rates from national death and population counts.

RESULTS
In the treatment group, 95 patients died compared to 74.6 expected [SMR 1.27 (95% confidence interval, 1.04-1.56)]. Mortality was higher in women than in men. After exclusion of high-risk patients, the SMR for CVD mortality remained increased in women. Mortality due to malignancies was not elevated. In the control groups mortality was not different from the background population. Univariate analyses demonstrated sex, GHD onset, age, and underlying diagnosis as influencing factors.

CONCLUSIONS
GHD men receiving GH treatment have a mortality rate not different from the background population. In women, after exclusion of high-risk patients, mortality was not different from the background population except for CVD. Mortality due to malignancies was not elevated in adults receiving GH treatment. Next to gender, the heterogeneous etiology is of influence on mortality in GHD adults with GH treatment.


This paper addresses the international activities of young companies in the emerging marine energy industry. Our study is constructed based on interviews with eight companies combined with scientific reports and publications. The primary challenges faced by the companies are related to financing and technology development. Our findings indicate that the companies may be divided into three groups: a) three technology- and funding-driven international ventures; b) one market-driven international venture; c) four companies with limited international involvement. The short time span between establishment and the first major international activity initiated to acquire funding or technology competence is a distinct characteristic of the firms in the first two groups. The last group with no or limited international activity reveals an alternative path. Our study provides insights on significant firm-level differences with respect to international involvement in the pre-commercial phases of development and discusses the implications for researchers, managers and public policy.


304 Background: Five-year results from the CHHiP trial indicated that moderate hypofractionation of 60 Gray (Gy)/20 fractions (f) was non-inferior to 74Gy/37f (Lancet Oncology, 2016). Reporting of long-term efficacy and side effects is essential in a patient population that remain at risk of recurrence years after treatment. Here we report specific co-morbidity data collected at 10 years and an update of efficacy. Methods: Between October 2002 and June 2011, 3216 men with node negative T1b-T3a localised prostate cancer with risk of seminal vesical involvement ≤30% were randomised (1:1:1 ratio) to 74Gy/37f (control), 60Gy/20f or 57Gy/19f. Patients received 3-6 months of androgen deprivation prior to radiotherapy. The primary endpoint was time to biochemical failure (Phoenix consensus guidelines) or clinical failure (BCF). The non-inferiority design specified a critical hazard ratio (HR) of 1.208 for each hypofractionated schedule compared to control. Data on specific radiotherapy related co-morbidities were collected at 10-year follow-up and are presented as frequency and percentages. Analysis was by intention-to-treat; HRs quoted are unadjusted. Results: With a median follow up of 12.1 years, 10-year BCF-free rates (95% CI) were 74Gy: 76.0% (73.1%, 78.6%); 60Gy: 79.8% (77.1%, 82.3%) and 57Gy: 73.4% (70.5%, 76.1%). For 60Gy/20f, non-inferiority was confirmed: HR60=0.84 (90% CI 0.72, 0.97) with borderline significance for superiority (HR=0.84 (95% CI 0.70, 1.00). As in the primary analysis, for 57Gy/19f, non-inferiority could not be declared: HR57=1.13 (90% CI 0.98, 1.30). 10-year overall survival (95% CI) was 78.5% (75.9%, 81.0%), 82.9% (80.4%, 85.0%) and 79.9% (77.3%, 82.2%) in the 74Gy, 60Gy and 57Gy groups. Bone fractures were reported in 2% (15/700), 2% (19/771) and 3% (22/719) of patients in the 74Gy, 60Gy and 57Gy groups respectively at 10 years. The most common intervention reported was a sigmoidoscopy with 12% (79/681), 8% (60/739) and 9% (65/702) in the 74Gy, 60Gy and 57Gy groups respectively. Of those patients who underwent a sigmoidoscopy it was due to symptoms for 81% (63/78) 81% (48/59) and 85% (55/65) of patients in the 74Gy, 60Gy and 57Gy group respectively. Frequencies of all other pre-specified co-morbidities or related interventions (ureteric obstruction, bowel strictures, trans-urethral resection of prostate, urethrotomy, urethral dilatation or long term catheterisation or treatment of proctopathy with steroid, sucralfate, formalin, laser coagulation or rectal diversion) were <1% in all groups. Conclusions: With a median follow-up of 12 years, oncological outcomes following 60Gy/20f continue to be non-inferior to those with 74Gy/37f. Late co-morbidities were very low across all treatment groups. These data support the long-term safety of moderate hypofractionation. Clinical trial information: 97182923 .


Space resources activities are currently the objective of a thriving, cross-disciplinary, global effort aimed at assessing their role and potential in the future of humankind. New, innovative mission concepts, legal frameworks, and advanced technologies are being actively developed and proposed with the final goal of enabling profitable and efficient space resource utilization. The immediate location for these impacts is the Moon. In sight of this bright cohort of imminent perspectives, it's imperative for the global community to properly assess the potential effects and consequences of the forthcoming space resources activities, with the goal of including sustainability in the foundations of the ongoing progress and ensuring its enforcement in every future endeavour. Within this context, this paper addresses the topics of Moon mining waste management and a lunar circular economy as key issues in the sustainable utilization of space resources. The most promising technologies are considered for lunar resources extraction and processing with special focus on water correlating their waste generation potential to the scale of the efforts implemented and to the projected availability of the resources of interest. Importance is also given to the corollary activities of space mining such as logistics and transport operations for their implications in waste management. Protocols and technologies with the lower waste generation potential are identified and further scenarios are elaborated for waste handling, reduction, reuse, and recycle, as well as end-of-life strategies for mining plants. This report's recommendations are proposed for the development of incremental regulation for waste management, including but not limited to the definition of common areas of non-interest for waste disposal and regulatory obligations for conducting impact assessments before the establishment of mining activities. Please note that the present abstract is submitted under the auspices of the Space Generation Advisory Council, as part of the activities of the Space Exploration Project Group.


