The term Big Data has been coined to refer to the gargantuan bulk of data that cannot be dealt with by traditional data-handling techniques. Big Data is still a novel concept, and in the following literature, we intend to elaborate on it in a palpable fashion. It commences with the concept of the subject in itself, along with its properties and the two general approaches to dealing with it. Big Data provides an opportunity for educational Institutions to use their Information Technology resources strategically to improve educational quality, guide students to higher completion rates and improve student persistence and outcomes. This paper explores the attributes of big data that are relevant to educational institutions, investigates the factors influencing the adoption of big data and analytics in learning institutions, and seeks to establish the limiting factors hindering the use of big data in Institutions of higher learning. A survey research design was adopted in conducting this research, and Questionnaires were the instrument employed for data collection.


A class of constrained-latency storage access (CLSA) applications that require both large amounts of storage and guarantees for short latencies are presented. A range of existing approaches to meeting the requirements of CLSA applications is surveyed. Their limitations indicate that the technology does not yet exist to support complex CLSA applications on general-purpose storage architectures. A variety of good solutions exists for meeting throughput and latency requirements for continuous media data, including dedication of resources, presequencing, and greedy prefetching. However, none of the current approaches supports the automatic anticipation of scripted data access as required for interactive editing and playback of video segments.<<ETX>>


OBJECTIVES
The ideal strategy for the treatment of severe aortic valve stenosis in patients of varying risk categories has become a debated topic in the last years: should the transcatheter or surgical approach be adopted? The aim of this study was to evaluate the outcomes of low-, intermediate-, high- and very high-risk patients undergoing sutureless, rapid deployment aortic valve replacement.

METHODS
From 2007 to 2017, data on a total of 3651 patients were collected from the Sutureless and Rapid Deployment Aortic Valve Replacement International Registry (SURD-IR). Of these, 2057 patients who underwent primary isolated aortic valve replacement were considered for this analysis and classified as being at low (EuroSCORE <5; n = 500), intermediate (EuroSCORE 5-10; n = 901), high (EuroSCORE 11-20; n = 500) and very high (EuroSCORE >20; n = 156) preoperative risk.

RESULTS
Overall, a less invasive approach was used in 74.1% of patients and represented the most frequent (>50%) approach in all risk categories. The Perceval prosthesis was used more frequently than other devices, especially in patients at high and very high risk. Hospital mortality was 1.6%, 0.8%, 1.9% and 2.7% in low-, intermediate-, high- and very high-risk patients, respectively, with no significant differences among subgroups. Similarly, postoperative complication rates were similar across the different risk categories.

CONCLUSIONS
Surgical aortic valve replacement using sutureless, rapid deployment biological valve prostheses is associated with excellent results and represents a safe and effective treatment option for patients with severe aortic valve stenosis. This seems to be particularly true in patients with a higher risk profile.


This paper examines how the commuting time affects workers' labor supply in terms of weekly and daily working hours; days worked per week and preferred weekly working hours. I take into account the endogeneity of commuting time by controlling for endogenous changes in time. The empirical results show that commuting time has a slightly positive effect on daily labor supply, but a slightly negative effect on workdays per week and thus, no explicit effect on total weekly labor supply.


Students often complain about unsatisfactory experiences resulting from disproportionate contributions to collaborative projects. To improve the experience, we applied regulation theory to design a process to document regulation on a blog and examined whether such documentation enhanced students' self-regulation and co-regulation skills while working on a collaborative project. The results indicate that students improved both their self- and co-regulation skills significantly and they were highly satisfied with their experiences in the collaborative task. In addition, the content analysis performed on the documented regulation reveals that students engaged in diverse types of regulation processes through social interaction with group members. A discussion of teaching and learning strategies when using a blog in a collaborative task is included in this paper.


Date Presented 04/05/19
 OTs help determine the most effective hospital discharge placement for patients. By identifying patients' personal needs and risk factors for readmission, OTs may accurately predict discharge placement for patients with a low socioeconomic status. This retrospective study found the likelihood of readmission was 2.63 times higher for those patients with low socioeconomic status who did not follow the OT discharge recommendations.
 Primary Author and Speaker: Alyssa Formyduval
 Contributing Authors: Jeffrey Crabtree


