Introduction Kaposi sarcoma (KS) used to be a rare vascular sarcoma occurring in the dermis of the sole. However with emergence of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) not only its incidence has markedly climbed but also other tissues are frequently involved. These include oral cavity, nose, gastrointestinal tract, lymph nodes, lungs and liver. KS causes red or purple patches on the skin and/ or mucous membranes. Although most patients present with skin disease, KS involvement of lymph nodes or the gastrointestinal tract may occasionally precede the appearance of the cutaneous lesions.1 We report here a case of Kaposi sarcoma involving axillary lymph nodes without any cutaneous lesions and with an unknown HIV status. Although there was a high index of clinical suspicion, lymph node biopsy of the patient was the first to confirm the diagnosis of Kaposi sarcoma. Subsequently, serology revealed that the patient was indeed HIV positive and had markedly low levels of CD4 + helper Tcells. This case also emphasizes upon the use of oil immersion lens as a routine on histopathology sections as is this case the diagnosis was made on 1000 magnification that clearly revealed the nuclear atypia in the endothelial cells.


By using acoustic irradiation induced vibration and laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV), noncontact acoustic inspection method for concrete non-destructive measurement has been studied. By using a long range acoustic device (LRAD) as a sound source and a scanning vibrometer (SLDV; Scanning Laser Doppler Vibrometer) as a LDV, it has already been demonstrated that non-destructive exploration can be performed even if it is separated from concrete specimens or actual structures by 30 m or more. On the other hand, in shotcrete inside huge cavities of underground power plants, cracking and small surface peeling due to drilling and secular change have been confirmed. For safety, there are cases where periodic hammering inspections using ceiling cranes are performed for ceiling cracks, but because it is difficult to hit directly without a scaffolding etc., development of an inspection method that can be carried out over a long distance without contact is required. However, the surface condition of shotcrete in the underground huge cavities differs greatly from general concrete specimens and actual concrete structures which have been used conventionally, and the surface unevenness is considerably large. In order to investigate the applicability of noncontact acoustic inspection method for defect detection of shotcrete, a verification experiment was conducted on the wall of the huge cavity inside the existing underground power station. The defect judgment result by the noncontact acoustic inspection method was almost consistent with the defect judgment result by the existing hammering inspections at any place. Therefore, we have confirmed the applicability of this method to shotcrete, which has the feature that noncontact measurement from a long distance is possible.


Clinicians make decisions based on a large and complex patient information space in time pressured situations. Through continuity, experience, and privileged knowledge, the patient and caregiver(s) are in a position to support clinician decisionmaking through information delivery. For example, they may make salient relevant information or provide an integrated patient story to help clinicians overcome challenges of making decisions based on incomplete information. Recommendations of engaging patient/caregiver(s) include fostering a culture of listening by clinicians, speaking up by patient/caregiver(s), effective patient education and health information technology, and family-centered rounding and hand-offs. Using a lived experience, I illustrate the value of the potential impact of caregiver's informational contribution to patient safety.


This paper proposes a discrete-choice behavioural model of labour supply to examine the role of ill-health on single parents' employment. The model provides estimates of individual preferences over a given set of labour market states and allows these preferences to be influenced by a measure of mental health, a latent health index purged of reporting bias and various measures of health shocks. Exploiting longitudinal data from the HILDA Survey, we find that psychological well-being, ill-health and health shocks significantly influence single parents' marginal disutility of work and marginal utility of income. Further, we apply behavioural microsimulation methods to estimate the likely labour supply responses among single parents in Australia from restricting eligibility to access disability support via the Australian Disability Support Pension (DSP) scheme. Our simulation exercise reveals that imposing tighter DSP eligibility rules has a moderate but positive effect on single mothers' employment.


M-estimators are ubiquitous in machine learning and statistical learning theory. They are used both for defining prediction strategies and for evaluating their precision. In this paper, we propose the first non-asymptotic "any-time" deviation bounds for general M-estimators, where "any-time" means that the bound holds with a prescribed probability for every sample size. These bounds are nonasymptotic versions of the law of iterated logarithm. They are established under general assumptions such as Lipschitz continuity of the loss function and (local) curvature of the population risk. These conditions are satisfied for most examples used in machine learning, including those ensuring robustness to outliers and to heavy tailed distributions. As an example of application, we consider the problem of best arm identification in a parametric stochastic multi-arm bandit setting. We show that the established bound can be converted into a new algorithm, with provably optimal theoretical guarantees. Numerical experiments illustrating the validity of the algorithm are reported.


PURPOSE
Self-directed and supervised exercise were compared with usual care in a clinical trial designed to evaluate the effect of structured exercise on physical functioning and other dimensions of health-related quality of life in women with stages I and II breast cancer.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
One hundred twenty-three women with stages I and II breast cancer completed baseline evaluations of generic and disease- and site-specific health-related quality of life, aerobic capacity, and body weight. Participants were randomly allocated to one of three intervention groups: usual care (control group), self-directed exercise, or supervised exercise. Quality of life, aerobic capacity, and body weight measures were repeated at 26 weeks. The primary outcome was the change in the Short Form-36 physical functioning scale between baseline and 26 weeks.

RESULTS
Physical functioning in the control group decreased by 4.1 points, whereas it increased by 5.7 points and 2.2 points in the self-directed and supervised exercise groups, respectively (P =.04). Post hoc analysis showed a moderately large (and clinically important) difference between the self-directed and control groups (9.8 points; P =.01) and a more modest difference between the supervised and control groups (6.3 points; P =.09). No significant differences between groups were observed for changes in quality of life scores. In a secondary analysis of participants stratified by type of adjuvant therapy, supervised exercise improved aerobic capacity (+3.5 mL/kg/min; P =.01) and reduced body weight (-4.8 kg; P <.05) compared with usual care only in participants not receiving chemotherapy.

CONCLUSION
Physical exercise can blunt some of the negative side effects of breast cancer treatment, including reduced physical functioning. Self-directed exercise is an effective way to improve physical functioning compared with usual care. In participants not receiving chemotherapy, supervised exercise may increase aerobic capacity and reduce body weight compared with usual care.


The Mas-related genes (Mrgs) comprise a family of >50 G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), many of which are expressed in specific subsets of nociceptive sensory neurons in mice. In contrast, humans contain a related but nonorthologous family of genes, called MrgXs or sensory neuron-specific receptors, of which many fewer appear to be expressed in sensory neurons. To determine whether the diversity of murine Mrgs is generic to rodents or is an atypical feature of mice, we characterized MrgA, MrgB, MrgC, and MrgD subfamilies in rat and gerbil. Surprisingly, although mice have ≈22 MrgA and ≈14 MrgC genes, rats and gerbils have just a single MrgA and MrgC gene. This murine-specific expansion likely reflects recent retrotransposon-mediated unequal crossover events. The expression of Mrgs in rat sensory ganglia suggests that the extensive cellular diversity in mice can be simplified to a core subset of approximately four different genes (MrgA, MrgB, MrgC, and MrgD), defining a similar number of neuronal subpopulations. Our results suggest more generally that mouse–human genomic comparisons may sometimes reveal differences atypical of rodents.


Aims: Recent studies suggest that cannabinoid receptor agonists may promote relapse to drug-seeking behaviour after a period of abstinence. In this study, the ability of ∆9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) to reinstate previously reinforced responding for alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages was assessed in rats using a novel lick-based paradigm. Methods: Rats were initially given free access to beer (containing 4.5% ethanol v/v), near-beer (a beverage that looks and tastes like beer but contains <0.5% ethanol v/v) or isocaloric sucrose in their home cages for 3 weeks. They were then trained to lick at a tube to self-administer the pre-exposed beverage in operant chambers under a VR10 schedule in 30-min sessions daily. After ~3 weeks of such access, the rats underwent an extinction procedure, so that licking at the tube produced no reward. Once responding had ceased, the rats were subjected to various reinstatement tests. Results: In Experiment 1, the cannabinoid receptor agonist ∆9-THC (1 mg/kg) significantly reinstated responding, previously reinforced with beer or near-beer. The effect was unlikely to be caused by increased appetite because 24 h food-deprivation had no such effect. Exposure to cat odour in the test chamber failed to reinstate responding for beer or near-beer and caused a complete inhibition of responding. In Experiment 2, ∆ 9 -THC (0.3 and 1 but not 3 mg/kg) again reinstated beer-seeking behaviour while the 1 mg/kg dose also reinstated responding in sucrose trained animals. Midazolam (0.15 mg/kg but not 0.5 or 1.5 mg/kg) produced a modest reinstatement of beer-seeking but had no effect on sucrose-seeking behaviour. Conclusions: The finding that ∆ 9 -THC can reinstate alcohol-seeking provides the impetus for further research into the involvement of the cannabinoid system in alcohol craving. However, the reinstatement of near-beer and sucrose-seeking behaviour caused by ∆ 9 -THC suggests a relatively non-specific effect. This may perhaps be related to the stressor-like effects of cannabinoids, and their ability to activate key neural circuitry in the amygdala and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis.


Abstract. The very weak solution of the Poisson equation with L2 boundary data is defined by the method of transposition. The finite element solution with regularized boundary data converges in the L2(Ω)-norm with order 1/2 in convex domains but has a reduced convergence order in nonconvex domains although the solution remains to be contained in H1/2(Ω). The reason is a singularity in the dual problem. In this paper we propose and analyze, as a remedy, both a standard finite element method with mesh grading and a dual variant of the singular complement method. The error order 1/2 is retained in both cases, also with nonconvex domains. Numerical experiments confirm the theoretical results.


