B123 A major cause of tobacco-induced cancer is the formation of bulky DNA adducts caused by various compounds such as the diol epoxide derivatives of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. These DNA adducts are mutagenic if not repaired by the nucleotide excision repair (NER) system. A sub-optimal DNA repair capacity has been shown to be a risk factor for tobacco-induced lung and oral cancers. The human excision repair cross-complementation group 1 ( ERCC1 ) gene encodes an NER protein that forms a heterodimer with nuclease XPF and links it to the core NER machinery. Since the ERCC1 protein is essential for a functional NER system, genetic variation in ERCC1 may contribute to impaired DNA repair capacity and increased lung and oral cancer risk. Previous association studies involving the ERCC1 gene focused primarily on two coding polymorphisms and yielded inconsistent results in different populations. In order to comprehensively capture common genetic variation in the ERCC1 gene, we used European ancestry data from the International HapMap project (CEPH samples) to assess linkage disequlibrium (LD) and choose tagSNPs in the ERCC1 gene and 10kb promoter region. Two blocks of high LD were identified. The first block contained four haplotypes in the coding region of the ERCC1 gene, which can be distinguished by three tagSNPs (rs3212948, rs3212955, rs735482), and the second block contained two haplotypes in the promoter region, which can be distinguished by one tagSNP (rs1319052). Pre-designed Taqman genotyping assays were used to determine the genotypes of these SNPs in 452 lung cancer cases, 174 oral cancer cases, and 790 healthy controls in a Caucasian population. Five-percent of samples were repeated for duplicate genotyping and there was 99.5% concordance of these quality controls with the original genotype call. All SNPs were found to be consistent with Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Haplotypes were estimated using expectation maximization (EM) algorithm and haplotype association with cancer was investigated using Haplo.stats software, adjusting for known covariates (age, gender, and pack-years). The genotype and haplotype frequencies matched previous estimates from CEPH Caucasians. There was no significant difference in the prevalence of individual SNPs when comparing lung and oral cancer cases with controls ( p -values > 0.05). Similarly, there was no association between ERCC1 haplotypes and lung or oral cancer susceptibility in this Caucasian population ( p -values > 0.05). Lung cancer cases were also stratified by histology, sex, and smoking status in an attempt to identify any specific associations that might be present, but none were found. This study suggests that ERCC1 polymorphisms and haplotypes do not play a role in lung and oral cancer susceptibility in Caucasians.


In this study, we examine what and how intermediate age students learned from playing in a health-focused game-based digital learning environment, Epidemic. Epidemic is a playful interactive environment designed to deliver factual knowledge, invite critical understanding, and encourage effective selfcare practices in dealing with viral contagious diseases, using a social networking interface to integrate both serious games and game-like multimodal design projects. Epidemic invites a playful approach to its deadly serious core concern communicable disease in order to see what happens when students are encouraged to critically approach information from multiple or contradictory perspectives. To identify what participants learned while interacting within Epidemic, we deployed two instructional and assessment models, noting the differences each instructional approach could potentially make, and what approach to assessment might help us evaluate game-based learning. We found that each approach provided importantly different perspectives on what and how students learned, and on the very meaning of student success. Recognizing that traditional assessment tools based in print-cultural literacy may prove increasingly ill-suited for assessing emergent multimodal literacies in game-based learning environments, this study seeks to contribute to a growing body of work on the development of novel assessments for learning.


During any composite computation, there is a constant need for rounding intermediate results before they can participate in further processing. Recently, a class of number representations denoted RN-Codings were introduced, allowing an unbiased rounding-to-nearest to take place by a simple truncation, with the property that problems with double-roundings are avoided. In this paper, we first investigate a particular encoding of the binary representation. This encoding is generalized to any radix and digit set; however, radix complement representations for even values of the radix turn out to be particularly feasible. The encoding is essentially an ordinary radix complement representation with an appended round-bit, but still allowing rounding-to-nearest by truncation, and thus avoiding problems with double-roundings. Conversions from radix complement to these round-to-nearest representations can be performed in constant time, whereas conversion the other way, in general, takes at least logarithmic time. Not only is rounding-to-nearest a constant time operation, but so is also sign inversion, both of which are at best log-time operations on ordinary two's complement representations. Addition and multiplication on such fixed-point representations are first analyzed and defined in such a way that rounding information can be carried along in a meaningful way, at minimal cost. The analysis is carried through for a compact (canonical) encoding using two's complement representation, supplied with a round-bit. Based on the fixed-point encoding, it is shown possible to define floating-point representations, and a sketch of the implementation of an FPU is presented.


Background: The gastrointestinal tract (GIT) could harbor intestinal parasitic infections (IPIs) alongside a dense and diverse microbial community, termed GIT microbiome. We examined the role of IPI-related changes in intestinal echoanatomy in the pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Methods: The study included 95 subjects (44 males and 51 females). The diagnosis was based on clinical presentation and laboratory tests, including serial stool microscopy for IPIs, and for diabetes, measurement of hemoglobin A1C, fasting or random blood glucose level, or oral glucose tolerance testing. The B-mode ultrasound grayscale and color images using a high-frequency phased array transducer of 7.5 MHz of the duodenum and colon were obtained with and without water contrast. The duodenal wall thickness was used as measurement endpoint. Results: Eighty consecutive patients had at least one type of IPIs in serial stool microscopy, and 15 were healthy persons. Among the 80 IPI patients, 52 (65%) were diabetic, and 28 (35%) patients were nondiabetic. We demonstrated normal duodenum and colon echoanatomy in healthy persons. In patients with IPIs, the duodenal wall thickness (6.87 ± 2.09 mm) was greater than that in healthy persons (3.5 ± 1.07 mm) (P < 0.001). In diabetic patients, the duodenal wall thickness (7.23 ± 2.1 mm) was greater than that in nondiabetic patients (5.26 ± 2.07 mm) (P < 0.001). There were main effects of age and obesity but not sex. Antiparasitic treatment of IPIs alongside antidiabetic drugs improved control of fasting blood sugar. Conclusion: Ultrasound duodenography and colonography demonstrated IPI-induced intestinal wall thickening with rearrangement of the cytoskeleton, causing malfunction of the glucose transporter system which resulted in T2DM.


Abstract. Oblique aerial images have been a source of data for urban areas for several years. However, the accuracy of measurements in oblique images during this time has been limited to a single meter due to the use of direct -georeferencing technology and the underlying digital elevation model. Therefore, oblique images have been used mostly for visualization purposes. This situation changed in recent years as new methods, which allowed for a higher accuracy of exterior orientation, were developed. Current developments include the process of determining exterior orientation and the previous but still crucial process of tie point extraction. Progress in this area was shown in the ISPRS/EUROSDR Benchmark on Multi-Platform Photogrammetry and is also noticeable in the growing interest in the use of this kind of imagery. The higher level of accuracy in the orientation of oblique aerial images that has become possible in the last few years should result in a higher level of accuracy in the measurements of these types of images. The main goal of this research was to set and empirically verify the accuracy of measurements in oblique aerial images. The research focused on photogrammetric measurements composed of many images, which use a high overlap within an oblique dataset and different view angles. During the experiments, two series of images of urban areas were used. Both were captured using five DigiCam cameras in a Maltese cross configuration. The tilt angles of the oblique cameras were 45 degrees, and the position of the cameras during flight used a high grade GPS/INS navigation system. The orientation of the images was set using the Pix4D Mapper Pro software with both measurements of the in-flight camera position and the ground control points (measured with GPS RTK technology). To control the accuracy, check points were used (which were also measured with GPS RTK technology). As reference data for the whole study, an area of the city-based map was used. The archived results were referred to image orientation accuracy and to the ground sampling distance of the used images. The results show that the recent development of image orientation methods for oblique aerial images allow these images to be used for high quality photogrammetric measurements.


Abstract Computer adaptive testing (CAT) is an approach that can be used to shorten assessments without sacrificing their psychometric properties. Recent studies (Fergadiotis, Kellough, & Hula, 2015; Hula, Kellough, & Fergadiotis, 2015; Fergadiotis, Hula, Swiderski, Lei, and Kellough, 2019; Hula, Fergadiotis, Swiderski, Silkes, & Kellough, 2020) produced a CAT with an item bank consisting of the Philadelphia Naming Test (PNT; Roach et al., 1996). The main advantage of CAT is to maximize the precision of the test, requiring fewer testing items while having the same or better level of accuracy as traditional brief naming assessments. However, before a CAT can be used to measure change in anomia severity, it is important to understand how the algorithm interacts with commonly used aphasia interventions and whether it is as responsive to treatment-related change as standard static assessments. This simulation study investigated the sensitivity of a computer adaptive version of the Philadelphia Naming Test (PNT-CAT) to treatment-related change in three different treatment conditions: item-general, item-specific and partially item-specific. For each condition, we simulated responses using a one-parameter logistic item response theory model and computed pre- to post-treatment change scores for the PNT-CAT and the full PNT. For the item-general condition, both tests performed similarly well. However, the PNT-CAT overestimated the effects of item-specific and the partially item-specific treatment relative to the full test. These results provide useful information about the conditions in which CAT can be validly used to measure treatment outcomes. Present results suggest that when treatment affects underlying naming ability the PNT-CAT30 is appropriately responsive to treatment and provides an efficient alternative to the administration to the full PNT. On the other hand, when treatment effects are item-specific, the PNT-CAT30 may overestimate or underestimate treatment effects depending on the baseline ability level and the number of treated items included in post-treatment CAT.