Intellectual property rights are policies that assign and protect the rights to earn income from innovative and creative activity. These rights provide legal authority to control the dissemination and commercialization of new information and ideas and to enforce sanctions against their unauthorized use. Intellectual property rights play a critical role in global economic growth and development because they affect the profitability of industrial research and the rewards to creative activity. At the same time, intellectual property rights are controversial because their stronger international protection may come at the expense of higher prices and reduced availability of products, particularly in developing countries. Obviously, developing countries prefer a low level of protection. Traditionally, intellectual property rights were of concern only to a few lawyers specializing in the field. But the enormous expansion in world trade in the 1980s elevated intellectual property rights to new prominence in international trade policy. At the same time, new and emerging technologies have made traditional protection of intellectual property rights inadequate. For these reasons, the topic of international protection of intellectual property rights should be an important subject of concern among international business and marketing scholars. This article provides an overview of intellectual property rights and their international protection. The conflict between the industrialized and developing countries on the level of protection is highlighted. Issues and controversies that affect the field today are examined. Finally, ideas are advanced for further research on the subject.


Tremendous progress has been made in the field of nanomedicine for cancer treatment. However, most of the research to date has been focused on inhibiting primary tumor growth with comparatively less efforts directed towards managing tumor metastasis. Here, we introduce a polymeric conjugate P-DOX-iRGD that not only significantly suppressed primary tumor growth but also substantially inhibited pulmonary metastasis in an orthotopic mouse model of breast cancer. In addition, treatment with P-DOX-iRGD markedly reduced breast cancer-induced splenomegaly and liver hematopoiesis. Interestingly, contrasting results were seen for the free form and polymeric form of DOX in vitro and in vivo, which may be attributed to the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect.


40Ar/39 Ar mineral ages have been determined from basement gneisses and cover sequences exposed in the Caledonides of NE Greenland. These range between c. 438 Ma and c. 370 Ma (early Silurian-mid-Devonian).They are interpreted as dating cooling following polyphase Caledonian metamorphism which completely reset argon systems within the (early Proterozoic) basement gneisses. The 40Ar/39 Ar results indicate that thrust-related regional deformation and metamorphism in NE Greenland continued into the early Devonian. This contrasts with Scandinavia, where nappe stacking was largely completed by the early–mid-Silurian and was followed by regional extension and tectonic unroofing in the late Silurian–mid-Devonian. Tectonic models developed for the late-orogenic evolution of the northern Atlantic Caledonides therefore need to incorporate considerable along- and across-strike variation in both the style and timing of major tectonothermal events.


Species composition was monitored in seven pennanent exclo sures at Monnon Island Crane Meadows, near Grand Island, Nebraska from 1982 to 1987. Crane meadows is a 1,050 ha (2,600 acre) native lowland prairie complex with a corrugated topography of wetland swales and dry sand ridges. Variable precipitation, periodic over-bank flooding, and river stage fluctuations complicate the system's hydrology. In general, springs are wet, but, by late summer, the meadows are usually dry, closely paralleling river flows and precipitation patterns. A sustained high water period in 1983 and 1984 was responsible for major changes in species abundance. Plant responses were consistent with species distributions along the topographic moisture gradient. Species at the lower end of the gradient were subjected to the greatest fluctuation in moisture and responded the most. In wetland swales sedge (Carex aquatilis Wahl.) , + 37%; spikerush (Eleocharis obtusa (Willd.) I.A. Schult.), + 36%; and American bulrush (Scirpus americanus Pers.), + 14%; increased significantly during the high water period. At moderate elevations indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans (L.) Nash), + 22%; and switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.), + 24%; increased, but big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii Vitman), -28%; showed a signif icant decline. All species except switchgrass returned to their fonner cover when water levels declined. Groundwater levels (mean and maximum) were the most important environmental parameters associated with changes in species cover. Switchgrass, however, did not respond directly to ground water levels. High water conditions probably promoted the expansion of this species but it was able to sustain itself under much lower subsequent moisture conditions. Big bluestem and switchgrass also increased signif icantly with prescribed burning.


: Hypoglycemia associated with endotoxic shock is due to increased glucose utilization coupled with inadequate hepatic glucogenesis. Decreased hepatic blood flow is common in shock and could conceivably reduce hepatic gluconeogenic substrate and oxygen delivery, thereby limiting gluconeogenesis. A study was conducted to assess endotoxin-induced alteration of hepatic hemodynamics and its effect on glucose metabolism. Eight adult minipigs were fitted with jugular, portal, and hepatic vein and carotid artery catheters, and hepatic artery and portal vein flow cuffs for determination of transhepatic kinetics. Three days later they were infused with endotoxin at 15 micrograms/kg/hr. Hepatic blood flow and portal vein oxygen (O2) content became significantly (P less than or equal to 0.05) reduced thereby decreasing hepatic O2 input. Hepatic O2 extraction increased from 24 to 73% but never achieved the reported maximum of 97%. Therefore, reduction of O2 input did not seem to rate limit gluconeogenesis. Reductions in gluconeogenic substrate delivery were not involved since hepatic lactate and pyruvate input actually increased due to elevated blood lactate and pyruvate concentrations.