Background: Propofol is one of the safest drugs in the induction of general anesthesia. The routinely available preparation in market being Propofol LCT (long chain triglycerides) which do have a disadvantage of pain on injection. This pain is very discomforting for the patient and also anesthesiologist. So, they are coming up with new preparation Propofol MCT (medium chain triglycerides) which do have a property of reduction of pain on injection. In view of which we compare the occurrence of pain on injection of Propofol MCT with Propofol LCT and rise in serum triglyceride levels after single induction dose.
Materials and methods: After obtaining institutional ethical committee approval, 150 patients of ASA I & II were enrolled in the study undergoing various elective surgeries under general anesthesia, where propofol is used as an induction agent. The study patients were divided into two groups who received Propofol MCT (Group M) and Propofol LCT (Group L) as an induction drug. The intensity of pain is evaluated by using visual analogue score (VAS). Similarly, side effects of Propofol MCT were observed.
Results: Group M showed reduced pain score (4.15 ± 1.90) after Propofol MCT injection along with less incidence of pain compared to Group L (6.37± 2.49). Serum triglyceride levels had no significant difference in preoperative and postoperative values.
Conclusion: In conclusion, pain on injection with Propofol MCT (4.15 ± 1.90) is less compared to Propofol LCT (6.37± 2.49); there is no evidence of elevation of triglyceride levels after single induction dose in the study.
Keywords: Propofol, Pain on Injection, Propofol MCT, Propofol LCT, Serum Triglycerides


Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a devastating lung disease primarily caused by exposure to cigarette smoke (CS). During the pyrolysis and combustion of tobacco, reactive aldehydes such as acetaldehyde, acrolein, and formaldehyde are formed, which are known to be involved in respiratory toxicity. Although CS-induced mitochondrial dysfunction has been implicated in the pathophysiology of COPD, the role of aldehydes therein is incompletely understood. To investigate this, we used a physiologically relevant in vitro exposure model of differentiated human primary bronchial epithelial cells (PBEC) exposed to CS (one cigarette) or a mixture of acetaldehyde, acrolein, and formaldehyde (at relevant concentrations of one cigarette) or air, in a continuous flow system using a puff-like exposure protocol. Exposure of PBEC to CS resulted in elevated IL-8 cytokine and mRNA levels, increased abundance of constituents associated with autophagy, decreased protein levels of molecules associated with the mitophagy machinery, and alterations in the abundance of regulators of mitochondrial biogenesis. Furthermore, decreased transcript levels of basal epithelial cell marker KRT5 were reported after CS exposure. Only parts of these changes were replicated in PBEC upon exposure to a combination of acetaldehyde, acrolein, and formaldehyde. More specifically, aldehydes decreased MAP1LC3A mRNA (autophagy) and BNIP3 protein (mitophagy) and increased ESRRA protein (mitochondrial biogenesis). These data suggest that other compounds in addition to aldehydes in CS contribute to CS-induced dysregulation of constituents controlling mitochondrial content and function in airway epithelial cells.


Abstract The paper presents results of analysis of turbidity changes in washing solutions and the quantity of solid particles present in them during regeneration under various temperature conditions. Three solutions taken from breweries after the process of washing brewhouse equipment in the CIP system were evaluated. The results were subjected to statistical analysis, to define the functions that characterize the changes of the tested parameters in relation to time and temperature. The results showed that the tested solutions have different favourable conditions for their regeneration. It has also been shown that the character of changes in solutions in the regeneration process is more advantageously determined on the basis of turbidity tests of solutions.


Instability and variability of Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) algorithms tend to adversely affect their performance. Averaged-DQN is a simple extension to the DQN algorithm, based on averaging previously learned Q-values estimates, which leads to a more stable training procedure and improved performance by reducing approximation error variance in the target values. To understand the effect of the algorithm, we examine the source of value function estimation errors and provide an analytical comparison within a simplified model. We further present experiments on the Arcade Learning Environment benchmark that demonstrate significantly improved stability and performance due to the proposed extension.


girls' clubs, girl gulides' companies, branchles of the Ms:others' UTnion, anid to factory workers. Thlo Leaguie was responisiblo for a very large nulmboer of new publications during 1925. These included ptimml)hkts anrd smniall hooks dealing with everyday psychology in the nursery, cookery for chilldren, maternity and child welfare centres in riural distr icts, and the work of ante-nlatal centres. Several of the publications of the League have niow beeni tr'anlslated into foreign languages. The sales reached nearly 450,000 copies, as comiipared with 397,000 copies in 1924. The League's report includes tho annultal r'eports of the associated societies and a statement of accounts foi1925.


Association mapping of genetic diseases has attracted extensive research interest during the recent years. However, most of the methodologies introduced so far suffer from spurious inference of the disease-causing sites due to population inhomogeneities. In this paper, we introduce a statistical framework to compensate for this shortcoming by equipping the current methodologies with a state-of-the-art clustering algorithm being widely used in population genetics applications. The proposed framework jointly infers the disease causal factors and the hidden population structures. In this regard, a Markov Chain-Monte Carlo (MCMC) procedure has been employed to assess the posterior probability distribution of the model parameters. We have implemented our proposed framework on a software package whose performance is extensively evaluated on a number of synthetic datasets, and compared to some of the well-known existing methods such as STRUCTURE. It has been shown that in extreme scenarios, up to 10 – 15% of improvement in the inference accuracy is achieved with a moderate increase in computational complexity.


A design procedure of an active ride control system (RCS) for regulating the roll and pitch motions of a high speed marine vessel is presented. In order to achieve high quality passenger comfort and reduce the seasickness it is necessary to counterbalance the excessive pitch and roll motions using an active ride control system. To do so, a mathematical model of the vessel describing the motion of the high speed vessel in 3 degree of freedom, heave-roll-pitch, is derived using VERES (VEssel RESponse) program. The effect of active T-foils and interceptors is discussed, and a frequency weighted H2-optimal controller is designed and implemented. The performance of the proposed ride control system is shown by experimental tests of a scaled model of high speed catamaran in MARINTEK's ocean basin.


A8Tl11 (A = alkali metal) compounds have been known since the investigations of Corbett et al. in 1995 and are still a matter of current discussions as the compound includes one extra electron referred to the charge of the Tl117− cluster. Attempts to substitute this additional electron by incorporation of a halide atom succeeded in the preparation of single crystals for the lightest triel homologue of the group, Cs8Ga11Cl, and powder diffraction experiments for the heavier homologues also suggested the formation of analogous compounds. However, X-Ray single crystal studies on A8Tl11X to prove this substitution and to provide a deeper insight into the influence on the thallide substructure have not yet been performed, probably due to severe absorption combined with air and moisture sensitivity for this class of compounds. Here, we present single crystal X-Ray structure analyses of the new compounds Cs8Tl11Cl0.8, Cs8Tl11Br0.9, Cs5Rb3Tl11Cl0.5, Cs5.7K2.3Tl11Cl0.6 and K4Rb4Tl11Cl0.1. It is shown that a (partial) incorporation of halide can also be indirectly determined by examination of the Tl-Tl distances, thereby the newly introduced cdd/cdav ratio allows to evaluate the degree of distortion of Tl117− clusters.


The effects of pond isolation, drought, habitat fragmentation and dispersal on populations of crested newts (Triturus cristatus) were investigated using stochastic models constructed from existing life history data. The models predict that small isolated populations have a higher risk of extinction than large isolated populations. However, even large populations had a relatively high extinction risk over a fifty year period if they remained isolated. Pond desiccation affects metamorphic success and recruitment, and the risk of extinction decreased with decreasing frequency of regional droughts. In a subdivided population, increasing dispersal between subpopulations decreased the extinction risk of the metapopulation as a whole. However, even in the absence of dispersal, a subdivided population had a lower overall extinction risk than a single isolated population of the same size. Environmental stochasticity may therefore result in asynchronous dynamics within subpopulations, which leads to the risk of extinction being spread across the subpopulations. Although population viability analysis has the potential to provide an objective assessment of population management decisions, it has not yet been a component of conservation planning for the crested newt in Britain.


This technical report describes methods and results from the headwater streams component of Countryside Survey.

Countryside Survey (CS) consists of a field-based survey of 591 1km x 1km sample squares spread across England, Scotland and Wales, undertaken approximately every eight years. Around 60% of these squares contain at least one linear water feature such as a stream or ditch. Surveys of a headwater stream or ditch/drain site have been undertaken as part of Countryside Survey in 1990, 1998 and 2007. Since 1998, the survey has consisted of three elements: the macroinvertebrates (small aquatic animals visible to the naked eye which live on the stream bed), the macrophytes (larger aquatic plants) and the habitats (the structure of the channel and riparian zone). A single water chemistry sample is taken for supporting information. In 1990, only the macroinvertebrate component of the survey was undertaken.

Compared with larger rivers, headwater streams are relatively poorly covered by the monitoring of national agencies. The data collected in Countryside Survey allow for an integrated description of the changes in ecological status and biodiversity of headwater streams through time, and the description of these changes is the main aim of this report. Additionally, for macroinvertebrates, their status against a minimally-impacted reference condition may be assessed. The vast amount of data available for the terrestrial survey component of Countryside Survey allows many potential linkages to be examined between human activities and stream ecological response. In this report, we detail some of these linkages, which will be elaborated further as part of the Countryside Survey Integrated Assessment to be published later in 2010.

Results show many areas of improvement over the period 1998 to 2007. Notable improvements have occurred to macroinvertebrate status indicators in England, although south east England in particular is starting from a lower baseline of headwater stream biological quality when compared to other parts of Great Britain. Numbers of sites at good or high macroinvertebrate status in south east lowland England are still relatively low (30%). Increases in the number of macrophyte species and habitat quality appear to have occurred throughout Great Britain. Finally, improvements to trophic (nutrient) status, as indicated by the macrophyte communities, have occurred in Scotland. Substantial improvements in macroinvertebrate indicators occurred between 1990 and 1998 for all parts of Great Britain, however part of this observed improvement may be due to drought conditions in 1990.