The production of shape accurate forming dies in the toolmaking industry requires a high degree of manual labour. To achieve a higher level of automation, machine-based approaches are necessary. Therefore, robot-based milling experiments of difficult-to-machine cold work steel 1.2379 are carried out. This paper presents an experimental study of different path strategies using an industrial robot to mill example geometries of a forming die. Starting with preliminary tests to determine the best possible process and machining parameters, a conventional machining process strategy follows as a reference. Based on the findings two different strategies are derived: additional tool inclination and the avoidance of circular movements that are eventually joined and regarded in combination. Four different path strategies are carried out to determine the influence on form deviation in a CNC-like multi-step material removal process. Results are analysed and discussed regarding geometric fidelity and cutting moments of the example geometries.


Elevated levels of cytokines have been found in affected joints of people suffering from osteoarthritis (OA) or rheumatoid arthritis. One of the cytokines that is found in these joints is Interleukin-6 (IL-6). IL-6 is a multifunctional cytokine that has both good and bad properties with regard to inflammation. In the present thesis the role of IL-6 and its family member Oncostatin M (OSM) in joint pathology was investigated in experimental models with wild-type and IL-6 deficient (IL-6-/-) mice. Old wild-type and IL-6-/- mice were compared for signs of spontaneous OA. Male, but not female, IL-6-/- mice developed significantly more OA than wild-type mice. Bone mineralization and proteoglycan production were reduced in IL-6-/- males. Together these data point at a positive role for IL-6 in preventing OA, at least in males. In different arthritis models, it was found that IL-6-/- mice develop an acute joint inflammation but this does not develop in chronic inflammation. Transfer of antigen-specific wild-type lymph node cells increased the acute inflammation but did not lead to chronicity in IL-6-/- mice. Similarly, IL-6-/- mice with irritant-induced zymosan-induced arthritis (ZIA) did not develop chronic inflammation. Together these models indicate an important role for IL-6 in propagation of joint inflammation, potentially independent of its role in immunity. Further research on the ZIA showed impaired activation of the transcription factors STAT1 and STAT3 in IL-6-/- mice. Exacerbation of ZIA in STAT1 deficient mice suggests that STAT1 and STAT3 play opposite roles in control and development of joint inflammation. The role of OSM in joint pathology was investigated by adenoviral over-expression of murine OSM. OSM induced joint inflammation, bone opposition, proteoglycan depletion and growth plate damage independent of IL-6, TNF-a or iNOS. Finally, an IL-6 promoter-based adenoviral system showed feasibility of disease-regulated transgene expression in the joint.


Title of dissertation: FROM STRUCTURE TO THERMODYNAMICS WITH LOCAL MOLECULAR FIELD THEORY Richard Charles Remsing III, Doctor of Philosophy, 2013 Dissertation directed by: Professor John D. Weeks Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Institute for Physical Science and Technology A fundamental goal of statistical mechanics is to connect a description of the intermolecular interactions and the accompanying microscopic structural details of a molecular system to its macroscopic thermodynamic properties. When the interactions between molecular components are treated with sufficient simplicity, as in an ideal gas or a hard sphere fluid for example, the link between structure and thermodynamics can be apparent. In contrast, when both local and non-local interactions are present in the system, competition between the various short and long ranged forces can lead to surprising thermodynamic behaviors as exemplified by the complexities of liquid water. Local molecular field (LMF) theory provides a physically motivated formalism for systematically decomposing the structure and thermodynamics of molecular systems into portions arising from local and non-local interactions. In this thesis, LMF theory is employed to examine the structure and thermodynamics of molecular systems, with a focus on aqueous solutions. LMF-motivated truncations of classical water models are first developed as analysis tools to explore the roles of the local hydrogen bond network, dispersion interactions, and long ranged multipolar interactions in the determination of several anomalous thermodynamic properties of bulk water. This type of analysis is then extended to the study the relative importance of hydrogen bonding and interfacial unbalancing potentials in hydrophobic effects. The underlying ideas of LMF theory are then utilized to study local and non-local interactions in ion solvation. Modifications to classical dielectric continuum theories are explored with a focus on determining the electrostatic potentials inside ionic cores. LMF ideas are then used to develop the concept of a Gaussian test charge. We then argue that this type of test charge is the appropriate generalization of a classical point test charge to probe the dielectric response of molecularly detailed systems and develop an accurate formalism for the description of the dielectric response to such probes. Finally, a LMF theoretic foundation for performing free energy calculations is developed and tested before concluding the thesis with a discussion of future work involving LMF theory. FROM STRUCTURE TO THERMODYNAMICS WITH LOCAL MOLECULAR FIELD THEORY


Two trials were carried out to evaluate the potential of Tephrosia bracteolata (TB), Tephrosia candida (TC) and Tephrosia linearis (TL) for animal feed. In an 18-week growth experiment, Tephrosia species differed (P <0.05) in leaf number (LN) and stem height (SH). TB and TL had apparent (P<0.05) early and persistent growth than TC until weeks 12 - 18 when all retarded in growth at the commencement of flowering. TC however, increased geometrically in LN and SH. There were significant (P<0.05) differences among the species in dry matter (DM) and acid detergent fibre (ADF). The DM, CP, NDF, ADF, EE and ash range from 30.0, 41.8, 24-26.5, 62.3–68.5, 45.8 - 48.4, 2.3-2.6 and 5.6-6.2% respectively. Calcium and sodium were highest (P<0.05) in TB and TL. species but had similar composition in P, Mg and K. In the second trial, dry matter disappearance and CP release were determined. The Tephrosia species were not significantly (P>0.05) different in degradation characteristics. Lower amounts of crude protein (10-14.81%) was released in the three Tephrosia species. As a result of rapid growth, high nutritive value and easily rumen degradable dry matter of Tephrosia shrubs, ruminants could benefit immensely from the plants.