Analyses of the effects of extreme climate periods have been used as a tool to predict ecosystem functioning and processes in a warmer world. The winter half‐year 2006/2007 (w06/07) has been extremely warm and was estimated to be a half‐a‐millennium event in central Europe. Here we analyse the consequences of w06/07 for the temperatures, mixing dynamics, phenologies and population developments of algae and daphnids (thereafter w06/07 limnology) in a deep central European lake and investigate to what extent analysis of w06/07 limnology can really be used as a predictive tool regarding future warming. Different approaches were used to put the observations during w06/07 into context: (1) a comparison of w06/07 limnology with long‐term data, (2) a comparison of w06/07 limnology with that of the preceding year, and (3) modelling of temperature and mixing dynamics using numerical experiments. These analyses revealed that w06/07 limnology in Lake Constance was indeed very special as the lake did not mix below 60 m depth throughout winter. Because of this, anomalies of variables associated strongly with mixing behaviour, e.g., Schmidt stability and a measure for phosphorus upward mixing during winter exceeded several standard deviations the long‐term mean of these variables. However, our modelling results suggest that this extreme hydrodynamical behaviour was only partially due to w06/07 meteorology per se, but depended also strongly on the large difference in air temperature to the previous cold winter which resulted in complete mixing and considerable cooling of the water column. Furthermore, modelling results demonstrated that with respect to absolute water temperatures, the model 'w06/07' most likely underestimates the increase in water temperature in a warmer world as one warm winter is not sufficient to rise water temperatures in a deep lake up to those expected under a future climate.


We present a numerical simulation of the scattering of a topological soliton off finite size attractive impurities, repulsive impurities and a combination of both. The attractive and attractive-repulsive cases show similar features to those found for δ function type of impurities. For the repulsive case, corresponding to a finite width barrier, the soliton behaves completely classically. No tunneling occurs for subbarrier kinetic energies despite the extended nature of the soliton. PACS 03.40.Kf, 73.40.Gk, 23.60.+e


A low-carbon energy transition on the basis of renewable energy sources (RES) is of crucial importance to solve the interlinked global challenges of climate change and energy security. To transform the global energy system, substantial investments will be needed and private participation will very likely be required to achieve the scale of new investment. Yet, especially developing countries are struggling to foster private RES investments. The literature argues that the economic feasibility and hence the realization of a RES investment project hinges on the availability of affordable project financing, which itself depends on perceived risks by investors. Since financing costs are found to be particularly high for capital-intensive RES projects and in developing countries, we investigate the impacts of a financial de-risking approach on electricity prices from concentrated solar power (CSP) in four North African countries and derive the following three conclusions. (1) By employing a levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) model we find that a comprehensive de-risking approach leads to a 32% reduction in the regional mean of LCOE from CSP. (2) To capture potential macroeconomic feedback effects of a de-risking strategy to CSP investments, we employ a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model. By considering a 5% CSP target by 2020, the model results indicate that an ambitious de-risking strategy is still not sufficient to achieve cost competitiveness between CSP and subsidized conventional electricity but has the potential to reduce the required subsidy to stimulate CSP deployment in 2020 by 0.03 USD/kWh which would increase GDP on average by 0.15% or 327 million USD. (3) By conducting expert interviews with RES investors we learn that investors are aware of different investment risks associated with RES projects in North Africa and of private risk transfer measures to mitigate these risks. Our results suggest that given the potential for substantial electricity cost reductions and overall economic benefits, financial de-risking - incorporating both public and private measures - reflects an important strategy to foster the deployment of RES.


The Langmuir equation, originally derived for gas-solid system, has been widely used to describe empirically solute adsorption from solution for almost a century. In this research, the Langmuir equation for solute adsorption from a liquid-solid adsorbed system was theoretically derived, taking into account various inteactions among components in liquid-solid adsorbed system, by using the stoichiometric displacement model for the adsorption of solute for the same system. The parameters in the Langmuir equation were related to that of the stoichiometric displacement equilibrium making it possible to describe solute adsorption under various concentrations of the solvent present. The equation was tested to be valid for the adsorption isotherm data obtained from different solvent concentrations. A good agreement between the values of the stoichiometric displacement parameter (Z) obtained from the isotherm data and those from high performance reversed-phase liquid chromatography was observed.