Declines have been observed in macroinvertebrate status for the Scottish Highlands, which had the highest proportion of sites at good or high status in 1998, but in 2007 this proportion has dropped to a level comparable to that of the rest of Scotland and upland England. Unfortunately it is not currently possible to pinpoint causes of this decline. There is an indication of increased extent of resectioning (engineering of the channel to widen, deepen and straighten), particularly in lowland Scotland, however this may be due to this feature being better recorded in 2007 compared to 1998. The example from Scotland is unusual in that for other indices and countries, there is no evidence for differences in trends between Environmental Zones. Quantification of changes in Wales is limited by the smaller sample size.

A provisional integrated assessment has linked land management characteristics taken from the Countryside Survey square containing each headwater streams site, to an indicator of stream biological quality based on the mean stress sensitivity score of the macroinvertebrate taxa present. This has indicated logical negative relationships between intensive land uses such as arable and improved grassland and ecological status. Indicators of management of the river channel, such as the extent of resectioning (for land drainage and flood defence purposes), are also negatively associated with ecological status. Characteristics of the riparian zone, such as the amount of woody cover, are positively associated with ecological status.

Overall, the headwater streams component of Countryside Survey is now beginning to build up a picture of the changes occurring to the ecological status of headwater streams. The changes are broadly positive, although some negative changes will need further investigation.

The Headwater Streams Report was produced by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology CEH), with contributions by Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), and Bournemouth University (BU).


For many years, countless lawyers and judges have exhibited a nearly complete inability to observe the important distinction between the word "whether" and the phrase "whether or not," and have mistakenly used the latter as if it were an acceptable substitute for the former. This article examines the way in which that error is reflected in published judicial opinions and in the transcripts of actual trials, and lays out the "Three Corollary Curses" that lie in wait for those who fail to assiduously maintain the distinction. It reveals, for example, how those who use "whetherornot" as a thoughtless substitute for "whether" inevitably descend into the absurdity of saying and writing "whether or not...or not," which is doubly redundant. The author reveals how the gratuitous inclusion of the words "or not" undermines written and oral expression not merely by adding a little useless prolixity, but also by injecting undesirable ambiguity and sometimes even literal absurdity into the lawyer's attempts at communication.


Background: Despite the fact that wild poliovirus (WPV) circulation has not been detected for the past six years, cases of poliomyelitis caused by pathogenic circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPVs) have been identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Most cVDPVs implicated in polio outbreaks are recombinants between mutated strains of the oral poliovaccine (OPV) and other human enteroviruses (HEV) of species C (HEV-C).The aim of this study was to determine the disease trend and the genetic makeup of cVDPVs strains isolated in DRC from 2008 to 2016.
Methods: A retrospective descriptive study was conducted among children, 0-15 years with acute flaccid paralysis (AFP), evaluating the disease trend and understanding the genetic diversity of cVDPVs strains collected from 2008 to 2016 by the National Reference Polio Laboratory (NRPL) located within the Institut National de Recherche Biomedicale (INRB) in Kinshasa.
Results: During the study period, a total number of 71 cVDPV cases have been reported with a variation in terms of number of cases per year. Clinically, most of infected children had two or three doses of polio vaccine, fever and sudden onset of paralysis. Molecular analysis of cVDPVs revealed that all strains collected were VDPV type 2, with various genetic recombination with other HEV-C, especially coxsakievirus A 11 (CV A11), CV-A13, CVA17 and CV-A20.
Conclusion: The study showed that the cases of cVDPVs declined significantly from 17 cases in 2012 to 2 cases being detected in 2016. Although WPV and cVDPVs have virtually disappeared, it is recommended that high quality AFP surveillance be maintained for the timely detection and appropriate response to OPV seems to be frequent, it is crucial to investigate the role of other non-polio enteroviruses among AFP patients. Potential cVDPVs reemergence. Since recombination of coxsakievirus and OPV seems to be frequent, it is crucial to investigate the role of other non-polio enteroviruses among AFP patients.


The performance of processors in a distributed system can be measured by parameters such as bandwidth, storage capacity, work capability, reliability, manufacture technology, years of usage, among others. An algorithm using a preference-based approach uses these parameters to make decisions. In this paper we introduce a randomized self-stabilizing leader election algorithm for preference-based anonymous trees. Our algorithm uses the preference of the processors as criteria to select a leader under symmetric or non-symmetric configurations. It is partially inspired on Xu and Srimani's algorithm, but we use a distributed daemon and randomization to break symmetry. We prove that our algorithm has an optimal average complexity time and performed simulations to verify our results.


Many developing countries have large populations at risk of falling into chronic poverty due to threats to their health and livelihoods. Despite global poverty reduction over recent decades, many remain near-poor, and an episode of ill health or job loss can plunge a household into poverty. The coronavirus pandemic threatens to send tens of millions of people around the world below the poverty line. Some countries are especially unprepared to protect their people from health and economic shocks. They should focus on reforms to improve access to health care, secure work, and opportunities for social mobility.


We studied in vitro ceftaroline combinations against 61 meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolates; 18 of them were also resistant to linezolid, using overlapping E-test method. Daptomycin-ceftaroline combination obtained lower fractional inhibitory concentration values, in comparison with those including vancomycin or linezolid against meticillin-resistant S. aureus (P<0.05). All meticillin- and linezolid-resistant S. aureus strains were resistant to ceftaroline; nevertheless, combinations with vancomycin or daptomycin showed higher synergy or addition rates than those with linezolid.


In the middle of the eighteenth century, something new made itself felt in European culture - a tone or style that came to be called the sentimental. The sentimental mode went on to shape not just literature, art, music, and cinema, but people's very structures of feeling, their ways of doing and being. In what is sure to become a critical classic, "An Archaeology of Sympathy" challenges Sergei Eisenstein's influential account of Dickens and early American film by tracing the unexpected history and intricate strategies of the sentimental mode and showing how it has been reimagined over the past three centuries. James Chandler begins with a look at Frank Capra and the Capraesque in American public life, then digs back to the eighteenth century to examine the sentimental substratum underlying Dickens and early cinema alike. With this surprising move, he reveals how literary spectatorship in the eighteenth century anticipated classic Hollywood films such as "Capra's It Happened One Night", "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town", and "It's a Wonderful Life". Chandler then moves forward to romanticism and modernism - two cultural movements often seen as defined by their rejection of the sentimental - examining how authors like Mary Shelley, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf actually engaged with sentimental forms and themes in ways that left a mark on their work. Reaching from Laurence Sterne to the Coen brothers, "An Archaeology of Sympathy" casts new light on the long eighteenth century and the novelistic forebears of cinema and our modern world.


The paper assesses two approaches for delivery of engineering ethics: a full semester ethics course and an engineering course that includes an ethics module. The Defining Issues Test was used to compare the improvement of a student's moral reasoning ability in each class as compared to a control class. Our findings were that the module approach used did not provide any improvement in moral reasoning. In addition, although the ethics course showed improvement when compared to the module, it was not significantly different from the control class. We also found that there was little distinction between males and females and no distinction by age, although education level did have an impact. The results suggest that to improve a student's moral reasoning and sensitivity to ethical issues, engineering ethics must be integrative, delivered at multiple points in the curriculum, and incorporate specific discipline context.


1. The Principle of Classification. The Pleistocene period was one of very long duration, and embraced changes of great magnitude in the geography of Europe. The climate, which in the preceding Pliocene age, in Northern and Middle Europe, had been temperate, at the beginning of the Pleistocene gradually passed into the extreme arctic severity of the glacial period; and this change caused a corresponding change of the forms of animal life, the Pliocene species (whose constitutions were adjusted to temperate or hot climates) yielded place to those which were better adapted to the new conditions; and since, as we shall presently see, there is reason for the belief that it was not continuous in one direction, but that there were pauses, or even reversions towards the old temperate state, it follows that the two groups of animals would at times overlap, and their remains be intermingled with each other. The frontiers also of each of the geographical provinces must necessarily have varied with the season; and the competition for the same feeding-grounds, between the invading and the retreating forms, must have been long, fluctuating, and severe. The passage, therefore, from the Pliocene to the Pleistocene fauna must have been extremely gradual in each area; and the lines of definition between the two must be, to a great extent arbitrary, instead of being sufficiently strongly marked to constitute a barrier between the Tertiary and Posttertiary groups of life of Lyell, or between the Tertiary and Quaternary of the French geologists. The


The nitrite anion has traditionally been considered an inert by-product of nitric oxide (NO) metabolism, but is now thought to be an important source of bioactive NO. Work from our department and others have implicated intrinsic vascular wall heme-proteins in a hypoxia-potentiated release of NO. The experiments presented in this thesis were designed to test the hypothesis that vascular wall myoglobin is one of the responsible proteins, and furthermore that the release of NO in relative hypoxia may be useful therapeutically in conditions such as heart failure and myocardial ischaemia. Experiments using murine aortic rings show that myoglobin is indeed an important vascular wall bioconverter of nitrite. Systemic nitrite infusions in healthy volunteers and patients with advanced heart failure show that this property of nitrite allows it to act as a specific venodilator in the latter condition; potentially overcoming some of the drawbacks of organic nitrates, such as hypotension and tolerance. Finally, studies in healthy volunteers, with and without a common variant of the aldehyde dehydrogenase enzyme, show that nitrite can protect the endothelium from ischaemia-reperfusion injury, depending upon temporal administration of the infusion and the genotype.