Introduction Autogenous vein is the best replacement for injured arteries distal to the groin or clavicle when primary anastomosis cannot be accomplished without excessive tension or sacrifice of collaterals. Our experience with 18 cases illustrates some of the problems and the factors essential for success. Material Eighteen consecutive vein grafts by the authors or their residents are reported in Table 1. Five of these cases have been previously reported. 2,3 During the same period, 139 other arterial injuries in the same hospitals were repaired by primary end-to-end anastomoses, or other techniques, and were the subject of previous reports. 2,3,9-11 Vein grafts were performed in these cases because primary anastomosis of the debrided ends of the artery was not feasible without excessive tension. Indeed, vein grafts were needed in four of these cases because primary anastomoses had thrombosed or disrupted (Table 1, cases 5, 6, 15, and 17). The vein grafts


Climate change has brought the global environmental crisis to its crux. The primary point that must be noted is that the pace of climate change is accelerating much more rapidly than had been forecast. Accumulation of carbon dioxide, rising temperatures, melting of the polar ice caps and of the "eternal snows," droughts, floods: all are speeding up and previous scientific analyses, the ink scarcely dry, turn out to have been too optimistic. More and more, in projections for the next one, two, or three decades, the highest estimates are becoming accepted minima. And to that must be added the all-too-little-studied amplifying factors that today pose the risk of a qualitative leap in the greenhouse effect leading to runaway global warming. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.


Weighted voting is a conventional approach to improving the performance of replicated systems based on commonly-used majority quorum systems in heterogeneous environments. In long-lived systems, a weight reassignment protocol is required to reassign weights over time in order to accommodate performance variations accordingly. The weight reassignment protocol should be consensus-free in asynchronous failure-prone systems because of the impossibility of solving consensus in such systems. This paper presents an efficient consensus-free weight reassignment protocol for atomic storage systems in heterogeneous, dynamic, and asynchronous messagepassing systems. An experimental evaluation shows that the proposed protocol improves the performance of atomic read/write storage implemented by majority quorum systems compared with previous solutions.


In Malaysia, the indirect tax environment is evolving fast, and the risk has never been higher. The public perception of Sales and Service Tax (SST) as a business cost aggravates the increase in essential needs prices. Hence, the heavy burden on Malaysians' income, which ultimately constitutes a big worry and outcry, makes the study relevant. The study investigates the relationship between selected causes of equity and fairness (tax fairness), certainty (tax burden), accountability to taxpayers, tax knowledge, and public acceptance of SST implementation in Malaysia. Data were collected through a structured survey among the public in Klang Valley. Respondents were chosen randomly from various locations in public and private sector organizations. A total of 177 out of the 228 completed and received questionnaires are found suitable for further analysis. The study adopts the SmartPLS version 3.3.2 statistical analysis tool to test the four hypotheses formulated. The study results reveal tax fairness, tax burden, and government accountability are significant and positively relate to public acceptance of SST implementation in Malaysia. This further buttressed that tax fairness, tax burden, and government accountability are critical for public acceptance of SST implementation because of their economic implications. In contrast, tax knowledge is not significant and negatively relates to public acceptance of SST implementation. The effect indicates that tax knowledge is not an essential factor as far as public acceptance of SST implementation is concerned in Malaysia.


To improve the efficiencies of electronic devices, materials with variable work functions are required to decrease the energy level differences at the interfaces between working layers. Here, we report a method to obtain silver nanoparticles with tunable work functions, which have the same silver core of 5 nm in diameter and are capped by myristates and 1-octanethoilates self-assembled monolayers, respectively. The silver nanoparticles capped by organic molecules can form a uniform two-dimensional sheet at air-water interface, and the sheet can be transferred on various hydrophobic substrates. The surface potential of the two-dimensional nanoparticle sheet was measured in terms of Kelvin probe force microscopy, and the work function of the sheet was then calculated from the surface potential value by comparing with a reference material. The exchange of the capping molecules results in a work function change of approximately 150–250 meV without affecting their hydrophobicity. We systematically discussed the origin of the work function difference and found it should come mainly from the anchor groups of the ligand molecules. The organic molecule capped nanoparticles with tunable work functions have a potential for the applications in organic electronic devices.


This chapter looks at how intensive interviewing and observing can affect 'Ways of Seeing', using sculpture, film-making and psychoanalysis to create a three-way conversation. This conversation first took place at the Tavistock Clinic in November 2016 after a showing of the film, Inside Australia, chaired by Irma Pick, Distinguished Fellow of the British Psychoanalytic Society and a child and adult psychoanalyst. 'Why do Human Beings Make Art?' was the question then and the conversation continues here. Antony Gormley's sculptures located in the middle of Australia, on a dry lake, filmed also with interviews with the protagonists by the anthropologist Hugh Brody, form the bedrock of the conversation: time and place are registered in human memory, which is as significant as the geological conditions. The human population that lives on this land also has deep memory. The revelation of their dream time divination or projection onto this, to us, relatively barren, landscape turned it into something very different from a 'blank canvas' but rich with a myriad of magical and numinous events, which lie at the heart of this continuing conversation.