SUMMARY Cells respond to acute environmental change by activating a stress response that is widely studied. However, knowledge of this stress response is fragmentary, and a unifying concept explaining its universality for many different species and types of stress is lacking. The need for a holistic view emphasizing the key aspects of the stress response is addressed by the following hypothesis. The cellular stress response is a reaction to any form of macromolecular damage that exceeds a set threshold, independent of the underlying cause. It is aimed at temporarily increasing tolerance limits towards macromolecular damage by utilizing a phylogenetically conserved set of genes and pathways that mediate global macromolecular stabilization and repair to promote cellular and organismal integrity under suboptimal conditions. This mechanism affords time for a separate set of stressor-specific adaptations, designed to re-establish cellular homeostasis, to take action. Supporting evidence, emerging conclusions, and ways to test this hypothesis are presented.


Abstract Through two studies, this research examined consumer responses to empowerment hashtags in social media–based fashion advertising. The findings of Study 1 indicated that consumers showed more favorable attitudes toward empowerment-campaign hashtags than brand-name hashtags, and that the perceived information value of hashtags meditated the relationship between hashtag type and attitudes toward the hashtags. Furthermore, consumer responses to the two hashtag types varied depending on the sophistication dimension of brand personality. Study 2 extended Study 1 by further examining the effects of empowerment hashtags on consumers' attitudes toward ads and consumer–brand identification. Participants perceived greater information value from empowerment hashtags, showed more favorable attitudes toward the ads with empowerment hashtags, and identified more strongly with advertised brands. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.


Abstract Background: Addiction science has primarily utilized self-report, continued substance use, and relapse factors to explore the process of recovery. However, the entry into successful abstinence substantially reduces our assessment abilities. Advances in neuroscience may be the key to objective understanding, treating, and monitoring long-term success in addiction recovery. Objectives: To explore functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIR) as a viable technique in the assessment of addiction-cue reactivity. Specifically, prefrontal cortex (PFC) activation to alcohol cues was explored among formally alcohol-dependent individuals, across varying levels of successful abstinence. The aim of the investigation was to identify patterns of PFC activation change consistent with duration of abstinence. Methods: A total of 15 formally alcohol-dependent individuals, with abstinence durations ranging from 1 month to 10 years, viewed alcohol images during fNIR PFC assessment. Participants also subjectively rated the same images for affect and arousal level. Results: Subjective ratings of alcohol cues did not significantly correlate with duration of abstinence. As expected, days of abstinence did not significantly correlate with neutral cue fNIR reactivity. However, for alcohol cues, fNIR results showed increased days of abstinence was associated with decreased activation within the dorsolateral and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex regions. Conclusions: The present results suggest that fNIR may be a viable tool in the assessment of addiction-cue reactivity. Results also support previous findings on the importance of dorsolateral and dorsomedial PFC in alcohol-cue activation. The findings build upon these past results suggesting that fNIR-assessed activation may represent a robust biological marker of successful addiction recovery.


Carrier mobility enhancement from 0.09 to 0.59 cm2/Vs is achieved for pentacene-based thin-film transistors (TFTs) by modifying the HfO2 gate dielectric with a polystyrene (PS) thin film. The improvement of the transistor's performance is found to be strongly related to the initial film morphologies of pentacene on the dielectrics. In contrast to the three-dimensional island-like growth mode on the HfO2 surface, the Stranski-Krastanov growth mode on the smooth and nonpolar PS/HfO2 surface is believed to be the origin of the excellent carrier mobility of the TFTs. A large well-connected first monolayer with fewer boundaries is formed via the Stranski–Krastanov growth mode, which facilitates a charge transport parallel to the substrate and promotes higher carrier mobility.


In this paper we are concerned to reveal that any spacetime structure 〈M, g, D, τg, ↑〉, which is a model of a gravitational field in General Relativity generated by an energy-momentum tensor T - and which contains at least one nontrivial Killing vector field A - is such that the 2-form field F = dA (where A = g(A,)) satisfies a Maxwell like equation - with a well determined current that contains a term of the superconducting type- which follows directly from Einstein equation. Moreover, we show that the resulting Maxwell like equations, under an additional condition imposed to the Killing vector field, may be written as a Navier-Stokes like equation as well. As a result, we have a set consisting of Einstein, Maxwell and Navier-Stokes equations, that follows sequentially from the first one under precise mathematical conditions and once some identifications about field variables are evinced, as explained in details throughout the text. We compare and emulate our results with others on the same subject appearing in the literature. In Appendix A we fix our notation and recall some necessary material concerning the theory of differential forms, Lie derivatives and the Clifford bundle formalism used in this paper. Moreover, we comment in Appendix B on some analogies (and main differences) between our results to the ones obtained long ago by Bergmann and Kommar which are reviewed and briefly criticized.In this paper we are concerned to reveal that any spacetime structure 〈M, g, D, τg, ↑〉, which is a model of a gravitational field in General Relativity generated by an energy-momentum tensor T - and which contains at least one nontrivial Killing vector field A - is such that the 2-form field F = dA (where A = g(A,)) satisfies a Maxwell like equation - with a well determined current that contains a term of the superconducting type- which follows directly from Einstein equation. Moreover, we show that the resulting Maxwell like equations, under an additional condition imposed to the Killing vector field, may be written as a Navier-Stokes like equation as well. As a result, we have a set consisting of Einstein, Maxwell and Navier-Stokes equations, that follows sequentially from the first one under precise mathematical conditions and once some identifications about field variables are evinced, as explained in details throughout the text. We compare and emulate our results with others on the same subject appea...


The purpose of this study is to assess the motivational qualities of specific design elements in a three-dimensional (3D) virtual winter sports learning environment comprised of an Information House, Practice Area, and Exercise Area by considering two motivational models. The study employed causal comparative research methods. Participants included 150 fifth, sixth, and seventh grade middle school students. A motivation survey developed by the researchers served as the data collection tool; data were analyzed with descriptive and predictive methods. Data analysis revealed that the animations in the Practice Area of the 3D virtual environment drew the most attention when compared to the other design elements. Elements in the Exercise Area encouraged students to conduct more research, and elements in the Information House were efficient at increasing students' satisfaction. In addition, design elements such as animations, images, display boards, and videos helped students to learn individually and provided opportunities to practice within a 3D virtual environment.


A study of InxGa1-xAs/GaAs heterostructures with single quantum well (SQW) carried out by admittance methods demonstrates two competing emission mechanisms for carriers: thermionic and tunnel. The dependence of thermionic conductance peaks on the reverse bias has resonance character. We noticed a temperature independent plateau on the conductance-temperature spectra, which is always related to the tunnel nature. We guess the observed effect is the resonant tunneling through the two-barrier potential formed at the QW borders due to doping.


Content of this contribution is an issue of inertial sensors errors, specification of inertial measurement units and generating of test signals for Inertial Navigation System (INS). Given the different levels of navigation tasks, part of this contribution is comparison of the actual types of Inertial Measurement Units. Considering this comparison, there is proposed the way of solving inertial sensors errors and their modelling for low – cost inertial navigation applications. The last part is focused on mathematical testing and simulations of the inertial navigation. Given issue is a partial result, which is part of dissertation thesis Integration architectures of navigation systems.


Liberalization of Egyptian agricultural policy and new wheat technology has led to significant increases in area allocated to wheat as well as wheat yields. The wheat self-sufficiency ratio increased from 21 percent in 1986 to about 59 percent over the 2001-03 period. However, the country still imports 4-5 million tonnes of wheat per year. This paper addresses the issue of what kind of output gains can be achieved from improving technical efficiency, i.e. how much more output can be produced with the given levels of inputs and current technology. On average wheat farmers are found to operate 20 percent below the potential output. Better information on irrigation management and two or more extension visits were found to raise output by 14 and 7 percent respectively. However, neither factor was found to affect technical efficiency. Technical efficiency was found not to vary with farm size.


This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. *Corresponding Author: Young Gyu Cho https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1017-8884 Tel: +82-2-2270-0097, Fax: +82-2-2268-0971, E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com https://doi.org/10.4082/kjfm.2018.39.3.135 • Korean J Fam Med 2018;39:135-136


Abstract Electrochemical fluorination in anhydrous HF, also known as the Simons process, is a widely used industrial method for fluorination of organic compounds. Its mechanism, being not so well understood, has long been debated and is believed to involve higher valent nickel fluorides formed on the nickel-plated anode during the process. One of these is speculated to be Ni2F5, which was previously reported in the literature and assigned via infrared spectroscopy, but its crystal structure is not yet known. We have identified known crystal structures of compounds with similar stoichiometries as Ni2F5 and utilized them as a starting point for our periodic DFT investigations, applying the PBE+U method. Ni2F5 as the most stable polymorph was found to be of the same crystal structure as another mixed valent fluoride, Cr2F5. The calculated lattice parameters are a = 7.24 Å, b = 7.40 Å, c = 7.08 Å and β = 118.9° with an antiferromagnetic ordering of the nickel magnetic moments.


Behçet's disease (BD) is a systemic inflammatory disease characterized by recurrent oral ulcers, genital ulcers, cutaneous inflammation, and uveitis. In addition, other potentially life-threatening lesions may occur in the intestinal tract, blood vessels, and central nervous system. This heterogeneity of the BD phenotype hampers development of a targeted treatment strategy. The pathogenesis of BD is not fully elucidated, but it is likely that genetically susceptible people develop BD in response to environmental factors, such as microbiome factors. Genetic analyses have identified various BD susceptibility loci that function in HLA-antigen presentation pathways, Th1 and Th17 cells, and autoinflammation related to monocytes/macrophages, or that increase levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, reduce levels of anti-inflammatory cytokines, or act in dysfunctional mucous barriers. Our functional analyses have revealed that impairment of M2 monocyte/macrophage-mediated anti-inflammatory function through IL-10 is crucial to BD pathogenesis. We, therefore, propose that BD is an M1-dominant disease. In this review, we describe the roles of monocytes and macrophages in BD and consider the potential of these cells as therapeutic targets.