This thesis examines the history of New Zealand's peak private sector union body, the Federation of Labour (FOL), and the politics of economic crisis between 1975 and 1987. It traces how the FOL wielded, attempted to defend, and then lost much of its power in political and economic life over those years. That period marked an important historical juncture, one overwhelmingly shaped by economic crisis, austerity, and then neoliberal reform. The twin oil shocks of the 1970s brought the postwar boom to a definitive end. The simultaneous emergence of high inflation and stagnation eroded real wages, fueled a more contested ritual of wage bargaining, and undermined longstanding economic orthodoxies. The Robert Muldoon led National Government (1975-1984) pursued austerity, to dampen domestic demand and encourage an export-led recovery, a tentative programme of restructuring and liberalisation, and various forms of wage controls, culminating in the rigid 1982 wage and price freeze. The Fourth Labour Government (1984-1990) then embarked on a rapid programme of deregulation, market liberalisation, and severe monetary tightening. For all their stark differences, both National and Labour administrations believed that real wages had to fall in line with the decline in national income, and that workers had to accept a decline in their living standards in the interests of tackling inflation and restoring economic growth. These attempts to engineer a fall in real wages ran up sharply against the FOL's key objectives of defending living standards and of ensuring that workers did not bear the brunt of the economic crisis. It would also be a hard sell to many workers facing a rising cost of living.
As the political and economic landscape shifted, the FOL was forced to confront a series of vexing questions about its strategy and its role. How, for example, would it fight for and make the case for the maintenance of living standards in the face of an economic crisis and high inflation? What was its economic alternative? How would it respond to the rapid free-market economic reforms after 1984? And how would it reconcile its traditional goals with a new political economy forged by the reforms? This thesis examines how the FOL grappled with these questions. Following an overview of the FOL's history between its 1937 formation and the crucial 1975 election, this study begins by examining its industrial campaigns against Muldoon's Government. It concludes with the end of the FOL following its merger in 1987 with the public sector peak body the Combined State Unions (CSU) to form a new peak body, the Council of Trade Unions (CTU) in the aftermath of rapid neoliberal economic reforms. By 1987, the new peak union body would oversee the abandonment of the traditional goal of raising and defending living standards in favour of a new focus on increasing productivity, growth, and a programme of job creation in partnership with government. This shift, characterised variously as capitulation or pragmatism, is often commented on, but rarely examined within the longer story of the FOL's grappling with the economic crisis from the mid-1970s. Whatever its merits, this shift also took place in a moment of undeniable defeat for the labour movement. It marked the end of the peak body's status as a central player in political and economic life and the beginning of a precipitate decline in organised labour's size, bargaining power, and political influence. While providing a largely chronological account of these developments, the study also focuses on three interconnected themes. As the title implies, these are, first, the FOL's interactions with governments, the state, and party politics; second, the economic and inflationary crisis and policy responses, and third, the question of 'living standards' or the 'standard of living'.
Existing accounts of the FOL have been highly critical, suggesting that it played a largely reactive and self-defeating role, that it failed to adapt to changing economic orthodoxies, or that it failed to mount an effective opposition to economic restructuring and to state and employer attacks. This thesis moves beyond the traditional questions of what the FOL ought to have done. Rather, it seeks to analyse the FOL within the context of its successes, its limitations, and its failures, and emphasises the immense difficulties posed by the pressures of economic crisis and political hostility. It argues that the FOL played a more active and critical role in political and economic life than previously recognised, even if it was not always successful. By examining the FOL's response to the events as they unfolded, the more prosaic union rituals and debates—from union conferences, negotiations over wages, and debates about economic and industrial policy—come alive as places where opposing visions of the future of the union movement, politics, and the economy were contested and debated, rather than as markers on the road to inevitable defeat. Moreover, a study of the FOL provides a new vantage point from which to view these crucial decades, a way to yield a more rounded understanding of organised labour at a key moment in its history, and a way to illuminate and integrate the important connections between labour, political, and economic history. While wages, inflation, and employment have long been recognised as among the central political, economic, and social questions of the era, scholars have been strangely inattentive to the labour history of these years. Finally, this study suggests that the struggles between the FOL, employers and the Government over those questions between 1975 and 1987 were crucial in the making of the modern New Zealand political economy and political culture.


Frank Jackson's knowledge argument (KA) aims to prove, by means of a thought experiment concerning the hypothetical scientist Mary, that conscious experiences have non-physical properties, called qualia. Mary has complete scientific knowledge of colours and colour vision without having had any colour experience. The central intuition in the KA is that, by seeing colours, Mary will learn what it is like to have colour experiences. Therefore, her scientific knowledge is incomplete, and conscious experiences have qualia. In this paper I consider an objection to the KA raised by Daniel Dennett. He maintains that the KA is vitiated by Jackson's account of Mary's scientific knowledge. While endorsing this criticism, I will defend the plausibility and relevance of the type of strategy involved in the KA by offering an account of Mary's scientific knowledge. This account involves formulating a reasonable and not immediately false version of the physicalist thesis with regard to colour experiences. Whether this version of the KA is successful against this type of physicalism is not investigated here.


In line with the recent policy discussion on the use of macroprudential measures to respond to cross-border risks arising from capital flows, this paper tries to quantify to what extent macroprudential policies (MPPs) have been able to stabilize capital flows in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (CESEE) -- a region that experienced a substantial boom-bust cycle in capital flows amid the global financial crisis and where policymakers had been quite active in adopting MPPs already before that crisis. To study the dynamic responses of capital flows to MPP shocks, we propose a novel regime-switching factor-augmented vector autoregressive (FAVAR) model. It allows to capture potential structural breaks in the policy regime and to control -- besides domestic macroeconomic quantities -- for the impact of global factors such as the global financial cycle. Feeding into this model a novel intensity-adjusted macroprudential policy index, we find that tighter MPPs may be effective in containing domestic private sector credit growth and the volumes of gross capital inflows in a majority of the countries analyzed. However, they do not seem to generally shield CESEE countries from capital flow volatility.


Illness associated with blue-green algae To the Editor: Blue-green algal (cyanobacterial) blooms in fresh and brackish waters have been associated with health problems among humans and animals (both wild and domestic) in various parts of the world, including Australia.' ., Humans can be affected by skin contact with the cyanobacteria-infested water through swimming or bathing or by ingestion of water contaminated with the toxic forms of the cyanobacteria or their released toxins. It is known that the outer layer of the blue-green algal cell contains lipopolysaccharides which could cause dermatitis and respiratory allergy. In this country, reports of human cases associated with blue-green algae have been spasmodic and anecdotal. Few attempts have been made to obtain clinical details and information about exposure. Last summer, toxic Nodularia blooms occurred in Lakes Alexandrina and Albert (near the mouth of River Murray) and persisted well into early winter. We attempted to document cases of illness associated with exposure to blue-green algae by interviews with local residents and local health practitioners, and by surveillance through local general practitioners. All suspected cases were followed up and assessed. As a result, eight cases were identified. The main findings are summarised in the Table. The skin and eye symptoms include itchiness of the skin, skin rashes, and sore red eyes. These eight case histories suggest that a relationship may exist between contact with the blue-green algaeinfested water and the development of symptoms in some people. There are uncertainties in arriving at a firm conclusion about such a relationship, because of problems of selective recall of information and the absence of confirmatory skin testing for sensitivity to blue-green algae. The possibility of hypersensitive responses following previous sensitisation remains to be explored. F S Soong, MB BS, MPH E Maynard, MB BS, PhD K Kirke, MB BS, MD C Luke, MB BS, MPH Public and Environmental Health Division SA Health Commission PO Box 6, Rundle Mall Adelaide, SA 5000


In 1999, total rice production in Laos was more than 2.1 million tonnes, enough to make the nation self-sufficient in rice. Over the past 2 decades, total production has increased by about 100%, with most of the increase occurring in the rainfed lowlands where production jumped from 705 000 t in 1980 to 1 502 000 t in 1999. Even though the dry-season irrigated environment has increased production by almost nine times in the past decade (from 41 000 t in 1990 to 354 000 tin 1999) and further small-scale irrigation schemes are planned to achieve a total dry-season irrigated area of about 180 000 ha by 2005, the wet-season lowland environment will remain the most important rice-producing environment for the foreseeable future. Higher yields and reduced year-to-year variability in production can be expected with further intensification of production systems in the lowlands. However, further improvements in production will depend on higher levels of inputs and continued alleviation of some production constraints. The uplands will become less important for rice production as alternative, more sustainable technologies are developed to replace the current 'slash-and-burn' and shifting cultivation practices. This paper summarizes the known main abiotic and biotic production constraints in each of Laos's rice-producing environments: wet-season lowlands, dry-season irrigated, and rainfed uplands, but not those socioeconomic constraints that can also have significant impact on farmer attitudes and production. The major production constraints in the main rice-producing environment—the wet-season lowland ecosystem of the Mekong River Valley—are drought and poor soil fertility. However, more than 10% of the wetseason lowlands in the central and southern agricultural regions are also regularly affected by flooding of the Mekong River. In these areas, flood damage is often regarded as a greater production constraint than drought. In the dry-season irrigated environment, poor soil fertility is the main abiotic constraint. Insect pests are becoming increasingly important in both these production systems. In existing production systems in the rainfed uplands, the main constraints are, in decreasing order of significance, weeds, rodents and drought. Farmers' perceptions of the relative importance of production constraints in the uplands are generally more accurate than those in the lowlands. Poor soil fertility is often not rated among the most important constraints in the wet-season lowlands and dry-season irrigated environments, despite experimental evidence that often the greatest yield increases can come from improved plant nutrition. Until recently, farmers' perceptions of the importance of insect pests in the lowlands often exaggerated their economic significance.