ABSTRACT This research was aimed to determine the effects of plant regulators such as gibberellic acid (GA3), aminoethoxyvinylglycine (AVG), and choline chloride (CC) on the nutrient components in the fruit of 'Monroe' peach under Isparta in Turkey ecological condition. AVG at doses of 0, 100, 150 and 200 ppm, GA3 at doses of 0, 100, 200, 300 ppm and CC at doses of 0, 1000, 2000, 3000 pmm was sprayed on the peaches 7, 21 and 30 days before commercial harvests. All concentrations of AVG treatments were found to increase the amount of nitrogen in fruits. In general, it was observed that CC and GA3 applications reduced the amount of calcium in fruits, however, AVG applications were found to not be effective. In the first year, the statistically significant of AVG treatments was seen on magnesium content only. It was determined in our study that AVG and CC treatments reduced copper content in peach fruits, all applications decreased the amount of manganese, 100 ppm AVG application increased the element zinc, and all of CC applications minimized the amount of that element.


This paper contains an exposition of the method of programming with verification conditions. Although this method has much in common with the one discussed by Dijkstra in A Disciplne of Programming, it is shown to have the advantage in simplicity and flexibility. The simplicity is the result of the method's being directly based on Floyd's inductive assertions The method is flexible becasue of the way in which the program is constructed in two stages. In the first stage, a set of verification conditions is collected which corresponds to a program in "flowgraph" form. In this stage sequencing control is of no concern to the progmmer. Control is introduced in the second stage, which consists of automatable applications of translation and optimization rules, resulting in conventional code. Although our method has no use for the sequencing primitives of "structured programming," it is highly secure and systematic.


This paper examines the evidence on child mortality in Iraq, with particular reference to the period 1991-2003. It questions recent work which has suggested that excess mortality in the years that followed the first Gulf war was only relatively modest in scale. An integrated account of child mortality trends is assembled. This indicates that mortality rose sharply in the early 1990s. It is likely that the United Nations Oil for Food Programme had a limited beneficial effect during 1998-2001, but this was lost in 2002 and 2003 with the build-up to war and the subsequent US/UK invasion. The dominant picture is one of greatly elevated mortality between 1991 and 2003, with very many excess child deaths.


Dynamic voltage selection and adaptive body biasing have been shown to reduce dynamic and leakage power consumption effectively. In this paper, we optimally solve the combined supply voltage and body bias selection problem for multiprocessor systems with imposed time constraints, explicitly taking into account the transition overheads implied by changing voltage levels. Both energy and time overheads are considered. The voltage selection technique achieves energy efficiency by simultaneously scaling the supply and body bias voltages in the case of processors and buses with repeaters, while energy efficiency on fat wires is achieved through dynamic voltage swing scaling. We investigate the continuous voltage selection as well as its discrete counterpart, and we prove strong NP-hardness in the discrete case. Furthermore, the continuous voltage selection problem is solved using nonlinear programming with polynomial time complexity, while for the discrete problem, we use mixed integer linear programming and a polynomial time heuristic. We propose an approach that combines voltage selection and processor shutdown in order to optimize the total energy


DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs) 1, 3a, and 3b affect DNA promoter methylation; studies have suggested that they have important roles in the development of cancers. In this study, we analyzed the expression of DNMTs 1, 3a, and 3b; the MIB-1 labeling index; and their clinical significance in 6 normal retinas and 62 retinoblastomas using immunohistochemical analysis. We found that DNMT proteins were not expressed in normal retinas, whereas they were frequently expressed in retinoblastomas (DNMT1, 100%; DNMT3a, 98%; and DNMT3b, 92%). Compared with well-differentiated retinoblastomas, the expression of DNMTs 1 and 3a significantly increased in poorly differentiated retinoblastomas (P = .002 and P = .003, respectively); in addition, the frequency of their increased expression was high. DNMT1 expression was significantly higher in invasive retinoblastoma. Furthermore, the expression of DNMTs was positively correlated with the MIB-1 labeling index in retinoblastoma. Our findings suggest that the overexpression of DNMTs 1, 3a, and 3b may be related to retinoblastoma tumorigenesis and progression and may represent a novel approach for retinoblastoma therapy.


Abstract Colleges of veterinary medicine are often asked to provide evidence of the economic impacts of their activities. This paper presents methods for evaluating a veterinary college and applies them to the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine. It assesses short-run impacts on income and employment using input-output analysis. Long-run benefits are estimated using a combination of economic surplus analysis, travel cost analysis and demand estimation, animal-owner willingness-to-pay based on a survey of practicing veterinarians, and earnings differentials.


Foaming and gelation of slurry is a recently invented processing route for fabricating porous ceramic. According to the method, a mechanical stir process was introduced to the ceramic slurry added with surfactant, then initiator was added to induce fast gelation between organic monomers and ceramic powder, the green body was obtained after a subsequently drying process. At last, porous ceramic was fabricated after sintering the green body at high temperature. Effects of surfactant volume content and several stirring factors on porosity are studied in this paper. It results that there is a proportional relationship between porosity and Reynolds number which only changes when stir time varies, different slurry or surfactant volume content results in similar relationship between porosity and Reynolds number.


Background Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic disease caused by the an obligatory intracellular protozoan Toxoplasma gondii, which is widely distributed around the world . Infection is acquired by ingestion of viable tissue cysts in meat or Oocytes excreted by cats that contaminate food or water. Congenital transmission may occur when an uninfected mother acquired primary infection during pregnancy. The aim of this study was to determine the seroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii among pregnant women in Tikrit city-Salahaldeen Province. Pateints & Methods: Blood samples from 290 pregnant women were collected. Samples were collected during the period from October 2010 to July 2011. Serum was separated and tested for T. gondii IgG and IgM antibodies using a chromatographic immunoassay. The Results The seroprevalence of IgG antibodies to T. gondii was 30% while IgM was 20.68%. The seroprevalence of T. gondii increased with age, the highest IgG and IgM were among participants aged (36 – 45) years 40.74% and 30.55% respectively. The analysis showed that the seroprevalence of Toxoplasmosis is positivity correlated with the age, pregnancy trimester and the occupational of the women The conclusion of this study the women in their 1st trimester of pregnancy were significantly at high level of infection with T. gondii 32.08% and 22.44% of IgG and IgM respectively, while in the 2nd trimester showed the same result to some extent for IgG 32.25%, but showed low rate for IgM 9.67% in the same trimester while no recorded any infection in 3rd trimester in the study.