Canonical correlation analysis is employed as a multiaspect feature extraction method for underwater target classification. The method exploits linear dependence or coherence between two consecutive sonar returns, at different aspect angles. This is accomplished by extracting the dominant canonical correlations between the two sonar returns and using them as features for classifying mine-like objects from nonmine-like objects. The experimental results on a wideband acoustic backscattered data set, which contains sonar returns from several mine-like and nonmine-like objects in two different environmental conditions, show the promise of canonical correlation features for mine-like versus nonmine-like discrimination. The results also reveal that in a fixed bottom condition, canonical correlation features are relatively invariant to changes in aspect angle.


BACKGROUND
Adoptive transfer of donor-derived EBV-specific T-cells (EBV-CTLs) can eradicate EBV associated lymphomas post hematopoietic cell (HCT) or solid organ (SOT) transplants but is not available for most patients.

METHODS
We developed a 3rd-party, allogeneic, off-the-shelf bank of 330 GMP grade EBV-CTL lines from specifically consented healthy HCT donors. We treated 46 recipients of HCT (N=33) or SOT (N=13) with established EBV associated lymphomas, who failed rituximab therapy, with 3rd-party EBV-CTLs. Treatment cycles consisted of 3 weekly infusions of EBV-CTLs and 3 weeks of observation.

RESULTS
The EBV-CTLs did not induce significant toxicities or graft injury. One patient developed grade I skin GVHD requiring topical therapy. Complete and sustained partial remissions were achieved in 68% of HCT recipients and 54% of SOT recipients. For patients who achieved CR/PR or stable disease after cycle 1, overall survival was 88.9% and 81.8% respectively at 1 year. Although only 1/11 patients (9.1%) with progression of disease (POD) after cycle 1 who received additional EBV-CTLs from the same donor survived, 3 of 5 with POD subsequently treated with EBV-CTLs from a different donor achieved CR or durable PR (60%) and survive > 1 year. Maximal responses were achieved after a median of 2 cycles.

CONCLUSIONS
Third party EBV-CTLs of defined HLA restriction provide safe, immediately accessible treatment for EBV PTLD. Secondary treatment with EBV-CTLs restricted by a different HLA allele (switch therapy) can also induce remissions if initial EBV-CTLs are ineffective. These results suggest a promising potential therapy for patients with rituximab refractory EBV-associated lymphoma post transplant.Phase II protocols (NCT01498484 and NCT00002663) were approved by the Institutional Review Board at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Food and Drug Administration and National Marrow Donor Program.This work was supported through NIH grants CA23766, NIH R21CA162002, Aubrey Fund, The Claire Tow Foundation, Major Family Foundation, Max Cure Foundation, Richard "Rick" J. EIsemann Pediatric Research Fund, Banbury Foundation, Edith Robertson Foundation, Larry Smead Foundation. In June 2015 Atara Biotherapeutics licensed the EBV-CTL bank and is developing this as ATA-129.


This survey article assesses and compares existing critiques of current fairness-enhancing technical interventions in machine learning (ML) that draw from a range of non-computing disciplines, including philosophy, feminist studies, critical race and ethnic studies, legal studies, anthropology, and science and technology studies. It bridges epistemic divides in order to offer an interdisciplinary understanding of the possibilities and limits of hegemonic computational approaches to ML fairness for producing just outcomes for society's most marginalized. The article is organized according to nine major themes of critique wherein these different fields intersect: 1) how "fairness" in AI fairness research gets defined; 2) how problems for AI systems to address get formulated; 3) the impacts of abstraction on how AI tools function and its propensity to lead to technological solutionism; 4) how racial classification operates within AI fairness research; 5) the use of AI fairness measures to avoid regulation and engage in ethics washing; 6) an absence of participatory design and democratic deliberation in AI fairness considerations; 7) data collection practices that entrench "bias," are non-consensual, and lack transparency; 8) the predatory inclusion of marginalized groups into AI systems; and 9) a lack of engagement with AI's long-term social and ethical outcomes. Drawing from these critiques, the article concludes by imagining future ML fairness research directions that actively disrupt entrenched power dynamics and structural injustices in society.