Context: Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) represents a major health problem in civilian populations as well as among the military service members due to (1) lack of effective treatments, and (2) our incomplete understanding about the progression of secondary cell injury cascades resulting in neuronal cell death due to deficient cellular energy metabolism and damaged mitochondria. Aims: The aim of this study was to identify and delineate the mitochondrial targeted genes responsible for altered brain energy metabolism in the injured brain. Settings and Design: Rats were either grouped into naïve controls or received lateral fluid percussion brain injury (2–2.5 atm) and followed up for 7 days. Materials and Methods: Rats were either grouped into naïve controls or received lateral fluid percussion brain injury (2–2.5 atm) and followed for 7 days. The severity of brain injury was evaluated by the neurological severity scale—revised (NSS-R) at 3 and 5 days post TBI and immunohistochemical analyses at 7 days post TBI. The expression profiles of mitochondrial-targeted genes across the hippocampus from TBI and naïe rats were also examined by oligo-DNA microarrays. Results: NSS-R scores of TBI rats (5.4 ± 0.5) in comparison to naïe rats (3.9 ± 0.5) and H and E staining of brain sections suggested a mild brain injury. Bioinformatics and systems biology analyses showed 31 dysregulated genes, 10 affected canonical molecular pathways including a number of genes involved in mitochondrial enzymes for oxidative phosphorylation, mitogen-activated protein Kinase (MAP), peroxisome proliferator-activated protein (PPAP), apoptosis signaling, and genes responsible for long-term potentiation of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Conclusions: Our results suggest that dysregulated mitochondrial-focused genes in injured brains may have a clinical utility for the development of future therapeutic strategies aimed at the treatment of TBI.


Genetic variants and their association with sepsis are the futuristic consideration for the development of potential prognostic markers. Polymorphisms in Toll-interleukin-1 receptor (TIRAP) and Myeloid differentiation primary response gene 88 (MyD88) were found to be significantly associated with infectious diseases like tuberculosis and malaria. In this study, we determined the association of these pathogenic variants in neonatal sepsis. We enrolled 110 newborns with sepsis as cases and 117 newborns without sepsis as controls from Dravidian population from Tamilnadu, India. The genotypic and allelic frequencies of the variants in TIRAP (rs8177374) and MyD88 (rs6853) were studied TaqMan Genotyping assay kits. The plasma levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) and Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) were estimated using commercially available ELISA kits. The genotypic and allelic frequencies of both the variants studied were found to be not associated with susceptibility to neonatal sepsis. However, the genotype AA was significantly associated with mechanical ventilation and high plasma CRP levels (P < 0.05) among the population studied. This is probably the first study to determine the genetic associations of neonatal sepsis among Indian population. No significant association of the pathogenic genetic variants in TIRAP and MyD88 were found in our study.


Neuropeptide Y (NPY), receptors belong to the G-protein coupled receptor superfamily. NPY mediates several physiological responses, such as blood pressure, food intake, sedation. These actions of NPY are mediated by six receptor subtypes denoted as Y1-Y5 and y6. Modeling of receptor subtypes and binding site identification is an important step in developing new therapeutic agents. We have attempted to model the three NPY receptor types, Y1, Y4, and Y5 using homology modeling and threading methods. The models are consistent with previously reported experimental evidence. To understand the interaction and selectivity of NPY analogues with different neuropeptide receptors, docking studies of two neuropeptide analogues (BVD10 and BVD15) with receptors Y1 and Y4 were carried out. Results of the docking studies indicated that the interaction of ligands BVD10 and BVD15 with Y1 and Y4 receptors are different. These results were evaluated for selectivity of peptide analogues BVD10 and BVD15 towards the receptors.


Fine-pitch banding is one of the most unwanted artifacts in laser electrophotographic (EP) printers. It is perceived as a quasiperiodic fluctuation in the process direction. Therefore, it is essential for printer vendors to know how banding is perceived by humans in order to improve print quality. Monochrome banding has been analyzed and assessed by many researchers; but there is no literature that deals with the banding of color laser printers as measured from actual prints. The study of color banding is complicated by the fact that the color banding signal is physically defined in a three-dimensional color space, while banding perception is described in a one-dimensional sense such as more banding or less banding. In addition, the color banding signal arises from the independent contributions of the four primary colorant banding signals. It is not known how these four distinct signals combine to give rise to the perception of color banding. In this paper, we develop a methodology to assess the banding visibility of the primary colorant cyan based on human visual perception. This is our first step toward studying the more general problem of color banding in combinations of two or more colorants. According to our method, we print and scan the cyan test patch, and extract the banding profile as a one dimensional signal so that we can freely adjust the intensity of banding. Thereafter, by exploiting the pulse width modulation capability of the laser printer, the extracted banding profile is used to modulate a pattern consisting of periodic lines oriented in the process direction, to generate extrinsic banding. This avoids the effect of the halftoning algorithm on the banding. Furthermore, to conduct various banding assessments more efficiently, we also develop a softcopy environment that emulates a hardcopy image on a calibrated monitor, which requires highly accurate device calibration throughout the whole system. To achieve the same color appearance as the hardcopy, we perform haploscopic matching experiments that allow each eye to independently adapt to different viewing conditions; and we find an appearance mapping function in the adapted XYZ space. Finally, to validate the accuracy of the softcopy environment, we conduct a banding matching experiment at three different banding levels by the memory matching method, and confirm that our softcopy environment produces the same banding perception as the hardcopy. In addition, we perform two more separate psychophysical experiments to measure the differential threshold of the intrinsic banding in both the hardcopy and softcopy environments, and confirm that the two thresholds are statistically identical. The results show that with our target printer, human subjects can see a just noticeable difference with a 9% reduction in the banding magnitude for the cyan colorant.


A 33-year-old man presented in 2002 with an acute, severe, occipital headache associated with nausea and photophobia, causing him to collapse to the pavement; there was no persisting neurological impairment. He had mild hypertension, hypercholesterolaemia and asthma, but took no regular medication. His initial neurological examination was normal. A CT scan of head was normal but cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) showed xanthochromia, but was otherwise normal. A four-vessel digital subtraction cerebral angiogram was normal. He took nimodipine for 3 weeks and was discharged.

He subsequently developed recurrent left-sided headaches, each lasting hours to days, with backache and dizziness, nausea and photophobia. These varied in frequency and severity but progressed over time, eventually having more days with headache than without. Following a more severe episode, he required hospital admission, with a diagnosis of migraine. In 2008, he developed neck pain with tingling in his left middle finger. An MR scan of cervical spine showed a posterior osteophytic bar with root impingement at C5/6 and C6/7. He obtained temporary relief from a nerve root blockade at both levels but eventually underwent a C5/6/7 anterior cervical decompression and fusion.

In 2014, he became progressively unsteady and developed a subtle right-hand tremor. One day he woke with severe headache with nausea, vomiting and photophobia, with worsened unsteadiness. On examination there was mild ataxia on tandem gait with scanning dysarthria. CT scan of …


In everyday life, many properties or concepts we encumber are fuzzy in nature. To include those fuzzy properties in solving some types of problems, we have extended the attributed graph to fuzzy-attribute graph (FAG). With such extension, equality of attributes can no longer be used when matching of FAG's is considered, as equality of two fuzzy sets is too strigent a condition. In the paper, fuzzy-attribute graph is formally defines and a new measure for matching two FAG's is suggested. Yhe new measure has its interpretation under fuzzy logic. The model is applied to the recognition of handprinted Chinese characters and the result is presented.


Background: Laboratories and laboratory tests are fundamental components of tuberculosis control programme; providing testing for diagnosis, surveillance and treatment monitoring at every level of health care system. This review is, therefore, aimed at comparing and summarizing data on these laboratory systems used in the diagnosis of tuberculosis in Ethiopia. Methods: A systematic review of literature addressing the diagnosis of tuberculosis in Ethiopia was carried out. Literature search was done in MEDLINE and EMBASE for articles published from 2000 to 2013. We used the following search terms: Laboratory, tuberculosis, diagnosis, Ethiopia. Only studies addressing diagnostic systems of tuberculosis and English language publications were included. Results: A total of 267 potential studies were identified by the search. Thirty-three studies qualified for the review. The reported diagnostic systems used to diagnose TB in Ethiopia included Symptom screening, Physical examination, Chest X-ray, Histology, Histopathology, Cytology, Smear microscopy, Tuberculin skin test (TST), QuantiFERON TB Gold In Tube and Culture. Ten (30.3%) studies utilized culture as the reference standard and only one study employed polymerase chain reaction (PCR) as a standardized test. Most studies have used more than one diagnostic system. Four (12.5%) studies reported the use of sample processing methods (liquefaction and concentration of sputum using either sodium hypochlorite or sodium hydroxide followed by centrifugation) before actual tests, twenty seven (81.8%) studies used direct smear microscopy, three (9.4%) studies used TST and QFTGIT together and two (6.3%) studies employed cytological techniques. Chest X-ray was employed in the majority of smear negative results with symptomatic patients suggestive of tuberculosis. Conclusions: The results of this review suggest that there is a need for revising the diagnostic systems. Most of the laboratory tests employed was based on direct smear microscopy, which is insensitive and can only detect 36 % of tuberculosis cases in Ethiopia. This may result in misdiagnosis of the disease and further transmission of the disease especially in children and populations with high HIV co-infection. Therefore, there is a need for laboratories to find a rapid and efficient method for TB diagnosis as a complement to the smear microscopy. American Journal of Science and Technology 2014, 1(1): 22-29 23


Abstract Microorganisms and their natural products are major drivers of ecological processes and industrial applications. Microbial bioprospecting has been critical for the advancement in various fields such as pharmaceuticals, sustainable industries, food security and bioremediation. Next generation sequencing has been paramount in the exploration of diverse environmental microbiomes. It presents a culture-independent approach to investigating hitherto uncultured taxa, resulting in the creation of massive sequence databases, which are available in the public domain. Genome mining searches available (meta)genomic data for target biosynthetic genes, and combined with the large-scale public data, this in-silico bioprospecting method presents an efficient and extensive way to uncover microbial bioproducts. Bioinformatic tools have progressed to a stage where we can recover genomes from the environment; these metagenome-assembled genomes present a way to understand the metabolic capacity of microorganisms in a physiological and ecological context. Environmental sampling been extensive across various ecological settings, including microbiomes with unique physicochemical properties that could influence the discovery of novel functions and metabolic pathways. Although in-silico methods cannot completely substitute in-vitro studies, the contextual information it provides is invaluable for understanding the ecological and taxonomic distribution of microbial genotypes and to form effective strategies for future microbial bioprospecting efforts.