Inoculation of Nicotiana benthamiana leaves with virulent and avirulent strains of Pseudomonas syringae pv. tabaci resulted in increasing changes in Fv/Fm, and NPQ over time. Images of these chlorophyll a fluorescence measurements revealed different changes in different zones of the leaf. For the virulent strain, the infiltrated zone and zone directly surrounding it showed decreased Fv/Fm, and NPQ before the appearance of visible symptoms, and these decreases corresponded with increasing bacterial populations and putative tabtoxin activity. Another distinct zone of reduced Fv/Fm and NPQ extended several centimetres from the lesion to the nearest leaf margin, but only very low bacterial populations and no putative tabtoxin activity were detected in this zone. For the avirulent strain, a hypersensitive response occurred, bacterial populations remained low, and there was little detectable putative tabtoxin activity. Decreased Fv/Fm and NPQ, but not , were observed in the infiltrated zone prior to the hypersensitive response, followed by decreased values in a zone directly surrounding it. Following that, no further changes were observed. These results demonstrate that in addition to detecting pre-symptomatic impacts of bacteria, chlorophyll a fluorescence imaging can also show that there are highly distinct regions of affected tissue that can extend considerably beyond the area of bacterial colonization. This should be considered in selecting leaf tissues for examining the effects of pathogens on plants, such as altered host gene expression or protein levels.


Data-Efficient GANs (DE-GANs), which aim to learn generative models with a limited amount of training data, encounter several challenges for generating high-quality samples. Since data augmentation strategies have largely alleviated the training instability, how to further improve the generative performance of DE-GANs becomes a hotspot. Recently, contrastive learning has shown the great potential of increasing the synthesis quality of DE-GANs, yet related principles are not well explored. In this paper, we revisit and compare different contrastive learning strategies in DE-GANs, and identify (i) the current bottleneck of generative performance is the discontinuity of latent space; (ii) compared to other contrastive learning strategies, Instance-perturbation works towards latent space continuity, which brings the major improvement to DE-GANs. Based on these observations, we propose FakeCLR, which only applies contrastive learning on perturbed fake samples, and devises three related training techniques: Noise-related Latent Augmentation, Diversity-aware Queue, and Forgetting Factor of Queue. Our experimental results manifest the new state of the arts on both few-shot generation and limited-data generation. On multiple datasets, FakeCLR acquires more than 15% FID improvement compared to existing DE-GANs. Code is available at https://github.com/iceli1007/FakeCLR.


The Influenza Virus Resource and other Virus Variation Resources at NCBI provide enhanced visualization web tools for exploratory analysis for influenza sequence data. Despite the improvements in data analysis, the initial data retrieval remains unsophisticated, frequently producing huge and imbalanced datasets due to the large number of identical and nearly-identical sequences in the database. We propose a data mining algorithm to organize reported sequences into groups based on their relatedness to the query sequence and to each other. The algorithm uses BLAST to find database sequences related to the query. Neighbor lists precalculated from pairwise BLAST alignments between database sequences are used to organize results in groups of nearly-identical and strongly related sequences. We propose to use a non-symmetric dissimilarity measure well crafted for dealing with sequences of different length (fragments). A balanced and representative data set produced by this tool can be used for further analysis, i.e. multiple sequence alignment and phylogenetic trees. The algorithm is implemented for protein coding sequences and is being integrated with the NCBI Influenza Virus Resource.


As a fundamental problem of natural language processing, it is important to measure the distance between different documents. Among the existing methods, the Word Mover's Distance (WMD) has shown remarkable success in document semantic matching for its clear physical insight as a parameter-free model. However, WMD is essentially based on the classical Wasserstein metric, thus it often fails to robustly represent the semantic similarity between texts of different lengths. In this paper, we apply the newly developed Wasserstein-Fisher-Rao (WFR) metric from unbalanced optimal transport theory to measure the distance between different documents. The proposed WFR document distance maintains the great interpretability and simplicity as WMD. We demonstrate that the WFR document distance has significant advantages when comparing the texts of different lengths. In addition, an accelerated Sinkhorn based algorithm with GPU implementation has been developed for the fast computation of WFR distances. The KNN classification results on eight datasets have shown its clear improvement over WMD.


: This literature review critically examines machine learning algorithms' role in predicting consumer buying behaviors, such as product recommendations, customer segmentation, fraud detection, churn prediction, demand forecasting, and pricing optimization. Despite substantial progress in these areas, a glaring gap exists in the research concerning impulse buying—a global phenomenon reported by 71% of consumers across 27 countries in a 2020 IBM study. In France and the United States, regret and financial consequences of impulse buying are notable, affecting 47% of French individuals aged 18-34 and accounting for an average monthly spending of $314 in the U.S. as of 2022. The existing literature on impulse buying has undergone significant shifts over seven decades, incorporating psychological and environmental triggers to understand the behavior better. However, most studies veer toward prescriptive models that, paradoxically, might fuel further impulse buying. The need for analytical models is especially acute. These models offer a counterpoint to prescriptive approaches by focusing on understanding the determinants of impulse buying without necessarily promoting it. As such, they could provide critical insights that benefit both consumers, by enhancing their awareness of impulse buying's post-purchase impact, and vendors, who may need to re-evaluate the long-term profitability of revenue generated from such buying behaviors. This review emphatically underscores the imperative for dedicated research to fill this analytical void, leveraging machine learning for a more nuanced understanding and predicting of impulse buying, or more practically, Online impulse buying.