Periodic deflections of infrared probe beam in TlGaSe2 crystal after its lateral excitation by laser pulse with photon energy near the band gap are observed. Such deflections arise from travelling of the acoustic pulse within sample which, in turn, is produced by optical pump pulse through photoacoustic effect. The photoacoustic pulse is generated within thin region near the crystal excited face, much shorter then the light penetration depth. In the case of volume excitation photoacoustic pulse is also generated in the region near back face as well. Tentative explanation of the generation mechanism is discussed.


Since its first demonstration about twenty years ago, single-molecule fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) has undergone remarkable technical advances. In this tutorial review, we will discuss two technical advances that increase the information content of the single-molecule FRET measurements: single-molecule multi-color FRET and single-molecule FRET combined with force or torque. Our expectations for future developments will be briefly discussed at the end.


Objectives: The purpose of this study was to evaluate program methods for effective smoking cessation and prevention through systematic review of studies published during recent 3 years in Korea. Methods: Electronic searches were conducted in DBPIA, RISS, KISS and other databases looking for studies published from 2010 to 2012 that dealt with the effects of intervention on smoking prevention and cessation. A total of 25 studies were included in the final analysis. Three independent reviewers critically evaluated the study quality and evidence of effectiveness based on The Community Guide methodology. Results: Multi-component intervention showed strong evidence of effectiveness for adolescents and sufficient evidence for patient smokers. Cognitive-behavioral intervention for adolescents and child-parent interaction program for adults demonstrated sufficient evidence of effectiveness on the smoking cessation and its determinants. There was insufficient evidence showing effectiveness of smoking prevention programs. Conclusion: Improving the quality and quantity of the intervention studies on smoking could help to expand evidence base for effective intervention methods and strategies on smoking.


A short overview will be given concerning advances in micromachining technology, including surface and bulk silicon micromachining, galvano-deposition and bonding techniques. Following this short overview, a number of examples dealing with the design, fabrication and application of microsystems will be presented. In particular the following microsystems will be discussed in detail: 1. Miniaturized chemical analysis systems; 2. Blood-gas monitoring microsystems; 3. Scanning probe microsystems; 4. Electrostatic wobble motors; 5. Microelectromechanical switching devices. >


Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by Plasmodium parasites, with P. falciparum being the most prevalent on the African continent and responsible for most malaria-related deaths globally. Several factors including parasite sequestration in tissues, vascular dysfunction, and inflammatory responses influence the evolution of the disease in malaria-infected people. P. falciparum-infected red blood cells (iRBCs) release small extracellular vesicles (EVs) containing different kinds of cargo molecules that mediate pathogenesis and cellular communication between parasites and host. EVs are efficiently taken up by cells in which they modulate their function. Here we discuss strategies to address the role of EVs in parasite-host interactions. First, we describe a straightforward method for labeling and tracking EV internalization by endothelial cells, using a green cell linker dye. Second, we report a simple way to measure permeability across an endothelial cell monolayer by using a fluorescently labeled dextran. Finally, we show how to investigate the role of small non-coding RNA molecules in endothelial cell function.


This study concentrates on compound pronouns in English and Albanian. Compounding is considered as one of the most prolific word formation techniques in both languages. The study is made up of three basic parts: compounding is analysed theoretically; compound pronouns collected by the Dictionary of Contemporary Albanian Language and Oxford Student's Dictionary are analysed; conclusions are drawn as of their similarities and differences. Albanian language provides interesting results as it includes a specific category of pronouns under a different heading than compounding and that is agglutinated pronouns. Compound pronouns are analysed quantitatively and qualitatively in both languages. Quantitative analysis deals with their positioning in relation to all compound words per each dictionary. Qualitative analysis deals with the elements constituting the compound pronouns. The study also pinpoints the differences and similarities between compound pronouns when translated from English into Albanian and vice versa. The study is illustrated with abundant examples in both languages. Statistic results of the study show that Albanian compound (agglutinated) pronouns outnumber the English compound pronouns→ 81: 18; also constituent structures of Alb. vs Eng. pronouns are →9:2. Translation of pronouns from one language into the other: one English pronoun – different Albanian pronouns and vice versa.


For urban and industrial uses, water is collected in the natural environment and after being used is returned to the natural environment.

The process of utilization is simultaneously a process of pollution that is transferred to the wastewater and from it to the water-course. More than 50 years were necessary after the introduction of the techniques of house plumbing to the appearance of artificial wastewater treatments.

Since the beginning of this process, it has been necessary to count on the natural assimilative capacity of the waters to deal with the pollution. But artificial treatment and artificially enhanced natural treatment have considerably augmented the possibility that the return of used waters to the environment became a true integration in it, its quality not being changed, or being changed in a way that does not significantly affect water uses.

Three main technical means are available to do this, only one being artificial treatment.


We proposed that stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD) activity dictates fatty acid composition of adipose tissue and muscle in beef cattle, regardless of ruminal or hepatic fatty acid hydrogenation or desaturation. Twelve Angus steers were assigned to a calf-fed (CF) group and slaughtered at weaning (8 mo of age; n=4), 12 mo of age (n=4), or 16 mo of age (n=4). Twelve steers were assigned to a yearling-fed (YF) group and slaughtered at 12 mo of age (n=4), 16 mo of age (n=4), and 17.5 mo of age (n=4; 525 kg, market weight). Data were analyzed based on time on the corn-based finishing diet, with terminal age as a covariate, and orthogonal polynomial contrasts were tested on the main effects of treatment group and time on the finishing diet. Fatty acids from duodenal digesta, plasma, liver, LM, and subcutaneous and intramuscular adipose tissue were measured, and SCD gene expression was measured in intramuscular and subcutaneous adipose tissues. In duodenal digesta, palmitic and linoleic acids increased by 100% over the sampling period, α-linolenic acid decreased over the sampling period, and trans-vaccenic acid was greater in YF than in CF steers (all P < 0.01). The proportion of α-linolenic acid decreased over time in all tissues, including liver. The SCD index (ratio of SCD fatty acid products to SCD fatty acid substrates) increased over time in LM and in intramuscular and subcutaneous adipose tissues. The SCD:glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase mRNA ratio was virtually undetectable at the initial sampling periods in subcutaneous adipose tissue of YF and CF steers, and it increased over time (P < 0.01). The SCD index and SCD:glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase ratio were greater in intramuscular adipose tissue of CF steers than in that of YF steers. The SCD index did not change over time in liver and decreased over time in duodenal digesta. We conclude that, unlike essential fatty acids, the SFA and MUFA composition of adipose tissue is regulated by adipose tissue fatty acid desaturation, with little contribution from hepatic or duodenal fatty acids.


Volatile oils extracted by steam distillation from four plant species (turmeric (Curcuma longa), kaffir lime (Citrus hystrix), citronella grass (Cymbopogon winterianus) and hairy basil (Ocimum americanum)), were evaluated in mosquito cages and in a large room for their repellency effects against three mosquito vectors, Aedes aegypti, Anopheles dirus and Culex quinquefasciatus. The oils from turmeric, citronella grass and hairy basil, especially with the addition of 5% vanillin, repelled the three species under cage conditions for up to eight hours. The oil from kaffir lime alone, as well as with 5% vanillin added, was effective for up to three hours. With regard to the standard repellent, deet alone provided protection for at least eight hours against Ae. aegypti and Cx. quinquefasciatus, but for six hours against An. dirus. However, deet with the addition of 5% vanillin gave protection against the three mosquito species for at least eight hours. The results of large room evaluations confirmed the responses for each repellent treatment obtained under cage conditions. This study demonstrates the potential of volatile oils extracted from turmeric, citronella grass and hairy basil as topical repellents against both day- and night-biting mosquitoes. The three volatile oils can be formulated with vanillin as mosquito repellents in various forms to replace deet (N,N-diethyl-3-methylbenzamide), the most common chemical repellent currently available.


Pomaranch is a synchronous bit-oriented stream cipher submitted to eSTREAM, the ECRYPT Stream Cipher Project. Following the recently published chosen IV [1] and correlation [7] key-recovery attacks, the authors changed the configuration of jump registers and introduced two new key-IV setup procedures for the cipher. We call the updated version as Tweaked Pomaranch vs. Original Pomaranch [4]. In this paper we use the findings of [7] to mount a chosen IV key-recovery attack on the Original Pomaranch with computational complexity of O(273.5). The attack is also applicable to the first key-IV setup proposal for Tweaked Pomaranch with computational complexity of O(2 117.7). The alternative key-IV setup for Tweaked Pomaranch is immune against our attack. Both versions of Pomaranch deal with 128 bit keys.


We propose a generalized accretion disk viscosity prescription based on hydrodynamically driven turbulence at the critical effective Reynolds number. This approach is con- sistent with recent re-analysis by Richard & Zahn (1999) of experimental results on turbulent Couette-Taylor flows. This new -viscosity formulation is applied to both selfgravitating and non-selfgravitating disks and is shown to yield the stan- dard -disk prescription in the case of shock dissipation limited, non-selfgravitating disks. A specific case of fully selfgravitat- ing -disks is analyzed. We suggest that such disks may explain the observed spectra of protoplanetary disks and yield a natural explanation for the radial motions inferred from the observed metallicity gradients in disk galaxies. The -mechanism may also account for the rapid mass transport required to power ul- tra luminous infrared galaxies.