Fatigue information has been reliable in predicting wire critical structural integrity. The aim of this study is to expound on the characterization technique of rotary beam fatigue testing RBT. By alternating tension and compression stress states through RBT, it is possible to determine the life expectancy of Nitinol monofilament round wires. Fatigue testing has been employed to characterize the influence of subtle changes in inclusion content, chemistry variations of raw mate- rial, ingot transformation temperatures of Nitinol NiTi, and surface finish conditions for implant grade wires. Currently, an ASTM standard does not exist that concentrates solely on fatigue testing shape memory alloys. By exploiting part geometry, this testing technique serves to compliment other characterization methods. Evaluation of fracture surfaces has proven useful in diagnosing the factors influencing failures. The utilization of fatigue data and fracture mechanics compliments tensile test- ing in providing information to the design engineer. Results from studying flexural endurance, statis- tical Weibull life assessment analysis, fracture analysis, and a determination of stress/strain levels at the site of failure have proven useful in determining desired material properties for next generation medical devices.


This research contributes to the literature on understanding software engineering education from the perspective of liberal arts through the discussion on the pedagogic application of metaphors to convey complex concepts by drawing on the attributes of concrete known concepts (often – from different knowledge domains). Metaphors are defined and examples from everyday life and literature are used to contextualize their functionalities and possible application mechanisms. A chronology of the major theories of metaphors focusing on linguistic, cognitive and communicative aspects of contemporary discourse sets the theoretical background. To understand how metaphors can help educators, their major functions are clarified using examples from software engineering and computing. The plethora of technical metaphoric expressions is evidence of their importance in informatics and computer technology education. We describe several use cases of harnessing visual metaphors from the fine arts to teach programming and data management classes to computer science majors. These demonstrate how metaphors can be used while discussing such topics as code organization, code readability and modifiability, code aesthetics, software versions, and software project workflow. There appears to be a trend to using metaphors in the sciences and new technology domains, and given their ability to convey meaning and bridge terminology gaps, we argue this should be encouraged and further work carried out.


Abstract Fertility management is challenging for organic crops with intensive nutrient demands such as potatoes (Solanum tuberosum L.). Four crop sequences varying in pre-potato green manures as main plots and four fertility treatments applied in the potato phase only [control, inorganic fertilizer (FERT), municipal solid food waste compost (MSW) and paper mill biosolid compost (PMB)] as subplots were compared in five-year organic potato rotations in Eastern Canada. Potato yields did not differ significantly between crop rotations; however, soil amendments had significant impacts on potato yields. Averaged across years, total tuber yields were in the order; FERT (34.2 Mg ha−1) > MSW (29.6 Mg ha−1) > control (26.5 Mg ha−1). Total potato N uptake (TNU) levels were 89, 115, 107 and 147 kg N ha−1, respectively, for control, MSW, PMB and FERT, and were greater when potato followed red clover (119–124 kg N ha−1) compared with oat/pea/vetch mixture (107–108 kg N ha−1). Plant N use efficiency (NUE) was 299, 263, 263 and 235, respectively, for control, MSW, PMB and FERT. Pre-plant soil mineral N (SMN) ranged between 39 and 112 kg N ha−1 among different crop rotations. During the tuber initiation stage, SMN ranged between 40 and 66 kg N ha−1 while during tuber bulking it ranged between 10 and 14 kg N ha−1 among different crop rotations and soil amendments. Post-harvest SMN ranged between 8 and 30 kg N ha−1 for all rotations and amendment treatments.


In order to evaluate the degree of adaptation of urban Citrus aurantium L. trees to osmotic stress and to explore the effect of seed's origin on stress tolerance/adaptation, catalase activity levels were measured. Before carrying out the analysis, seedlings issued from high and low plant mother's vitality were grown on NaCl stressed media during 2 months. Catalase activities revealed different levels according to cities, plant mother vitality and salt dose. It increased in stressed medium for the same seedlings origin. Thus, tissues superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity seems to be initiated on plant mother trees and seedlings behaviour is correlated with seed formation environment.


An outer bound on the rate region of noise-free information networks is given. This outer bound combines properties of entropy with a strong information inequality derived from the structure of the network. This blend of information theoretic and graph theoretic arguments generates many interesting results. For example, the capacity of directed cycles is characterized. Also, a gap between the sparsity of an undirected graph and its capacity is shown. Extending this result, it is shown that multicommodity flow solutions achieve the capacity in an infinite class of undirected graphs, thereby making progress on a conjecture of Li and Li. This result is in sharp contrast to the situation with directed graphs, where a family of graphs is presented in which the gap between the capacity and the rate achievable using multicommodity flows is linear in the size of the graph.


Osteopontin (OPN) is a cytokine with multiple functions, including immune defense mechanisms against invading microorganisms. OPN-deficient mice are impaired in clearing intracellular pathogens, suggesting an important role of OPN during phagocytosis, but it remains to be defined how OPN may enhance this innate immune process. Here, we demonstrate that OPN binds to monocytes, but not resting T cells, NK cells, or B cells, and mediates chemoattraction of IL-1-activated human monocytes. Moreover, OPN binds in a specific manner to all known serotypes of the two bacterial species Streptococcus agalactiae and Staphylococcus aureus and opsonizes these bacteria for phagocytosis. We identify the integrin (cid:1) X (cid:2) 2 (CD11c/CD18), which is highly expressed on the cell surface of monocytes, as a novel OPN receptor. To eliminate the contribution from other molecular interactions between the bacteria and the phagocyte, we show that OPN-coated synthetic beads are phagocytosed in an (cid:1) X (cid:2) 2 integrin-dependent manner. The ligand recognition does not involve the RGD motif previously reported to support binding of OPN to integrins. Taken together, these data identify the (cid:1) X (cid:2) 2 integrin as a novel OPN receptor that is required for OPN-mediated phagocytosis, thereby elucidating an important mechanism of an innate immune function of OPN. The Journal of Immunology, 2009, 182: 6943–6950.


A critical issue in addressing medical conditions is measurement. Memory measurement is difficult, especially episodic memory, which is disrupted by many conditions. On-line computer testing can precisely measure and assess several memory functions. This study analyzed memory performances from a large group of anonymous, on-line participants using a continuous recognition task (CRT) implemented at https://memtrax.com. These analyses estimated ranges of acceptable performance and average response time (RT). For 344,165 presumed unique individuals completing the CRT a total of 602,272 times, data were stored on a server, including each correct response (HIT), Correct Rejection, and RT to the thousandth of a second. Responses were analyzed, distributions and relationships of these parameters were ascertained, and mean RTs were determined for each participant across the population. From 322,996 valid first tests, analysis of correctness showed that 63% of these tests achieved at least 45 correct (90%), 92% scored at or above 40 correct (80%), and 3% scored 35 correct (70%) or less. The distribution of RTs was skewed with 1% faster than 0.62 s, a median at 0.890 s, and 1% slower than 1.57 s. The RT distribution was best explained by a novel model, the reverse-exponential (RevEx) function. Increased RT speed was most closely associated with increased HIT accuracy. The MemTrax on-line memory test readily provides valid and reliable metrics for assessing individual episodic memory function that could have practical clinical utility for precise assessment of memory dysfunction in many conditions, including improvement or deterioration over time.


Peptide ribonucleic acid (PRNA) is one of artificial nucleic acids, which enables us to control its nucleobase orientation and recognition behavior by external factors through the synergetic effects of reversible borate ester formation and intramolecular hydrogen bond formation. In this study, a series of novel alpha-PRNA oligomers, possessing alternative alpha-PRNA/basic amino acid sequences, were newly designed, synthesized, and evaluated as the second-generation PRNA. As expected, these alpha-PRNAs indeed formed highly stable sequence-specific complexes with the complementary DNAs, for which both the conventional hydrogen-bonding interactions between the complementary nucleobase pairs and the electrostatic interactions between the basic amino acid's ammonium cation and the DNA's phosphate anion on the backbone are jointly responsible.


Scheduling is central to the practice of project management and a topic of significant interest for the operations research and management science academic communities. However, a rigour-relevance gap has developed between the research and practice of scheduling that mirrors similar concerns current in management science. Closing this gap requires a more accommodative philosophy that can integrate both hard and soft factors in the construction of project schedules. This paper outlines one interpretation of how this can be achieved through the combination of discrete event simulation for schedule construction and system dynamics for variable resource productivity. An implementation was built in a readily available modelling environment and its scheduling capabilities tested. They compare well with published results for commercial project scheduling packages. The use of system dynamics in schedule construction allows for the inclusion of generative mechanisms, models that describe the process by which some observed phenomenon is produced. They are powerful tools for answering questions about why things happen the way they do, a type of question very relevant to practice.