Background: Chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML) is a rare chronic myeloid malignancy with a poor prognosis. There are few epidemiologic studies on CMML. We studied population-based outcomes in CMML using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) and the National Cancer Database (NCDB).
 Methods: The SEER 18 registries and NCDB Participant User File were used to identify patients with ICD-O-3 diagnosis code 9945/3 from 2004-2015. Incidence was identified using SEER and age-adjusted to the U.S. 2000 standard population. Causes of death were obtained and CMML-related death was defined as death from any myeloid disorder (CMML, acute monocytic leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia [AML], chronic myeloid leukemia, other myeloid/monocytic leukemia, and aleukemic, subleukemic, and NOS) to avoid misattribution. Relative survival (RS) was defined as the ratio of the proportion of observed survivors in a cohort of CMML patients to the proportion of expected survivors in a comparable set of individuals that did not have CMML, adjusting for the general survival of the US population for race, sex, age, and time when the diagnosis was established. Time to AML was calculated using the left-truncated life tables session and a 3 month latency period was used to prevent misattribution. Per the NCDB's system on classifying treatment, hydroxyurea, decitabine, and azacitidine are considered chemotherapy. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to calculate overall survival (OS), and Cox regression model was used to identify predictors of survival. Variables significant in univariate analysis (age, Charlson Deyo score [CDS], insurance type, and treatment facility type) were included in a multivariate analysis. Statistical analyses were performed using SAS version 9.0.
 Results:
 In the SEER database (n=4437), the median age at diagnosis was 76 years (interquartile range [IQR] 68-83) and 2,783 patients (63%) were male. Incidence rates (1 case/1,000,000 individuals) were as follows: overall 4.4, male 6.6, female 2.9, Non-Hispanic White 4.9, and Non-Hispanic Black 3.3. The incidence did not significantly change from 2004 to 2015. With a median follow up of 5.8 years (95% CI: 5.5-6.3), the median OS was 1.3 years (95% CI: 1.3-1.4). 3635 patients (82%) died. Among those who died, 2016 patients (55%) deaths were CMML-related. When comparing CMML patients to the US general population, 3,156 patients were matched to the expected survival tables. In the general U.S. population, the expected survival for 12, 24, 36, 48 and 60 months was 95.6%, 91.3%, 87.1%, 83.1%, and 79.2%, respectively. In contrast, the RS for patients with CMML at the same time points was 63.6%, 46.2%, 35.2%, 28.8%, and 23.1% (Figure 1). 229 patients (5.2%) progressed to AML. The median time to AML was 1.2 years (IQR 0.6-2.3).
 In NCDB (n=6403), the median age at diagnosis was 74 years (IQR 66-82). With the median follow up of 6 years (95% CI 3.5-9), the median OS was 1.3 years (95% CI 0.4-3.3). The distribution of CDS score 0, 1, and >1 was 4518 (71%), 1193 (18%), and 692 (11%) respectively. 4687 (77%) had government insurance, while 1399 (23%) had private insurance. 3750 (60%) were treated at a non-academic center. The year of diagnosis was associated with improved OS (HR 0.99, 95% CI: 0.98-0.99). Patients who were diagnosed in 2012-2015 had improved OS compared to patients diagnosed in 2004-2007 (HR 0.89, 95% CI 0.83-0.95) with OS at 1- and 5- years being 60% and 16% (2012-2015) vs. 56% and 17% (2008-2011) vs. 53% and 15% (2004-2007) respectively. 3029 (48%) patients received chemotherapy, while 270 (4%) patients received stem cell transplant as the first-line therapy. The median time to chemotherapy from diagnosis was 19 days (IQR 6-43). OS at 1-, 5-, and 10-years was 57%, 18%, and 4% (no chemotherapy), 56%, 14%, and 7% (received chemotherapy), 79%, 44%, and 38% (received stem cell transplant), and 56%, 15%, 5% (no stem cell transplant). OS curves are shown in Figure 2. Factors independently predicting inferior OS were age ≥ 65 years at the time of diagnosis (p<0.001), CDS ≥ 1 (p<0.001), government insurance (p<0.001), and treatment at a non-academic center (p<0.001) (Table).
 Conclusion:
 Despite an improvement in survival over the years, CMML continues to be a cause of significant morbidity and mortality. Older age, CDS ≥ 1, government insurance, and treatment at non-academic facilities were predictive of inferior survival.