The Chartered Institute of Building Service Engineers (CIBSE) produced a technical memorandum (TM36) presenting research on future climate impacting building energy use and
thermal comfort. One climate projection for each of four CO2 emissions scenario were used in TM36, so providing a deterministic outlook. As part of the UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) probabilistic climate projections are being studied in relation to building energy simulation techniques. Including uncertainty in climate projections is considered an important advance to climate impacts modelling and is included in the latest UKCIP data (UKCP09). Incorporating the stochastic nature of these new climate projections in building energy modelling requires a significant increase in data handling and careful statistical interpretation of the results to provide meaningful conclusions. This paper compares the results from building energy simulations when applying deterministic
and probabilistic climate data. This is based on two case study buildings: (i) a mixed-mode office building with exposed thermal mass and (ii) a mechanically ventilated, light-weight office building. Building (i) represents an energy efficient building design that provides passive and
active measures to maintain thermal comfort. Building (ii) relies entirely on mechanical means for heating and cooling, with its light-weight construction raising concern over increased cooling loads in a warmer climate.
Devising an effective probabilistic approach highlighted greater uncertainty in predicting building performance, depending on the type of building modelled and the performance factors under consideration. Results indicate that the range of calculated quantities depends not only on the building type but is strongly dependent on the performance parameters that are of interest. Uncertainty is likely to be particularly marked with regard to thermal comfort in naturally ventilated buildings.


Summary: We present a case of an exophytic spinal primitive neuroectodermal tumor that, radiologically, simulated an extramedullary nerve sheath tumor, meningioma, or metastatic tumor deposit. MR imaging provided discrete anatomic localization of the tumor, enabling exclusion of multicentricity in the brain and spinal cord.


In this paper a self-diplexed antenna is proposed for a RFID transponder application. The development cycle is divided into two stages: antenna design and filters design. The antenna is based on a square microstrip patch filled with metamaterial structures. The inclusion of these structures allows simultaneous operation over several frequencies, which can be arbitrarily chosen. The antenna working frequencies are chosen to be 2.45 GHz (receiver) and 1.45 GHz (transmitter). In addition, the antenna is fed through two orthogonal coupled microstrip lines, which provides high isolation between both ports (> 20 dB). Some filters based on left-handed particles are coupled to the antenna feeding microstrip lines have been included to avoid undesired interferences. This approach avoids using of an external filter or diplexer, providing high size reduction and a compact self-diplexed antenna.


Background Shortage of human resources, increasing educational costs, and the need to keep social distances in response to the COVID-19 worldwide outbreak have prompted the necessity of clinical training methods designed for distance learning. Virtual patient simulators (VPSs) may partially meet these needs. Natural language processing (NLP) and intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) may further enhance the educational impact of these simulators. Objective The goal of this study was to develop a VPS for clinical diagnostic reasoning that integrates interaction in natural language and an ITS. We also aimed to provide preliminary results of a short-term learning test administered on undergraduate students after use of the simulator. Methods We trained a Siamese long short-term memory network for anamnesis and NLP algorithms combined with Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine (SNOMED) ontology for diagnostic hypothesis generation. The ITS was structured on the concepts of knowledge, assessment, and learner models. To assess short-term learning changes, 15 undergraduate medical students underwent two identical tests, composed of multiple-choice questions, before and after performing a simulation by the virtual simulator. The test was made up of 22 questions; 11 of these were core questions that were specifically designed to evaluate clinical knowledge related to the simulated case. Results We developed a VPS called Hepius that allows students to gather clinical information from the patient's medical history, physical exam, and investigations and allows them to formulate a differential diagnosis by using natural language. Hepius is also an ITS that provides real-time step-by-step feedback to the student and suggests specific topics the student has to review to fill in potential knowledge gaps. Results from the short-term learning test showed an increase in both mean test score (P<.001) and mean score for core questions (P<.001) when comparing presimulation and postsimulation performance. Conclusions By combining ITS and NLP technologies, Hepius may provide medical undergraduate students with a learning tool for training them in diagnostic reasoning. This may be particularly useful in a setting where students have restricted access to clinical wards, as is happening during the COVID-19 pandemic in many countries worldwide.


Underuse of Antithrombotic Therapy in Stroke Patients With Chronic Atrial Fibrillation To the Editor: The original contribution of Gage et al 1 on the underuse of antithrombotic therapy in Missouri Medicare draws attention to the resistance for general physicians to prescribe this therapy. Data from our stroke register further emphasize this problem. In the Emergency Department of Fatebenefratelli Hospital (a central hospital in Milan, Italy), we are following an observational study on acute cerebrovascular accidents. Over approximately 20 months, we have recorded 1009 consecutive patients (884 with ischemic stroke, 88%; 125 hemorrhagic, 12%). In patients with ischemic stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA) and presence of chronic nonvalvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF), we recorded the domiciliary therapy and the presence of additional stroke risk factors: age.75 years, previous ischemic stroke or TIA, previous diagnosis of arterial hypertension, chronic congestive heart failure, chronic ischemic heart disease, or type I or II diabetes. One hundred twenty-two of 884 ischemic patients (13.8%) had NVAF. Only 49 patients (40.2%) were taking antithrombotic therapy: aspirin (n 531, 25.4%), ticlopidine (n56, 4.9%), indobufen (n54, 3.3%), and oral anticoagulant (n58; 6.6%); 73 patients (59.8%) were taking no prophylactic antithrombotic therapy. Associated risk factors were present in 96% of the patients: 21 patients (7 with prophylactic therapy and 14 not treated, 17.2%) had 1 risk factor, 39 patients (13 treated and 26 not treated, 31.9%) had 2 risk factors, and 57 patients (28 treated and 29 not treated) had $3 risk factors. The individual risk factors are presented in the Table. The importance of atrial fibrillation as a risk factor for stroke is well known. It has been demonstrated that the majority of strokes in patients with atrial fibrillation can be prevented by prophylactic antithrombotic therapy. Moreover, the presence of additional cardiovascular risk factors is an indication for antithrombotic therapy. 2–4


We investigate the impact of consumer search and competition on pricing strategies in Germany's electricity retail. We utilize a unique panel dataset on spatially varying search requests at major online price comparison websites to construct a direct measure of search intensity and combine this information with zip code level data on electricity tariffs between 2011 and 2014. The paper stands out by explaining price dispersion by differing pricing strategies of former incumbents and entrant firms, which are distinct in their attributable shares in informed versus uninformed consumers. Our empirical results suggest causal evidence for an inverted U-shape effect of consumer search intensity on price dispersion in a clearinghouse environment as in Stahl (1989). The dispersion is caused by opposite pricing strategies of incumbents and entrants, with incumbents initially increasing and entrants initially decreasing tariffs as a reaction to more consumer search. We also find an inverted U-shape effect of competition on price dispersion, consistent with theoretical findings by Janssen and Moraga-Gonzalez (2004). Again, the effect can be explained by opposing pricing strategies of incumbents and entrants.


A new coupled circuit and electrostatic/mechanical simulator (COSMO) is presented for the design of low phase noise radio frequency (RF) microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs). The numerical solution of device level equations is used to accurately compute the capacitance of a MEMS capacitor. This coupled with a circuit simulator facilitates the simulation of circuits incorporating MEMS capacitors. In addition, the noise from the MEMS capacitor is combined with a nonlinear circuit-level noise analysis to determine the phase noise of RF MEMS VCO. Simulations of two different MEMS VCO architectures show good agreement with experimentally observed behavior.


The strong temporal backscatter signature of rice growing above the water's surface allows for the use of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) for paddy rice crop mapping in Southern Vietnam (Mekong Delta). In Northern Vietnam (Red River Delta), rice mapping using SAR is a challenge and is rarely performed because of the complex land-use/land-cover. Nevertheless, information about rice fields is needed for hydrological simulations in river basins such as the Cau River basin. The objective of this research is to investigate the potential of RADARSAT-2 band- C in identifying rice fields over a large and fragmented land-use area. Two methods are proposed, one for each data type, adapted to the land-use/land-cover of the study area. The thresholding technique, with a statistical analysis of the temporal variation of rice backscattering, was applied to the HH like-polarized ratio of dual-pol data. The support vector machine (SVM) algorithm was applied to the full quad-pol and a single HH-polarization calculated from polarimetric data. This study demonstrates that RADARSAT-2 dual- and quad-pol data can be successfully used to identify cultivated rice fields. However, the dual-pol data seems less efficient than the quad-pol data and the SVM classification is more flexible than the thresholding technique. Between the full quad-pol and a single polarization, the overall classification accuracy shows that the results derived from the single HH polarization are 3 to 10% less accurate than those derived from the classification of full quad-pol data. The results show the usefulness of polarimetric C-band data for the identification of rice fields in Northern Vietnam.


The object of this paper is to propose a development method for the implementation of the Electric Power Steering (EPS) system with the permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM). For achieving the desired assist power with good steering feel, the internal model control (IMC) method is applied to the current control loop of the PMSM. The IMC philosophy is used to generate parameters for conventional PI controllers. It can take the advantage mentioned to reduce the trial-and-error procedures and to shorten the development time for the EPS control system. In order to verify the control algorithm, this paper introduces the co-simulation technique to validate the proposed controller for high accurate description of vehicle dynamics and models of the steering behavior. Finally, the EPS control system is implemented by an embedded microprocessor. The results showed that the current control has good tracking performance, and both of simulations and experiments had the same steering responses.


In Rwanda today it is considered poor manners to cry at funerals. Public grieving for the death of a single person is thought to minimize the grief people felt after the genocide when many people lost entire families. That genocide was eight years ago and to date little has been done to bring the perpetrators to justice. The newly established gacaca courts are meant to rectify this situation and assess the guilt or innocence of some of the tens of thousands of people now held in Rwandan jails.