This paper analyzes the drivers and consequences of sudden stops of capital flows. It focuses on the impact of external vulnerability on the depth and length of sudden stop crises. The authors analyze 43 developing and developed countries between 1993 and 2006. They find evidence that external vulnerability not only significantly impacts the probability of a sudden stop crisis, but also prolongs the time it takes for growth to revert to its long-term trend once a sudden stop occurs. Interestingly, external vulnerability does not significantly impact the size of the instantaneous output effect in case of a sudden stop but prompts a cumulative output effect through significantly diminishing the speed of adjustment of output to its trend. This finding implies that countries financing a large part of their absorption externally do not suffer more ferocious output losses in a sudden stop crisis, but take longer to adapt afterward and are hence expected to suffer more protracted crises periods. Compared with previous literature, this paper makes three contributions: (i) it extends the country and time coverage relative to datasets that have previously been used to analyze related topics; (ii) it specifically accounts for time-series autocorrelation; and (iii) it provides an analysis of the adjustment path of economic growth after a sudden stop.


An analysis of the presently available data shows that the principal pineal hormone melatonin is capable of influencing, both directly and indirectly, the state of the immune system. The immunotropic activity of this hormone can account for the stress-protective, antitumor, and antiviral effects of melatonin.


p,~~~~~: ~~~~,~~~i~ Abstract The enchanced availability of health information in an electronic format is strategic for industry-wide efforts to improve the quality and reduce the cost of health care, yet it brings a concomitant concern of greater risk for loss of privacy among health care participants. The authors review the conflicting goals of accessibility and security for electronic medical records and discuss nontechnical and technical aspects that constitute a reasonable security solution. It is argued that with guiding policy and current technology, an electronic medical


While emerging computing technologies, such as cloud computing and small, powerful, mobile devices – offer previously unimaginable global access to data and applications, they also threaten users' sense of control over data ownership, distribution, and properties. For example, uploading some data to a Web service – such as a document to Google Docs, a photo to Facebook, or an email to Hotmail – causes the user to lose control over that data. The user cannot ensure that the service deletes all copies of her data when she asks it to do so, that her data is not shared with advertisers, or that her data is replicated sufficiently to ensure its long-term availability. Similarly, storing data on a mobile device causes the user to lose control over that data when the device is stolen or lost; the user cannot ensure that the data can never be compromised and she cannot tell whether it has been compromised.
This dissertation examines the broad data security, privacy, and management challenges raised by modern technology and proposes a set of techniques that address these issues. We present four systems, each aiming to re-empower users with a specific aspect of their lost data control. Keypad offers remote access control and auditability for data stored on a stolen device. Vanish provides control over the lifetime of data stored in untrusted clouds. Comet lets clients customize the functionality of trusted cloud storage, while Menagerie provides a uniform view of a user's scattered Web data. We present the design, implementation, and detailed evaluation for each of the four systems, demonstrating the feasibility of our approaches.


Cocaine is a well-known, illegal, recreational drug that is addictive due to its effects on the mesolimbic reward pathway in the human body. Accurate and real-time measurement of the concentration of cocaine in the body as a function of time and physiological factors is a key requirement for the understanding of the use of this drug. Current methods for such measurements involve taking samples from the human body (such as blood, urine, and hair) and performing analytical chemistry tests on these samples. This techniques are relatively expensive, time consuming, and labor intensive. To address this issue, a new implantable sensor for the automated detection and measurement of the relative cocaine concentration is presented here. The device is more economical and provides for higher sampling frequencies than the current methods. The active sensor elements consist of piezoresistive microcantilever arrays, which are coated with an oligonucleotide-based aptamer, i.e. a short sequence of RNA with high affinity for specific target molecules, as the cocaine receptor. A Wheatstone bridge is used to convert the biosensor signal into an electronic signal. This signal is transmitted wireless at an operating frequency of 403.55 MHz, which complies with the US Medical Implant Communication System (MICS) FCC 47CFR Part 95. The limit of detection for the in vitro experiment is found to be 1 ng/ml. The device has successfully measured the relative concentration of cocaine upon implantation in the subcutaneous interstitial fluid of male Wistar rats.


Purpose Traditional questionnaires assessing the severity of depression are limited and might not be appropriate for military personnel. We intend to explore the diagnostic ability of three machine learning methods for evaluating the depression status of Chinese recruits, using the Chinese version of Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) as the standard. Patients and Methods Our diagnostic study was carried out in Luoyang City (Henan Province, China; 10/16/2018–12/10/2018) with a sample of 1000 Chinese male recruits selected using cluster convenient sampling. All participants completed the BDI and 3 questionnaires including the data of demographics, military careers and 18 factors. The participants were randomly selected as the training set and the testing at 2:1. The machine learning methods tested for assessing the presence or absence of depression status were neural network (NN), support vector machine (SVM), and decision tree (DT). Results A total of 1000 participants completed the questionnaires, with 223 reporting depression status and 777 not. The highest sensitivity was observed for DT (94.1%), followed by SVM (93.4%) and NN (93.1%). The highest specificity was observed for NN (60.0%), followed by SVM (58.8%) and DT (43.3%). The area under the curve (AUC) of the SVM was the largest (0.862) compared with NN (0.860) and DT (0.734). The regression prediction error and error volatility of the SVM were the smallest. Conclusion The SVM has the smallest prediction error and error volatility, as well as the largest AUC compared with NN and DT for assessing the presence or absence of depression status in Chinese recruits.


LINE-1 (L1) are autonomous retroelements that have retained their ability to mobilize. Mechanisms regulating L1 mobility include DNA methylation in somatic cells and the Piwi-interacting RNA pathway in the germline. During pre-implantation stages of mouse embryonic development, however, both pathways are inactivated leading to a critical window necessitating alternate means of L1 regulation. We previously reported an increase in L1 levels in Dicer_KO mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs). Intriguingly this was accompanied by only a marginal increase in retrotransposition, suggestive of additional mechanisms suppressing L1 mobility. Here, we demonstrate that L1 Ribonucleoprotein complexes (L1 RNP) accumulate as aggregates in Dicer_KO cytoplasm along with the RNA helicase MOV10. The combined overexpression of L1 RNAs and MOV10 is sufficient to create L1 RNP aggregates in stem cells. In Dicer_KO mESCs, MOV10 is upregulated due to the loss of its direct regulation by miRNAs. The newly discovered post-transcriptional regulation of Mov10 expression, and its role in preventing L1 retrotransposition by driving novel cytosolic aggregation affords alternate routes to explore for therapy and disease progression.


The preparation of semi-solid slurry of hypereutectic Al-Si alloy by Ultrasonic Vibration (USV) has been studied. The A390 alloy melt was poured into a preheated metal cup, and subsequently the ultrasonic vibrator was dipped into the melt and USV was imposed. The solidified microstructure of the slurry has been analyzed, and the mechanical properties of the alloy have been tested by making samples through diecasting of the slurry. The results show that the primary Si particles of A390 alloy became finer, rounder and uniformly distributed in microstructure of A390 alloy slurry if imposed with USV, and average diameter of primary Si particles was about 20μm. With USV, the ultimate tensile strength and the hardness of rheo-casted samples increased by over 25% and near 50% respectively besides the elongation rose by above 100%. After heat treatment, the mechanical properties were further improved. In addition, the mechanism of preparation of semi-solid slurry of hypereutectic Al-Si alloy by USV is discussed.


The cobas® (Roche) portfolio of companion diagnostics in oncology currently has three assays CE-marked for in vitro diagnostics. Two of these (EGFR and BRAF) are also US FDA-approved. These assays detect clinically relevant mutations that are correlated with response (BRAF, EGFR) or lack of response (KRAS) to targeted therapies such as selective mutant BRAF inhibitors in malignant melanoma, tyrosine kinases inhibitor in non-small cell lung cancer and anti-EGFR monoclonal antibodies in colorectal cancer, respectively. All these assays are run on a single platform using DNA extracted from a single 5 µm section of a formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue block. The assays provide an 'end-to-end' solution from extraction of DNA to automated analysis and report on the cobas z 480. The cobas tests have shown robust and reproducible performance, with high sensitivity and specificity and low limit of detection, making them suitable as companion diagnostics for clinical use.


The study aims to examine the capital structure determinants and SOA of all listed, non-financial firms in Nigeria. The objectives are; to investigate the relationship between firms' characteristics and the capital structure choice among non-financial firms listed in the Nigerian Stock exchange, to examine whether the financial crisis affected capital structure determinants. The study also examines the speed of leverage adjustment (SOA) of Nigeria non-financial firms and the impact of the financial crisis on the SOA.
The trade-off and pecking order theories are employed as the main theories to explain firms' financing decisions in Nigeria. Other theories used are signalling, agency and market-timing theories due to their contribution to the capital structure debate. This study used three different types of leverage as dependent variables, which are scaled against total assets. The explanatory variables are profitability, asset tangibility, firm size, firm growth, firm age, business risk and liquidity. It also uses dynamic capital models to identify capital structure determinants and SOA. The current study applied the two-step GMM system estimation.
The result shows 63% SOA for listed non-financial firms in Nigeria. SOA is also faster after the financial crisis when compared to the pre-crisis situation. Furthermore, the study shows the impact of the financial crisis on SOA of long-term and short-term leverage.
Firm characteristics are found to be capital structure determinants of non-financial firms in Nigeria. Asset tangibility and firm growth are positively related with both long-term and short-term leverage and highlight the importance of collateral in financing decisions of Nigerian non-financial firms. Profitability shows a negative and significant relationship with short-term leverage but is positively related with long-term leverage. Firm size and age show a negative and significant relationship with the long-term and short-term leverage. The coefficient signs of most independent variables confirm the dominance of the pecking order theory in Nigerian firms' financing behaviour. This study contributes to knowledge by providing evidence of a moderate speed of adjustment among Nigerian non-financial firms. It shows also that firm characteristics are determinants of long-term and short-term leverage in Nigeria.