The aim of this article is twofold: to demonstrate the actuarial imbalance in the Spanish pension system in its current form; and to measure the degree of aggregate economic risk to which pensioners are exposed when applying formulas for the calculation of retirement pensions based on notional accounts. The model used generates scenarios for various periods encompassing some 10,000 different permutations of the macroeconomic indices needed to calculate such parameters as initial pension, earnings replacement rate, or internal rate of return and value at risk. The findings are analysed both objectively and subjectively. The main conclusions are that if the projections for the macroeconomic indices used bear only a minimal resemblance to reality, the pension system will accumulate further financial imbalance in the future that will force it either to reduce initial pensions considerably or to make some radical adjustments to the parameters. In terms of risk, for beneficiaries with high risk aversion the preferred formulas would be those based on future variations in wages with a constant pension amount in real terms; on the other hand, those less averse to risk would prefer formulas that generate a smaller initial pension but one which grows in real terms with subsequent changes in wage levels.


Policy-makers are developing regulation mechanisms to drive down carbon emis- sions resulting from among others transport. We investigate what the effect of two regulation mechanisms is on the transport mode selection decision. We analyze the situation in which a single transport mode is to be selected by a decision-maker to conduct all transport (for one item). A faster transport mode typically results in lower inventory (or a higher service) at the cost of higher emissions and transport costs. We consider two possible emission regulation alternatives: an emission cost and an emission constraint. We use an accurate calculation method to determine the carbon emissions and incorporate them explicitly in our model. Our results show that the emission cost is only a small part of the total cost and we conclude that introducing an emission cost for freight transport via a direct emission tax or a market mechanism such as cap and trade are not likely to result in significant changes in transport modes and hence will not result in a large reduction of emis- sions. If policy-makers aim to reduce carbon emissions by a large fraction, they should implement a constraint on freight transport emissions.


In this article the author discusses the implications the financial crisis and recession have had and will have on the market for senior life settlements. At first glance the financial crisis should actually spur the growth of the market in senior life settlements. This is because on the supply side of the market significant amounts of wealth of senior citizens have been lost in the stock, bond, and real estate markets. On the other hand, factors on the demand side of the market have reduced the offered prices for life insurance policies. Interestingly, the most dramatic event that impacted the life settlements market as the financial markets entered the crisis stage in the autumn of 2008, was the decision by the directors of 21st Services to revise their mortality tables. The author concludes that the element that creates a sustainable market in life settlements is the increased transparency of pricing on both sides of the market.


Methodology DTU Orbit (24/09/2019) Design of a Tank Cleaning Blend through a Systematic Emulsified Product Design Methodology Commercial and industrial detergents, formulated liquid blends, have recently become extremely sophisticated, in order to address a broad range of cleaning tasks and to deliver superior performances with a minimum of effort and time. These pr oducts, by definition, consist of different chemicals, each with a specific function related to the needs of the product: surfac tants, builders, bleaching agents, enzymes and minors, usually mixed together with a carrier, necessary to keep the blend as a homogeneous liquid formulation. A system approach and associated tools can help to virtually generate and test different candidates in order to identify the most promising formulations before a detailed experimental stage for final selection and product development is applied. In this way, the whole design procedure speeds up, saving time and money, and the optimum formulation is identified, since a broad range of alternatives are investigated. The approach adopted for t he design of emulsion-based chemical products consists in a systematic modelbased methodology employing seven hierarchical steps: starting with the identification of the product needs and their trans lation into appropriate target properties, then building the formulation by adding, one-byone, the different classes of chemicals needed for each function: from the active ingredients, to the solvents, the emulsifier s and the additives, and finally determining the optimal composition of the formulated product. The design of the ingredient s, driven by selection criteria based on the functional properties of each category of chemicals as well as by consideration of effectiveness, safety, toxicity and cost, is done through a datamodel based computer aided molecular design technique. When a model-based design is not applicable since the functional properties needed to perform a rigorous choice are not readily available for consideration in a product design methodology, rulebased selection criteria are applied. These are centered on structured databases, where some relevant properties (e.g. saf ety or toxicityrelated), if not available,are predicted through dedicated pure component property models. Once all the most advantageou s ingredients have been chosen, the recipe candidates are identified through a knowledgebased mixture design method, where economic considerations are included together with appropriate boundaries related to solubility, stability, toxicity and safety issues. A special database of chemicals, classified according to their function and associated properties, has been developed. Also, a model library cons isting of pure component and mixture property models has been developed so that the needed functional properties can b e reliably predicted when their data cannot be found in the database. The abovementioned methodology and related tools are generic, in the sense that many different emulsified products can be designed through this framework once the needsproperty relations are established, and they are here highlighted through a case-study dealing with the design of a tank cleaning blend. The main focus of this contribution is on the design of surfactants,primary responsible for the cleaning acti vity, thanks to a comprehensive framework based on newly developed both pure component and mixture property models. The workflow methodology with associated models, tools, databases and algorithms will be implemented into a computeraided framework for emulsion-based formulation design.


The Modified Local Green's Function Method (MLGFM) is an integral method which uses appropriately chosen Green's function projections obtained numerically with the aid of auxiliary finite element problems. Its applicability includes those cases for which a fundamental solution does not exist or is very cumbersome. The MLGFM was studied intensely in the 90´s with promising results, especially for tractions and heat fluxes at the boundaries. The present contribution compares this method for heat flux evaluation in anisotropic media with finite volumes and finite elements. The latter approximates heat fluxes using a superconvergent patch recovery scheme, whereas the former computes flux quantities directly at nodes. The numerical example uses linear elements and includes non-homogeneous temperature and flux boundary conditions.