Meeting current needs while not sacrificing the future ability to do so as a key sustainability concept is becoming more challenging than ever, with the increasing population rate, energy poverty, global warming, and surging demand for products and services. Manufacturing is in a prime position to address this challenge, with its significant economic contribution to the global GDP and its high influence over the environment and humanity. Sustainable manufacturing technologies research is growing to support our journey towards sustainable development. This article undertook the systematic review of state-of-the-art sustainable manufacturing technologies literature, evidencing the latest themes and trends in this important research avenue. Descriptive and thematic analyses were performed, synthesising the latest advancements in the field. Sustainable manufacturing processes, especially sustainable machining, was established as a key theme, including research endeavours of elimination of lubricants. Various manufacturing systems and process sustainability assessment technologies were noted. Sustainability indicators addressed were critically evaluated. As an outcome, a conceptual framework of sustainable manufacturing technology research was constructed to structure the knowledge acquired and to provoke future thinking. Finally, challenges and future directions were provided for both industrial and academic reader base, stimulating growth in this fruitful research stream.


This article presents a detailed three-phase grid connected PV model which includes important control systems required for EMT-type simulation. A one diode model for the PV array is used to simulate environmental constraints such as solar irradiation. A detailed control system including dc voltage control, inner current control, MPPT and PWM control are implemented in order to simulate the model during steady state and dynamic conditions. The PV model is merged with a simple distribution network to investigate the PV's interaction with the AC grid. Several simulation scenarios are presented in order to validate the performance of the model.


Misinformation, bias, and deceit, clandestine or not, are a pervasive and continual problem in media. Real-time mass communication through online media such as news outlets, Twitter, and Facebook, has extended the reach of deceptive information, and increased its impact. The concept of fake news has existed since before print, but has acquired renewed attention due to its perceived influence in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. Previous studies of fake news have revealed much about why it is produced, how it spreads, and what measures can be taken to combat its rising influence. Despite the continued interest in fake news, current research on the language of deceptive media has been largely superficial. This thesis serves to provide a profound understanding of the stylistic and linguistic features of fake news by comparing it to its credible counterpart. In doing so, it will advocate for differentiation between disingenuous and respectable media based on linguistic variation. With a dataset of approximately 80,000 articles from known fake and legitimate news sources, specific stylistic differences will be examined for saliency and significance. Using multidimensional analysis for discourse variation established by Biber (1988), this thesis will confirm that there exist sufficient textual differences between the articles of fake news and credible news to consider them distinct varieties. Detecting misinformation has not proven to be simple, neither has minimizing its reach. As the ambition of fake news articles is to appear authentic, acquiring knowledge of the subtleties which serve to discriminate realism from fabrication is crucial. A better understanding of the linguistic composition of deception and fabrication in comparison to credibility and veracity will facilitate future attempts at both manual and automatic detection.


Background Until 2010 the cost of biological treatments in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) was increasing annually by 15% in our hospital. In order to improve the cost-effective use of biological drugs in RA, the hospital created the Biological Treatment Committee 1 January 2011. Their first decision was to establish a protocol for prioritising biological treatment based on efficiency in RA patients. Purpose To evaluate the cost savings and economic impact associated with a biological treatment prioritisation protocol for rheumatoid arthritis patients in the Hospital of Sagunto. Materials and methods This study was an observational, ambispective analysis comparing the cost of biotreated RA patients pre-protocol (2009–2010) versus post-protocol (2011–2012). Inclusion criteria: RA patients (American College of Rheumatology 1989 criteria) treated with abatacept (ABA), adalimumab (ADA), etanercept (ETN) or infliximab (IFX) for at least 6 months during the study period (2009–2012). The Sagunto Hospital biological treatment prioritisation protocol in RA started 1 January 2011. This protocol based on efficiency criteria is presented in Figure 1. ETN was selected as 1st line treatment because our experience of half-dose ETN 25 mg weekly in certain RA patients (EULAR 2013), its subcutaneous administration and lowest theoretical cost per patient in Spain. The cost savings and economic impact associated with the protocol were determined by comparing the average cost per patient/year for biological drug during pre-protocol against post-protocol periods using official Spanish prices of Enbrel, Humira, Orencia and Remicade. Abstract GM-004 Table 1 Biotherapy protocol recommendations for treatment in RA patients 1st line treatment 2nd line 3rd line Treatment-naïve patient Etanercept Adalimumab Abatacept IFX failure Etanercept Adalimumab Abatacept ADA failure Etanercept Adalimumab Abatacept ETN failure Adalimumab Abatacept Results In the pre-protocol period (2009–2010), total expenses increased by 110,000 € to 1,761,000 € in 2010 (11,362 € pat/year). After the protocol was introduced, the total expenses decreased by 53,676 € over 2010–2011 and 149,200 over 2011–2012. Over 2010–2011 the cost of biological treatment per patient-year decreased by 355 € (11,007 € pat/year) and additional savings of 653€ (up to 10,354 € pat/year) were made 1 year later (2012), with a cumulative effect of the protocol implementation of 1,008 € per patient-year. We analysed the real cost of RA patient/year by biological drug. In the pre-protocol period (1 Jan 2010), the annual cost per treatment-naïve patient was 10,812 € with ETN, 10,942 € with IFX, 12,961 € with ADA and 12,739 € with ABA. In the post-protocol period (1 Jan) 2013 the annual cost per treatment-naïve patient was 9,469 € with ETN, 10,579 € with IFX, 11,117 € with ADA and 13,540 € with ABA. Conclusions The creation of our Biological Treatments Committee developed rational management of RA patients and optimisation of resources. The decision to prioritise treatment according to our experience of use and cost-effectiveness rationale allowed us to save 200,000 € in the first two years. No conflict of interest.


influential study, The Sacred Bridge. The Interdependence of Liturgy and Music in Synagogue and Church during the fcrst Millennium appeared in 1959, though the manuscript was finished in 1950. It remains the standard work on the common liturgical and musical scores of Jewish and Christian worship. This second volume (Ktav [1984], $29.50, pp. 271, ISBN 0-88125-052-X), which the author describes as 'supplementary' to the first, has been issued in place of a second, greatly expanded revision of the 1959 volume. Its purpose is to augment, correct, reexamine, and bring up-to-date the matters discussed in volume 1, especially with regard to the evidence which has come from research into the Dead Sea Scrolls. Some of the material has appeared in specialist journals, and a substantial part of the final chapter was included in 'Yuval' (Jerusalem [1971]). Unfortunately, for various reasons, this second volume was not published as planned in 1974, which


Immoderate energy intake, a sedentary lifestyle, and aging have contributed to the increased prevalence of obesity, sarcopenia, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. There is an urgent need for the development of novel pharmacological interventions that can target excessive fat accumulation and decreased muscle mass and/or strength. Adipokines, bioactive molecules derived from adipose tissue, are involved in the regulation of appetite and satiety, inflammation, energy expenditure, insulin resistance and secretion, glucose and lipid metabolism, and atherosclerosis. Recently, there is emerging evidence that skeletal muscle and the liver also function as endocrine organs that secrete myokines and hepatokines, respectively. Novel discoveries and research into these organokines (adipokines, myokines, and hepatokines) may lead to the development of promising biomarkers and therapeutics for cardiometabolic disease. In this review, I summarize recent data on these organokines and focus on the role of adipokines, myokines, and hepatokines in the regulation of insulin resistance, inflammation, and atherosclerosis.


Non-reproducible sequence artefacts are frequently detected in DNA from formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissues. However, no rational strategy has been developed for reduction of sequence artefacts from FFPE DNA as the underlying causes of the artefacts are poorly understood. As cytosine deamination to uracil is a common form of DNA damage in ancient DNA, we set out to examine whether treatment of FFPE DNA with uracil-DNA glycosylase (UDG) would lead to the reduction of C>T (and G>A) sequence artefacts. Heteroduplex formation in high resolution melting (HRM)-based assays was used for the detection of sequence variants in FFPE DNA samples. A set of samples that gave false positive HRM results for screening of the E17K mutation in exon 4 of the AKT1 gene were chosen for analysis. Sequencing of these samples showed multiple non-reproducible C:G>T:A artefacts. Treatment of the FFPE DNA with UDG prior to PCR amplification led to a very marked reduction of the sequence artefacts as indicated by both HRM and sequencing analysis. Similar results were shown for the BRAFV600 region in the same sample set and EGFR exon 19 in another sample set. UDG treatment specifically suppressed the formation of artefacts in FFPE DNA as it did not affect the detection of true KRAS codon 12 and true EGFR exon 19 and 20 mutations. We conclude that uracil in FFPE DNA leads to a significant proportion of sequence artefacts. These can be minimised by a simple UDG pre-treatment, which can be readily carried out in the same tube as the PCR, immediately prior to commencing thermal cycling. HRM is a convenient way of monitoring both the degree of damage and the effectiveness of the UDG treatment. These findings have immediate and important implications for cancer diagnostics where FFPE DNA is used as the primary genetic material for mutational studies guiding personalised medicine strategies and where simple effective strategies to detect mutations are required.


Different types of structures for ironless synchronous cylindrical air-gap permanent magnet couplings are studied. In these structures, radially and tangentially oriented magnets are placed in ironless cores. The structures present a very small inertia and offer important benefits in many cases. An efficient method to calculate the torque of these types of couplings is presented. It is based on analytical formulas for the forces between parallelepipedical magnets. Optimal designs for each type of coupling and each number of pole pairs are determined by using a nonlinear optimization method. The design results are analyzed. The different types of structure are compared. The influence of the number of pairs of poles and of the main characteristic dimensions of each coupling is discussed. The results show that an ironless coupling structure where both radially and tangentially oriented magnets are used is a very advantageous solution.