The separation of the field produced by different internal sources can be accomplished by means of the so-called spatial spectrum of the geomagnetic field of internal origin. It is shown how such a rationale, when suitably interpreted, allows to recognize the field that is originated by electric currents that flow either on the Inner-Core Boundary (ICB), or on the Core-Mantle Boundary (CMB), or on the Asthenosphere-Lithosphere Boundary (ALB). It appears crucial, however, to rely on satellite measurements alone, because ground-based and ship- and air-borne records are severely perturbed by the crustal field. Therefore, it is shown, on the basis of a critical reconsideration of a few key-papers in the literature, that the best approach is to avoid mixing together all kinds of measurements. Satellite data are best suited for recognizing the dynamo field, while ground-based, ship- and air-borne records, which are measured much closer to crustal sources, are best suited, after subtraction of the satellite-derived dynamo field, for inferring the geomagnetic anomalies that are to be associated with crustal sources alone.


Many currently available biogeochemical ecosystem process models capture the essential processes of trace gas fluxes between atmosphere and ecosystems, as well as the associated changes in net primary productivity. When used in climate change impact scenarios, one of the most serious limitations of these models is due to the fact that the structure of the ecosystem itself is prescribed from a global data base. Significant shifts of the major biomes of the globe are likely to occur under changed climatic conditions, and, hence, the assumption of stable ecosystem structure could fail. To overcome this problem, we have coupled an ecosystem structure model (BIOME) with a biogeochemical ecosystem process model (the Frankfurt Biosphere Model, FBM). Here we present results for high-latitude ecosystems. The coupled model has an average npp of 343.4 g C m -2 a -1 . The application of the coupled model under a GCM based scenario of changing temperature and precipitation results in major changes of the biome boundaries at these high latitudes. The resulting average npp decreases by 8.8%. If the model is run with changed climate but unchanged biome distribution the average npp decreases by 5.4% only. DOI: 10.1034/j.1600-0889.47.issue1.20.x


Stomach cancer remains a public health problem. It is increasingly found in our regions, probably because of the greater availability and improvement of diagnostic facilities. The goal of this work was to study the epidemiological characteristics and prognosis of gastric cancer in the hepato- gastroenterology and general surgery wards of the Gabriel Toure's university hospital. Methods: We conduct a descriptive retrospective study on patients collected from June 2008 to May 2009, and the enrollment of these patients lasted from June 2009 to May 2010. Results: We examined the records of 68 cases of gastric cancer in 115 cases of digestive cancers a frequency of 59.1%. The mean age of patients was 56.51 ± 14.8 years with extremes of 27 and 90 years .The sex ratio was 1.6 in favor for men. The social and professional groups (housewives and farmers) were the most represented with 50 cases (73.5%). Salting, smoking, consumption of to (cereal dough) with potash were the most found risk factors in 80.9%, 94.2% and 80.6% of cases,respectively. The localization of antro-pyloric site was most represented (60.3%). Adenocarcinoma was the most common histological type (94.1%), one case of Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor (GIST), two cases of non hogdkin malignant lymphoma were found.The curative surgery was performed in 8.9% of our patients.The overall survival rate after any surgery with two-year follow-up was 9.4%.Post curative surgery survival was 83.3% at two years follow-up. Conclusion: Stomach cancer is common in our context, but its management is suffering from delayed diagnosis.


There is no incremental learning ability for the traditional support vector machine (SVM) and there are all kind of merits and flaws for usually used incremental learning method. Normal SVM is unable to train in large-scale samples, while the computer's memory is limited. In order to resolve this problem and improve training speed of the SVM, we analyze essential characteristic of SVM and bring up the incremental learning algorithm of SVM based on regression of SVM related to SV (support vectors). The algorithm increases the speed of training and can be able to learning with large-scale samples while its regressive precision loses fewer. The experiments show that SVM performs effectively and practically. Its application to prediction of the transition temperature (Tg) for high molecular polymers show that this model (R2=0.9427) proved to be considerably more accurate compared to a ANNs regression model (R2=0.9269).


Flows over a square cylinder with and without plasma actuation are numerically investigated to see whether plasma actuation can effectively modify vortex shedding from the cylinder and reduce the drag and lift fluctuations. In this study, a plasma synthetic jet actuator is mounted on the rear side of cylinder as a means of direct-wake control. The effect of plasma actuation is considered by adding a momentum forcing term in the Navier-Stokes equations. Results show that the reduction of mean drag and lift fluctuations is obtained for both steady and unsteady actuation. However, the steady actuation is better than the unsteady one in terms of mean drag as well as drag fluctuations. With the strong steady actuation considered, the interaction of two separating shear layers from rear corners is effectively weakened due to the interference of synthetic jets. It results in a merging of synthetic-jet and shear-layer vortices and the increase of vortex shedding frequency. On the other hand, the unsteady actuation generates pulsating synthetic jets in the near wake, but it does not change the vortex shedding frequency for the actuation frequencies considered in this study.


A collection of over 3000 pages of emails sent by Anthony Fauci and his staff were released in an effort to understand the United States government response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we describe how the original PDF document of emails was translated into a resource consisting of json files that make many future studies easy. We include examples for how to convert this email information into a network, a hypergraph, a temporal sequence, and a tensor for subsequent analysis, and discuss use cases and benefits in analyzing the data in these different derived formats. These resources are broadly useful for future research and pedagogical uses in terms of human and system behavioral interactions.


Olive agriculture represents one of the most important economic activities in the region of Andalusia, Spain. Additionally to its economic importance the multifunctional character of agriculture and its wide territorial presence entails that it has a high potential incidence in the environmental and social dimensions of the sustainable development of the region. Despite this importance, it is hypothesised and aimed to be contrasted that olive farmers are not implementing the agricultural practices optimal from an economic, environmental and social point of view. Contrasting this hypothesis entails to evaluate with a holistic and systemic approach the multiple impacts of the different technical alternatives to diverse agricultural practices. The use of the Analytic Network Process, a Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis technique, will be illustrated as a useful approach to deal with this kind of problems characterised by complexity, lack of information and risk. The study will focus on the average yield, climatic, environmental, etc., conditions of olive cultivation in Andalusia. The results seem to confirm the initial hypothesis when comparing the current situation with different scenarios of optimal technical alternatives. In particular the technical alternatives implemented nowadays they are far from being environmentally optimal. The multifunctional benefits and the technical costs of a change from the current situation to these optimal scenarios will be analysed.


Concentrated food sources are used frequently in white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) management and research, but because such food sources are easily defended, aggressive interactions among deer may influence their effectiveness. The objectives of this study were to determine if deer population density or season affect 1) the order or degree of social dominance among different age and sex groups of white-tailed deer, 2) the rate at which aggressive interactions occur, 3) the severity of interactions, and 4) the extent to which subordinate groups avoid dominant groups. We conducted our study in South Texas using 2 sets of 3, 81-ha enclosures managed at varying deer population densities. We captured aggressive interactions using digital trail-cameras placed at sites with spatially concentrated food. We found that bucks ≥2 years of age were dominant over all other age and sex groups in ≥87% of their interactions regardless of deer density or season. The odds of a buck dominating over a doe increased by 10% (95% CI = 0–21%) for each additional deer/km2 during summer, but density had little effect in any other season. Yearling bucks were dominant in 81% (95% CI = 51–100%) of their interactions with does during spring, whereas during other seasons we found no clear order to the dominance hierarchy. Social dominance between yearling bucks and does was not affected by population density. The rate of aggressive interactions increased by 2% (95% CI = 1–3%) for each additional deer/km2 and did not differ by season. Ten percent (95% CI = 6–14%) of interactions involved more violent behaviors that we characterized as severe; this percentage did not change with population density or season. At all population densities, during all seasons, does avoided bucks at sites with concentrated food; however, the degree of avoidance declined with increasing deer density in all seasons except spring. Our results indicate that as population density increases, so do social pressures that may limit access of subordinate age and sex groups to concentrated food sites. Therefore, concentrated food sites are not equally accessible to all age and sex groups of deer and the effectiveness of such sites in deer management and research may become increasingly limited as population density increases. © 2013 The Wildlife Society.


In this paper, a pattern recognition model for dynamic hand gesture recognition is proposed. The proposed model combines a convolutional neural network (CNN) with a weighted fuzzy min-max (WFMM) neural network; each module performs feature extraction and feature analysis, respectively. The data representation proposed in this research is a spatiotemporal template which is based on the motion information of the target object. To process the data, we develop a modified CNN model by extending the receptive field to a three-dimensional structure. To increase the efficiency of the pattern classifier, we use a feature analysis technique utilizing the WFMM algorithm. The experimental results show that the proposed method can minimize the influence caused by the spatial and temporal variation of the feature points. The recognition performance using only the selected features for the classification process is evaluated.


Preparation of a random‐sequence DNA pool is presented. The degree of randomization and the length of the random sequence are discussed, as is synthesis of the pool using a DNA synthesizer or via commercial synthesis companies. Purification of a single‐stranded pool and conversion to a double‐stranded pool are presented as step‐by‐step protocols. Support protocols describe determination of the complexity and skewing of the pool, and optimization of amplification conditions. Curr. Protoc. Mol. Biol. 88:24.2.1‐24.2.27. © 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.