An automated ice-mapping algorithm has been developed and evaluated using data from the GOES-13 imager. The approach includes cloud-free image compositing as well as image classification using spectral criteria. The algorithm uses an alternative snow index to the Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI). The GOES-13 imager does not have a 1.6 µm band, a requirement for NDSI; however, the newly proposed Mid-Infrared Sea and Lake Ice Index (MISI) incorporates the reflective component of the 3.9 µm or mid-infrared (MIR) band, which the GOES-13 imager does operate. Incorporating MISI into a sea or lake ice mapping algorithm allows for mapping of thin or broken ice with no snow cover (nilas, frazil ice) and thicker ice with snow cover to a degree of confidence that is comparable to other ice mapping products. The proposed index has been applied over the Great Lakes region and qualitatively compared to the Interactive Multi-sensor Snow and Ice Mapping System (IMS), the National Ice Center ice concentration maps and MODIS snow cover products. The application of MISI may open additional possibilities in climate research using historical GOES imagery. Furthermore, MISI may be used in addition to the current NDSI in ice identification to build more robust ice-mapping algorithms for the next generation GOES satellites.


This study investigates social media dependency relations among Chinese college students during their three-month study abroad sojourn in the United States. Data were collected using a multimethod approach of ethnography, field observation, and in-depth interviews. Inspired by the lens of media system dependency (MSD) theory, the analysis focuses on the diverse goals and motivations that drive student behavior in social media engagement, as well as various contextual factors leading students to adapt and transition to the U.S. social networking sites (SNS), and the subsequent outcomes. The findings indicate that task-driven and assignment-centered goals dominate social media use, and that multidimensional aspects of interaction pervade student engagement with different social networking applications. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in light of the overall findings.


Syngeneic pancreatic islet grafts in diabetic NOD mice are infiltrated by mononuclear leukocytes, beta-cells are selectively destroyed, and autoimmune diabetes recurs. This model was used to identify islet graft-infiltrating mononuclear leukocytes associated with beta-cell destruction and diabetes recurrence. We compared cell surface antigen and cytokine-producing phenotypes of mononuclear leukocytes in islet grafts from NOD mice that were protected from diabetes recurrence by complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA) administration (beta-cell nondestructive insulitis) and in islet grafts from control phosphate-buffered saline (PBS)-injected NOD mice (beta-cell destructive insulitis). Islet grafts from CFA-injected mice contained fewer CD4+ and CD8+ cells and more B cells; also fewer interferon gamma (IFN-gamma), interleukin-2 (IL-2), and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha)-positive cells and more IL-4 and IL-10 positive cells. By performing two-color immunostaining of cell surface antigens and intracellular IFN-gamma, we found that IFN-gamma positive cells in islet grafts from CFA- and PBS-injected mice were approximately equally divided between CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell subsets. Also, the frequencies of both CD4+ IFN-gamma + and CD8+ IFN-gamma + cells were decreased in islet grafts from CFA-injected mice. These findings suggest that destruction of beta-cells in syngeneic islets transplanted into NOD mice is promoted by cells producing Th1-type cytokines (IFN-gamma, IL-2, and TNF-alpha) and prevented by cells producing TH2-type cytokines (IL-4 and IL-10). Furthermore, both CD4+ and CD8+ IFN-gamma-producing T-cells in the islet grafts appear to be involved in beta-cell destruction and diabetes recurrence.


Objective: Several studies indicate a potential link between orthostatic hypotension (OH) and incident dementia, but without substantial evidence to date. Objective: to study the association between OH and dementia in a cohort of elderly individuals. Figure. No caption available. Design and method: Baseline lying and standing blood pressure measurements were taken from 7425 subjects in the 3C study. These subjects were then followed-up over 12 years. Cox proportional hazard models, adjusted for potential confounders, were used to estimate the risk of incident dementia according to OH status. Sensitivity analysis was performed using the so-called illness-death model, a specific statistical method. Results: OH frequency was found to be around 13%, and 760 cases of dementia were diagnosed during follow-up. We observed significant association between the presence of OH at baseline and the occurrence of dementia during the follow-up, with an increased risk of at least 25% observed regardless of the OH threshold and the statistical method used. Conclusions: There is an association between OH and dementia. Considering that OH is a common condition and is easy to measure, OH measurements could help to identify subjects with higher risk of dementia. Moreover, reducing OH could be a step to prevent conversion to dementia.


Despite well-documented promises of peer assessment, it is still unclear how peer assessment works and what contributes to students' learning gains. In order to identify cognitive processes that lead to learning enhancement, this study examined 41 students' responses to online surveys and also their online written interactions when they participated in a peer assessment activity. Data analysis revealed that students were engaged in various learning processes in the phases of giving and receiving feedback. While students acknowledged that both phases contributed to their learning, a greater number of students indicated that they perceived more learning benefits from giving feedback rather than receiving feedback. Interpretations and implications were discussed.


We investigate statistical properties of a likelihood approach to nonparametric estimation of a singular distribution using deep generative models. More specifically, a deep generative model is used to model high-dimensional data that are assumed to concentrate around some low-dimensional structure. Estimating the distribution supported on this low-dimensional structure, such as a low-dimensional manifold, is challenging due to its singularity with respect to the Lebesgue measure in the ambient space. In the considered model, a usual likelihood approach can fail to estimate the target distribution consistently due to the singularity. We prove that a novel and effective solution exists by perturbing the data with an instance noise, which leads to consistent estimation of the underlying distribution with desirable convergence rates. We also characterize the class of distributions that can be efficiently estimated via deep generative models. This class is sufficiently general to contain various structured distributions such as product distributions, classically smooth distributions and distributions supported on a low-dimensional manifold. Our analysis provides some insights on how deep generative models can avoid the curse of dimensionality for nonparametric distribution estimation. We conduct a thorough simulation study and real data analysis to empirically demonstrate that the proposed data perturbation technique improves the estimation performance significantly.