Online interactions with the environment to collect data samples for training a Reinforcement Learning (RL) agent is not always feasible due to economic and safety concerns. The goal of Offline Reinforcement Learning is to address this problem by learning effective policies using previously collected datasets. Standard off-policy RL algorithms are prone to overestimations of the values of out-of-distribution (less explored) actions and are hence unsuitable for Offline RL. Behavior regularization, which constraints the learned policy within the support set of the dataset, has been proposed to tackle the limitations of standard off-policy algorithms. In this paper, we improve the behavior regularized offline reinforcement learning and propose BRAC+. First, we propose quantification of the out-of-distribution actions and conduct comparisons between using Kullback-Leibler divergence versus using Maximum Mean Discrepancy as the regularization protocol. We propose an analytical upper bound on the KL divergence as the behavior regularizer to reduce variance associated with sample based estimations. Second, we mathematically show that the learned Q values can diverge even using behavior regularized policy update under mild assumptions. This leads to large overestimations of the Q values and performance deterioration of the learned policy. To mitigate this issue, we add a gradient penalty term to the policy evaluation objective. By doing so, the Q values are guaranteed to converge. On challenging offline RL benchmarks, BRAC+ outperforms the baseline behavior regularized approaches by 40%~87% and the state-of-the-art approach by 6%.


The development of the information society based on knowledge and the globalization manifested in all areas (political, social, cultural, ecological, environmental, research, etc.) up to the individual level are specific characteristics of the international security environment in the first decade of the XXI century. Evaluation of societal environment security / insecurity must be based on the human individual, because this is where the security can be transpose on group level, state and, going further, regional and international level. Any human group, any state, regardless its size, location, form of organization, etc. can progress only if a state of relative security is ensured for its members. The state's role as a superior form of organization of human society cannot be minimized in order to ensure security. On security research community level there is a convergence of opinion that the state must remain the main actor of security debate, following two attributes that are fulfilled: the main unit of political organization in the world population and the main generator of conflicts international level. Obtaining an absolute security seems to be a difficult task. However, an important role for achieving success in this mission is education.
Important steps of scientific research, technological development and innovation feel not only in security area but also in education. E-Learingul is a new paradigm within educational procces. Its characteristics (fluidity of roles, curriculum needs of the learner-oriented, distributed resources, virtual facilities etc.) can be successfully applied in security studies.Starting from these considerations, the present study examines how e-Learing and scientific research contribute to a better understanding of theoretical and practical dimension of security.


Leading into a debt crisis, interest rate spreads on sovereign debt rise before the economy experiences a decline in productivity, suggesting that news about future economic developments may play an important role in these episodes. An empirical VAR estimation shows that a news shock has a larger contemporaneous impact on sovereign credit spreads than a comparable shock to labor productivity. A quantitative model of news and sovereign debt default with endogenous maturity choice generates impulse responses and a variance decomposition similar to the empirical VAR estimates. The dynamics of the economy after a bad news shock share some features of a productivity shock and some features of sudden stop events. However, unlike during sudden stop episodes, long-term debt does not shield the country from bad news shocks, and it may even exacerbate default risk. Finally, an increase in the precision of news allows the government to improve its debt maturity management, especially during periods of high stress in credit markets, and thus face lower yield spreads while increasing the amount of debt. JEL Classification: F34, F41, G15.


Soil compaction adversely influences most terrestrial ecosystem services on which humans depend. This global problem, affecting over 68 million ha of agricultural land alone, is a major driver of soil erosion, increases flood frequency and reduces groundwater recharge. Agricultural soil compaction has been intensively studied, but there are no systematic studies investigating the extent of compaction in urban ecosystems, despite the repercussions for ecosystem function. Urban areas are the fastest growing land-use type globally, and are often assumed to have highly compacted soils with compromised functionality. Here, we use bulk density (BD) measurements, taken to 14 cm depth at a citywide scale, to compare the extent of surface soil compaction between different urban greenspace classes and agricultural soils. Urban soils had a wider BD range than agricultural soils, but were significantly less compacted, with 12 per cent lower mean BD to 7 cm depth. Urban soil BD was lowest under trees and shrubs and highest under herbaceous vegetation (e.g. lawns). BD values were similar to many semi-natural habitats, particularly those underlying woody vegetation. These results establish that, across a typical UK city, urban soils were in better physical condition than agricultural soils and can contribute to ecosystem service provision.


t o the speed of light and leads to the insertion of two chapters on the theory of relativity. Unfortunately, Berry confuses moving object and moving observer and the special and general theories of relativity. Furthermore, he does not grasp the essence of current hypotheses about the structure of the universe. One speculates that the criticism of the publisher's physicist-reviewer led to an attempt to patch up these chapters with an appendix on the special theory of relativity, but all to no avail as regards Berry's text. An important book could be written on this interesting theme, but why a publisher of repute should unload this book on an innocent lay public is hard for me to understand. 1 d o not recommend it to the readers of Leoorrardo.


The electronic state ordering is calculated in substituted meta-xylylene diradicals for reproduction and comparison of results previously published by other authors. The second hyperpolarizability, γ, is calculated in the same systems using different methods. The diradical character is calculated for comparison and discussion of the γ values. The obtained electronic state ordering agrees qualitatively with previous findings. The γ values obtained from the finite-field method, which are related to the diradical character, agree with theory. The γ values obtained from the sum-over-states method, which relate to the vertical state ordering, are unsatisfactory.


This paper deals with the derivation and analysis of the the Hall Magneto-Hydrodynamic equations. We first provide a derivation of this system from a two-fluids Euler-Maxwell system for electrons and ions, through a set of scaling limits. We also propose a kinetic formulation for the Hall-MHD equations which contains as fluid closure different variants of the Hall-MHD model. Then, we prove the existence of global weak solutions for the incompressible viscous resistive Hall-MHD model. We use the particular structure of the Hall term which has zero contribution to the energy identity. Finally, we discuss particular solutions in the form of axisymmetric purely swirling magnetic fields and propose some regularization of the Hall equation.


Real-time optical intensity correlation with a synthetic discriminant function (SDF) filter has been realized. The computed SDF data are fed into an Epson liquid-crystal television to create the optical reference signal. The intensity modulation characteristics of the Epson liquid-crystal television are therefore investigated in the different modulation modes. The difficulties of generating the SDF filter, which are due to the negative values in the SDF data and to the characteristics of the spatial light modulator, are readily overcome by use of an intensity correlator. Experimental results are presented.


The antitumor and immunomodulating effect of reaferon was demonstrated in Syrian hamsters bearing tumors induced by cells transformed by HSV-1 DNA (the EH/A-44 strain). The animals received a total of 5 X 10(3) IU/ml of reaferon. In combined use of a lysate of destroyed tumor cells (DTC) and reaferon the best results were obtained with regard to an increase in the latent period of tumor development, differences in the tumor size, and increase in the survival time of the experimental animals as compared with the control group. In 75% of the animals given DTC and reaferon no tumors were observed up to 113 days. The above data suggest that reaferon may be recommended for combined therapy in malignant diseases where the etiologic factors might be viruses of the herpes group.


Anaphylaxis is a severe, life-threatening hypersensitivity reaction. NICE issued guidance in December 2011 regarding management of suspected anaphylaxis, the authors of which attribute suboptimal management to inadequate understanding by health care professionals. Aim We aim to evaluate how suspected anaphylaxis was managed in a large NHS trust and to assess knowledge of trainees and final year medical students. Method A retrospective case note analysis of patients under 17 years old coded with anaphylaxis between January 2007 and September 2012 comparing management to NICE guidance, was performed. This was supplemented by a survey (based on Advanced Paediatric Life Support guidelines) of junior doctors and medical students. Participants assigned twenty clinical features to 'allergy', 'suspected anaphylaxis' or' neither' and selected suitable management options. Results Table 1 illustrates initial management of anaphylaxis in 71 analysed cases. NICE provides guidance regarding discharge, compliance with which is highlighted in table 2. 66% of children had a known allergy; 72% of which were admitted with a reaction to their known allergen. 55% of children known to carry an adrenaline autoinjector used it correctly on this occasion. The results of the survey are shown in table 3. Anaphylaxis recognition was poorer amongst Emergency Medicine trainees compared with General Practice and Paediatric trainees. Regarding management, lower scores were seen in the more senior paediatric trainees and general practise trainees. Conclusions Our results identify aspects of good practise but also areas for improvement, especially regarding discharge information. The proportion of children being admitted with anaphylaxis to a known allergen and incorrect use of their autoinjector suggests a need to improve education. This project demonstrates that lack of trainee knowledge translates into clinical reality. We believe that improving trainee knowledge is vital in improving the management of anaphylaxis and as well as enabling doctors to educate patients and relatives. References Stewart AG, Ewan PW (1996) Quarterly Journal of Medicine 89 (11): 859–64. Pumphrey RS (2000) Clinical and Experimental Allergy 30(8): 1144–50. National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (2011) Anaphylaxis. CG134. London. Advanced Life Support Group. Advanced Paediatric Life Support (APLS), Fifth Edition. Blackwell 2011. Abstract G72 Figure 2 Abstract G72 Figure 2 Abstract G72 Figure 2


Background & Aims: Human colorectal carcinomas display an infiltrative front of invasion where tumor cells undergo an epithelomesenchymal transition associated with low survival. Epithelomesenchymal transition is regulated by a nuclear -catenin accumulation, and subsequently, activation of -catenin/ TCF4 target genes similar to CYCLIN D1. Unexpectedly, these tumor cells are characterized by low proliferation, which correlates with the expression of the cell cycle inhibitor p16 INK4A . Therefore, we investigated the molecular mechanism of the transcriptional regulation of p16 INK4A in colorectal cancer and its correlation with survival. Methods: Molecular biological techniques were used for investigating the transcriptional mechanisms of the p16 INK4A gene regulation. Moreover, p16 INK4A expression was correlated with the 10-year survival of patients with colorectal carcinomas. Results: In colorectal carcinomas, expression of the p16 INK4A gene is regulated by -catenin/TCF4 and correlates with low survival rates of patients with tumors displaying an infiltrative front of invasion. Conclusions: -catenin/TCF4 regulates cell cycle promoting (c-MYC, CYCLIN D1) and inhibiting genes (p16 INK4A ) at the same time in the mesenchymally differentiated tumor cells at the front of invasion. The function of p16 INK4A seems to supersede in this context thus leading to low proliferation. Moreover, these tumor cells seem to govern the outcome of colorectal cancer independently of their proliferation.


Lewis 1 recently reported two cases of myositis ossificans in which bone developed in incisions of the abdominal wall, and he referred to eleven cases from the literature in which the same condition was found. The operation preceding the laying down of bone in the abdominal wound in eight of the thirteen cases reported was for gastro-enterostomy. On account of the apparent rarity of the condition, I am reporting a. case in which the condition occurred subsequent to gastro-enterostomy. A man, aged 38, suffered for several years with spells of indigestion of a gastric ulcer type. In April, 1921, he was operated on elsewhere; a duodenal ulcer was found, and a posterior gastro-enterostomy was performed. The wound suppurated, and several weeks elapsed before it was completely healed. In April, 1923, he consulted me on account of a ventral hernia large enough to admit the thumb, at about the center of


Angle-resolved X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (AR-XPS) has been used for studying the surface segregation of chromium in a copper-0.4 mass% chromium alloy. The influence of the chromium segregation on native oxide layers formed on the surface in this alloy has also been studied. According to a simple layered model assuming thin homogeneous layers, the average surface concentration chromium was found to increase up to about 15 at% on the alloy surface by annealing up to about 1000 K under ultra high vacuum. The AR-XPS results for the alloy surface with chromium segregation, which was exposed to air, showed that the growth of the native oxide layer of copper was not significantly suppressed by segregated chromium. This small influence of chromium segregation on the native oxide layer is considered to result from the relatively high oxidation rate of copper and the microscopic heterogeneity of chromium segregation on the alloy surface.


We present summer Na-densities and atmospheric temperatures measured 80 to 110 km above the Arctic Lidar Observatory for Middle Atmosphere Research (ALOMAR). The Weber Na Lidar is part of ALOMAR, located at 69° N in Norway, 150 km north of the Arctic Circle. The sun does not set here during the summer months, and measurements require a narrowband Faraday Anomalous Dispersion Optical Filter (FADOF). We discuss an observed sudden enhancement in the Na number density around 22:00 UT on 1 to 2 June 2006. We compare this observation with previous summer measurements and find a frequent appearance of Na number density enhancements near local midnight. We describe the time of appearance, the altitude distribution, the duration and the strength of these enhancements and compare them to winter observations. We investigate possible formation mechanisms and, as others before, we find a strong link between these Na number density enhancements and sporadic E layers.


It is now clear that the masses of the neutrino sector are much lighter than those of the other three sectors.There are many attempts to explain the neutrino masses radiatively by means of inert Higgses, which don't have vacuum expectation values. Then one can discuss cold dark matter candidates, because of no needing so heavy particles and having a $Z_2$ parity symmetry corresponding to the R-parity symmetry of the MSSM.
The most famous work would be the Zee model.
Recently a new type model along this line of thought was proposed by Mr. E. Ma. We paid attention to this idea. We introduce a flavor symmetry based on a dihedral group $D_6$ to constrain the Yukawa sector. For the neutrino sector, we find that the maximal mixing of atmospheric neutrinos is realized, it can also be shown that only an inverted mass spectrum, the value of $|V_{MNS_{13}}|$ is 0.0034 and so on. When one extends the Higgs sector, it leads to FCNCs mediated by Higgs fields generally. But in our model, the FCNCs are (of course) suppressed for the experiments sufficiently. For the fermionic CDM candidates, we find that the mass of the CDM and the inert Higgs should be larger than about 230 and 300 GeV, respectively. If we restrict ourselves to a perturbative regime, they should be lighter than about 750 GeV.


Previous research on face restoration often focused on repairing a specific type of low-quality facial images such as low-resolution (LR) or occluded facial images. However, in the real world, both the above-mentioned forms of image degradation often coexist. Therefore, it is important to design a model that can repair LR occluded images simultaneously. This paper proposes a multi-scale feature graph generative adversarial network (MFG-GAN) to implement the face restoration of images in which both degradation modes coexist, and also to repair images with a single type of degradation. Based on the GAN, the MFG-GAN integrates the graph convolution and feature pyramid network to restore occluded low-resolution face images to non-occluded high-resolution face images. The MFG-GAN uses a set of customized losses to ensure that high-quality images are generated. In addition, we designed the network in an end-to-end format. Experimental results on the public-domain CelebA and Helen databases show that the proposed approach outperforms state-of-the-art methods in performing face super-resolution (up to 4x or 8x) and face completion simultaneously. Cross-database testing also revealed that the proposed approach has good generalizability.


Most of educators are aware of their learners' different preferences in learning process. These ways of learning preference, characteristics or any other psychological parameters accepted as learning styles of students. A learning style as an important characteristic, should not review in learning process in single way while academic performance is a factor that enhanced whenever learning styles of students are considered. The aim of the research is to find out learning styles of students and ascertain the probable differences among different academic performance groups based on their learning styles in synchronous e-learning environment. The synchronous or asynchronous e-learner test is as a questionnaire for e-classes was developed by the researchers in order to distinguish synchronous from asynchronous e-learners in virtual Universities. The Kolb's Learning Styles Inventory (KLSI 3.1) was used to identify preferred learning styles among 388 synchronous e-learners that selected by multi-stage random sampling from six virtual Universities of Tehran. The Kruskal Wallis Test was used as the statistical tool while Mann-Whitney U test used as Post Hoc which should be conducted between each two groups in order to determine most causes of the difference among categories. The results indicated that there is significant difference in learning styles within different academic performance groups whether the results of Mann-Whitney U test indicated that observed differences are due to learning preference of low academic performance group that preferred Assimilating style with medium and high academic performance group that preferred Diverging style.


Vaccination is one of the most effective tools for limiting the impact of equine influenza (EI). The humoral immunity established following a primary vaccination course can decrease significantly between the second (V2) and third immunisations (V3), leaving some horses insufficiently protected for several weeks. This so-called "immunity gap" poses a challenge to all EI vaccines. During this period, the EI infection of vaccinated animals may be followed by marked clinical signs and virus shedding. However, several EI vaccines have been shown to stimulate equine influenza virus (EIV)-specific cell-mediated immunity, which is likely to play a role in protection against EIV infection and/or mitigate the clinical and virological signs of EI. Reducing the interval between V2 and V3 has been shown to be counterproductive to longer-term immunity. Further research is needed to define and address the "immunity gap" in horses. This study aimed to measure the level of protection induced by a whole inactivated, ISCOMatrix adjuvanted, EI and tetanus vaccine (Equilis Prequenza-Te) when challenged during the immunity gap (i.e., immediately before the recommended boost immunisation, more than 5 months after V2) using infection with a recent heterologous Florida Clade 2 (FC2) equine influenza virus (EIV) strain. This vaccine was tested in a Welsh mountain pony model. A group of seven ponies was vaccinated twice, 4 weeks apart. The protective antibody response was measured and ponies were challenged, along with 5 unvaccinated control ponies, by experimental infection with the FC2 A/eq/Northamptonshire/1/13 EIV strain, 158 days (around 5.2 months) after V2 and their clinical signs and virus shedding were monitored. EI serology was measured by single radial haemolysis (SRH) and haemagglutination inhibition (HI). Clinical signs and virus shedding (measured by qRT-PCR and hen's egg titration) were compared with controls. All vaccinates had detectable, low SRH antibody titres and most had detectable, low HI titres. Significant clinical and virological protection was observed in vaccinates (p < 0.05), supporting the good performance of this vaccine against a recent EIV strain. In this study, the impact of the immunity gap in ponies was limited after primary vaccination with this whole inactivated, ISCOMatrix adjuvanted EI and tetanus vaccine (Equilis Prequenza-Te) when infected several months after V2 with a recent FC2 strain, which is representative of EIV circulating in the EU.


We report the development of an acoustic telemetry tag used to monitor electromyograms (EMGs) remotely from free-swimming marine fish. The device described amplifies and filters the EMG and then converts the electrical waveform into a frequency-modulated acoustic signal that is transmitted through water. The signal is then received, demodulated and recorded by the receiving system. The EMG tag described has been tested on a range of species, including toadfish Opsanus &tgr;, spiny dogfish Squalus acanthias, yellowfin tuna Thunnus albacares and eastern Pacific bonito Sarda chiliensis, in different tank environments. In certain tanks the fidelity with which the system replicates the EMG is sufficient to quantify accurately the onset, offset, duration, the integrated area under the absolute value of the signal and the number of signal zero crossings. This EMG tag will expand the scope of questions that can be addressed about the behavior and physiology of free-swimming fish.