In an initial exploratory exercise, simple fixed proportion MP control rules are applied using composite abundance indices for the East and West areas, where these composites take weighted averages over standardised values of the agreed indices and are then averaged over the last three years for which they would be available. These candidate MPs (CMPs), which also impose a 20% cap on biennial TAC changes, show ready ability to achieve median depletion close to the MSY spawning biomass for each stock within a 30-year projection period for a number of members of the Reference Set of Operating Models (OMs). Two insights from the analyses are first that discussion is needed regarding the most appropriate statistic to use to measure resource depletion in circumstances where some OMs allow for changes in stock recruitment relationships at some time during the projection period considered. The second is that resource depletion can at times be too great for the OM for which the historical abundance of the East stock shows a large increase over recent years. Typical TAC changes are also greater than desirable for adequate stability from an industrial viewpoint. Suggestions are made for further work towards improving MP performances in these respects.


plays. Meeting afriend in a corridor, Wittgenstein said: "Tell me, why do people always say it was natural for men to assume that the sun went round the earth rather than that the earth was rotating?" His friend said, "Well, obviously, because it just looks as if the sun is going round the earth." To which the philosopher replied, "Well, what would it have looked like if it had looked as if the earth was rotating?" Stoppard, Jumpers


Background: Approximately one-third of people suffering from multiple sclerosis (MS) need long-term care by their families, however, we know little of their experiences. Exploring these experiences can be a guideline to improve the quality of care for MS patients. The goal of this study is to explore informal caregivers' experiences regarding care of MS patients.Materials and Methods: A qualitative content analysis method was used to conduct this study in 2014. The study participants were 23 informal caregivers of MS patients who were chosen by purposeful sampling from the MS association of Iran. Data was analyzed by content analysis.Results: The analysis resulted in the emergence of six themes and seventeen subthemes. The main themes were being plagued, mental health damage, being captive among obstacles, perception of the affected family, being an emotional supporter, and need to maintain the functional independence of the patient. Conclusions: The findings represent the mean of long-term care by informal caregivers of MS patients, as well as the needs and challenges of this relationship. The findings can serve to create a framework for developing nursing care processes and planning educational sessions and support programs for MS patients and their informal caregivers.


The HIV epidemic has had a dramatic impact on the lives of individuals, families, and communities around the world. Originally identified in homosexual men, HIV increasingly affects others, including: (1) those who inject drugs, (2) non-injection drug users who engage in unsafe sex, and (3) non-drug using heterosexuals who engage in high-risk sexual behaviors. The need for effective HIV prevention interventions is critical. All too often interventions have lacked sound theoretical frameworks. However, some attempts have been made to ground HIV risk behavior interventions in behavior theories such as: (1) the health belief model, (2) cognitive social learning theory, (3) the theory of reasoned action, and (4) the transtheoretical model of behavior change (TMBC). This paper describes an HIV prevention intervention that was developed from the TMBC model. The TMBC model hypothesizes stages of change. In this study, injection drug users (IDUs), crack cocaine users (CCUs), and female sexual partners of IDUs and CCUs identified their stage of change and were given an intervention based upon their identified stage. Baseline and post intervention follow-up data were obtained on participants' perceived stage and reported HIV sexual risk behavior. The data indicated that there was little congruence between perceived stage and reported risk. In spite of this incongruence, significant decreases in HIV risk behaviors were evidenced.


Evacuators are key components of gun barrels, and their main function is to drain the gunpowder gas remaining in the gun bore from the muzzle by ejection. To design an efficient evacuator for the gun barrels, an optimization model with the mathematical expressions describing the working process of the evacuator was established. The four structural parameters that affect the efficiency of the evacuator, including the volume of the gas storage cylinder chamber, the distance of the nozzle from the muzzle end face, the cross-sectional area of the nozzles and the cross-sectional area of the valves, were optimized. The effective working time and reliability indicator of the optimized evacuator were improved. This work describes a framework for improving the design of highly efficient evacuators on gun barrels.


Diagnostic potential of urodynamic tests was studied in 279 females with combined and complicated enuresis. 90 healthy females and 21 cadavers served control. The statistical analysis covered the following urodynamic parameters: cystometric volume, detrusor pressure in cystometric volume, functional urethral length, maximal intraurethral pressure, fluctuations of maximal intraurethral pressure. Isolated measurements of cystometric volume, functional urethral length and maximal intraurethral pressure failed to provide sufficient diagnostic information in effort enuresis, whereas cystometry was most efficient in diagnosis of detrusor instability. Registration of urethral pressure fluctuations in the maximal point allows detection of urethral instability. Combined urodynamic examination can not be fully rejected in patients with complicated and combined enuresis.


Annual species may increase reproduction by increasing adult body size through extended development, but risk being unable to complete development in seasonally limited environments. Synthetic reviews indicate that most, but not all, species have responded to recent climate warming by advancing the seasonal timing of adult emergence or reproduction. Here, we show that 50 years of climate change have delayed development in high-elevation, season-limited grasshopper populations, but advanced development in populations at lower elevations. Developmental delays are most pronounced for early-season species, which might benefit most from delaying development when released from seasonal time constraints. Rearing experiments confirm that population, elevation and temperature interact to determine development time. Population differences in developmental plasticity may account for variability in phenological shifts among adults. An integrated consideration of the full life cycle that considers local adaptation and plasticity may be essential for understanding and predicting responses to climate change.


In view of the growing consumer awareness about the impact of consumed food products on their health, production of food with health promoting properties is an opportunity for the development of Polish food companies. The paper presents the characteristics of functional food and discusses the market such products in Poland compared to other countries. Also conducted a SWOT analysis for the functional food market