: The peculiarities of the development of spontaneous fluctuations of the c.s.f. pressure (CSFP) (B- and plato-waves) in the early postoperative period in 169 neurosurgical patients were studied according to the location of the pathological process and the severity of the clinical condition. The dependence between the CSPF spontaneous fluctuations, the changes of intracerebral pressure, and the dynamics of bioelectrical activity of the brain was studied. The development of spontaneous wave CSFP fluctuations was found to be dependent on the location of the tumor and the severity of the clinical condition. These fluctuations occurred most frequently in patients who were in a critical state (12-8 marks on Glasgow's scale) with the process located in the diencephalo-stem brain areas. A hypothesis is suggested, according to which the cause of the wave CSFP fluctuations of the B-wave type is connected with the change of the vasomotor center to the cyclic regimen of work: the neurogenic change of the vascular tonus, causing in succession constriction and dilatation of the vessels, leads to rhythmic CSFP oscillations. CSFP plato-waves occur in cases in which the constriction phase fails to appear after the dilatation phase, i.e., the tonic pressor effect of the vasomotor center does not occur, which may be due to its exhaustion. In death of the brain and in terminal states the vasomotor center loses the ability to cause neurogenic regulation of the vascular tonus, to provide the pressor effect in particular, which leads to the disappearance of spontaneous CSFP fluctuations.


In optical WDM networks, designing survivable virtual topologies is a critical problem since a fiber failure may result in a serious amount of data loss. We propose a novel hyper-heuristic approach based on ant colony optimization for solving the survivable cross-layer virtual topology design problem efficiently. To increase the scale-up, a flowdeviation method is used. The experimental results show that our approach can solve the problem for single-link failure in a reasonable amount of time, i.e., 20 minutes on average. Moreover, for double-link failure situations, our approach can still be used to design survivable virtual topologies in approximately 30 minutes without any change in the algorithm.


The paper explores how human resource management (HRM) is currently intended, used and experienced in 10 Finnish companies operating in the field of telecommunications. Our specific focus is on direct and indirect forms of managerial control and the psychological contract. We examine how psychological contracts are created and maintained, and study their relationship with HRM as a means of either direct or indirect control. Our findings indicate that employees are voluntarily assuming the obligation to exercise organizational control as a part of their psychological contract in exchange for the freedom and autonomy that they enjoy. Recruitment emerges as a top employer priority. However, not many other human resource (HR) techniques are used. Rather, carefully selected workers are allowed the autonomy and freedom to define what constitutes their psychological contract, with a duty to control its attractiveness from the employers' point of view.


c‐MYC controls more than 15% of genes responsible for proliferation, differentiation, and cellular metabolism in pancreatic as well as other cancers making this transcription factor a prime target for treating patients. The transcriptome of 55 patient‐derived xenografts show that 30% of them share an exacerbated expression profile of MYC transcriptional targets (MYC‐high). This cohort is characterized by a high level of Ki67 staining, a lower differentiation state, and a shorter survival time compared to the MYC‐low subgroup. To define classifier expression signature, we selected a group of 10 MYC target transcripts which expression is increased in the MYC‐high group and six transcripts increased in the MYC‐low group. We validated the ability of these markers panel to identify MYC‐high patient‐derived xenografts from both: discovery and validation cohorts as well as primary cell cultures from the same patients. We then showed that cells from MYC‐high patients are more sensitive to JQ1 treatment compared to MYC‐low cells, in monolayer, 3D cultured spheroids and in vivo xenografted tumors, due to cell cycle arrest followed by apoptosis. Therefore, these results provide new markers and potentially novel therapeutic modalities for distinct subgroups of pancreatic tumors and may find application to the future management of these patients within the setting of individualized medicine clinics.


The bottom-up spatial organization of potential nanoelectronic components is a key intermediate step in the development of molecular electronics. We describe robust three-space-spanning DNA motifs that are used to organize nanoparticles in two dimensions. One strand of the motif ends in a gold nanoparticle; only one DNA strand is attached to the particle. By using two of the directions of the motif to produce a two-dimensional crystalline array, one direction is free to bind gold nanoparticles. Identical motifs, tailed in different sticky ends, enable the two-dimensional periodic ordering of 5 and 10 nm diameter gold nanoparticles.


Quantification of the various components of the carbon cycle budget is key to improved climate modeling and projecting anthropogenic affects on climate in the future. Estimating the levels of above ground biomass contained in the world's forests that comprise 86% of the planet's above ground carbon and monitoring the rate of change to these standing stocks resulting from both natural and anthropogenic disturbances is necessary to solving the carbon cycle sink. Remote sensing is the only viable means of obtaining a global inventory of forest biomass at the hectare scale. The most promising means of obtaining remotely sensed biomass measurements involve using either lidar or radar measurements of vegetation structure coupled with allometric relationships. We have collected repeat-pass L-band fully polarimetric radar data at multiple spatial and temporal baselines to investigate the tree height and structure measurements using polarimetric interferometry and tomography techniques. This paper will discuss this experiment and comparison with lidar data.


Here, we propose a molecular dynamics investigation of the supramolecular association of sulfonatedcalix-[8]-arenes to cytochrome c. The binding sites prone to interactions with sulfonated calixarenescan be identified without prior knowledge of the X-ray structure, and the binding free energiesestimated by molecular mechanics Poisson-Boltzmann surface area (MM-PBSA) post-analysis arefound to be in neat agreement with the isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) measurements The per-residuedecomposition reveals the detailed picture of this electrostatically-driven association and notably therole of the arginine R13 as a bridge residue between the two main anchoring sites. In addition,the analysis of the residue behavior by means of a supervised machine learning protocol unveils the formation of an hydrogen bond network far from the binding sites, increasing the rigidity of theprotein.


Methods of assessing how agronomic practices influence soil productivity and sustainability are required. The effects of various agronomic practices on soil organic N and hydrolyzable amino N in a Udic Haploboroll were determined in a long-term (30-yr) crop rotation study at Indian Head, Saskatchewan. Practices assessed included fertilization, fallowing frequency, green manuring, and inclusion of a grass-legume forage crop in predominantly spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) systems. Fertilization, green manuring, or inclusion of a grass-legume hay crop significantly (P < 0.10) increased soil and amino N (amino acid N plus amino sugar N), particularly as fallowing frequency was reduced. When the relative molar distribution of the amino acids was used to assess changes in soil organic-N quality, significant and consistent increases in aspartic acid and decreases in arginine and leucine were observed; however, the differences were mainly associated with the 6-yr mixed and fertilized continuous wheat (Cont W) rotations. Comparison of our N-concentration results with an estimate of the initial (1958) N concentration suggests that all fallow-containing monoculture wheat rotations and unfertilized Cont W have failed to maintain soil N, the unfertilized 3-yr legume green manure-wheat-wheat system has maintained soil N, while the 6-yr fallow-cereal-hay (grass-legume) and fertilized Cont W systems have increased soil N. Hydrolyzable amino N was only marginally more effective than Kjeldahl N for describing changes in soil organic-matter quality.


Tailoring of active cobalt alloy cathodes for hydrogen evolution in a hot concentrated sodium hydroxide solution was attempted by electrodeposition. Enhancement of cathodic activity of cobalt for electrolytic hydrogen evolution has been carried out by the formation of Co-Fe and Co-Fe-C alloys containing different content of iron. The carbon addition to Co-Fe alloys was made to enhance the electrolytic hydrogen evolution activity and to prevent open circuit corrosion in 8 kmol m-3 NaOH at 363 K. The best condition for electrodeposition of Co-Fe alloy was pH 4 and the iron sulfate concentration of more than 5 kg m-3. Under this condition the alloy was obtained with nanocrystalline bcc phase as a dominant and with the highest hydrogen evolution activity. The carbon addition slowed down preferential iron dissolution by open circuit corrosion in the hot alkaline solution but was not effective in complete prevention of the open circuit corrosion and in enhancing the hydrogen evolution.


Over two decades ago I proposed that in order to understand how psi operated we needed to view it in an evolutionary context (Broughton, 1988). This notion was consonant with, and indeed grew out of Stanford's need-serving model of psi (Stanford, 1974, 1990). At the time, even with Stanford's insights, the evolutionary purpose for the existence of psi seemed uncomfortably vague. Since then there have been only two attempts to pursue this further, with McClennon (2002) offering his 'ritual healing theory' as an indirect evolutionary advantage, and Taylor (2003) extending Stanford's model into a more explicitly evolutionary framework. While these efforts have their merits, I argue that we are still short of a convincing picture of an evolutionary advantage conferred by psi.
In further exploring the evolutionary perspective, I think it would be helpful to limit consideration to extrasensory perception (ESP) or anomalous cognition. Also, the two stage model (Tyrrell, 1946) of ESP suggests that evolutionary modelling of the phenomena must focus primarily with the second stage, called the product, in which anomalous information is elaborated into conscious awareness and/or behaviour.
In order to understand how ESP or anomalous intuition works, it is necessary to understand its purpose within an evolutionary context. Evolution has proven exceptionally effective in enabling species to make use of a wide range of physical phenomena for information gathering and communication. If some yet undiscovered physical process permits retrocausation would we not expect evolution to have capitalized on that process. As a product of evolution, ESP would have to conform to the requirements of evolutionary theory.
Suddendorf and Corballis (2007) have elaborated the notion of mental time travel (MTT), the memory-based ability to project oneself into the past as well as the future, and have argued that the "ultimate evolutionary advantage" may lie in the capacity to envisage future events. Their model of MTT provides an ideal context in which to understand an evolutionary path for anomalous intuition. Working through the emotional system, anomalous intuition may operate by influencing the selection of memory images we use to execute our MTT.
A growing body of data supports the involvement of the emotional system in anomalous intuition but there is only suggestive evidence for the expected hereditary component. The observed limited effectiveness of anomalous intuition may emerge from the balance achieved through an evolutionarily stable strategy, or result from inherent limitations in capitalizing on the underlying physical process