 Shah: Dren Bio: Consultancy.


John Dunn's provocative interview in Contention volume
5, issue 2 inspired an array of responses from the scholarly and
practitioner communities. In the original interview, Dunn suggested
that the era of modern revolutions has come to a close and
that we are now witnessing a phenomenon better described as
"regime collapse." In this response to Dunn's conception of revolution,
Hugo Slim, an expert on non-international armed conflicts,
challenges Dunn's claims with examples of revolutionary liberation
movements in Nepal, Uganda, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Venezuela,
as well as Islamist revolutionary movements in the Middle East.


We experimentally observed a novel pulsating soliton state with broadened Kelly sidebands in an ultrafast laser. Through simulations, we found that the synchronized and unsynchronized resonant dispersive waves coexisted in the laser. The incoherent interaction between the unsynchronized dispersive waves and soliton resulted in oscillation of the intensity and central wavelength of the soliton. The frequencies of the Kelly sidebands oscillated with the soliton, resulting in their spectral broadening when measured by an optical spectrum analyzer. The numerical results agreed qualitatively well with the experiments. Our results are novel and useful for understanding the chaotic dynamics and designing of the ultrafast fiber laser.


Abstract
The aim of the study was to find out the manage mental cooling therapy in clinical cases of heat stroke in HF cross bred cows which caused due to high ambient temperature and humidity. Eight HF cross bred cows with history of heat exposed to more than 30 minute were selected for the study. Although with normal vital sign, clinical examination of rises rectal temperature and high respiratory rate. The clinical cases were diagnosed as heat stroke and were treated successfully with corticosteroids, antibiotic, cooling and fluid therapy and vitamin B-complex injection.


Rarely has a state changed its character so completely in so short a period of time. Previously content to play a role befitting its small size, Qatar was a traditional, risk-averse Gulf monarchy until the early 1990s. A bloodless coup in 1995 brought to power an emerging elite with a progressive vision for the future. Financed by gas exports and protected by a US security umbrella, Qatar diversified its foreign relations to include Iran and Israel, established the satellite broadcaster Al Jazeera, assumed a leading role in international mediation, and hosted a number of top-level sporting tournaments, culminating in the successful FIFA World Cup 2022 bid. Qatar's disparate, often misunderstood, policies coalesce to propagate a distinct brand. Whether to counter regional economic competitors or to further tie Qatar to the economies of the world's leading countries, this brand is designed innovatively to counter a range of security concerns; in short, Qatar is diversifying its dependencies. Qatar's prominent role in the Arab Spring follows a similar pattern, yet the gamble it is taking in supporting Islamists and ousting dictators is potentially dangerous: not only is it at risk from 'blowback' in dealing with such actors, but a lack of transparency means that cliches and assumptions threaten to derail 'brand Qatar'.


The Pennsylvania Constitution contains a unique Environmental Rights Amendment (ERA), which recognizes an individual right to "clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment." The ERA also includes a public trust element that makes "Pennsylvania's public natural resources . . . the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come." It makes the Commonwealth the "trustee of these resources," requiring it to "conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people." Recent decisions by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court (the Court) in Robinson Township v. Commonwealth and Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation v. Commonwealth provide significant support for Pennsylvania regulations to address the threat of climate disruption posed by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to achieve net zero carbon emissions by the middle of this century.

In light of the threats that climate disruption poses to Pennsylvania's public natural resources, the text of the ERA, and the principles articulated in those recent cases, we argue that a stable climate (a climate that has not been disrupted by anthropogenic emissions of GHGs) should be considered protected by the rights recognized by the ERA, and the public trust duties it creates. We argue that these rights and duties require Pennsylvania to employ regulatory measures to reduce GHG emissions to the level warranted by the social cost of carbon and to achieve carbon neutrality (net zero emissions) by mid-century. Further, we argue that there are judicially recognizable standards to compel the Commonwealth to exercise its existing authority to limit GHG emissions. In light of existing legislative authority, the obligations imposed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Paris Agreement, and the federal Clean Air Act, we make the case that this regulatory program should take the form of an economy-wide cap-and-trade program providing for the auction of allowances with a reserve price based on the social cost of carbon and additional measures to prevent leakage and a cap reaching carbon neutrality by mid-century.


Under controlled, but varied dietary conditions among geriatric, uninephrectomized Beagle bitches (dogs) observed for 4 years, renal size increase as assessed radiographically and ultrasonographically occurred at variable rates, but on a seemingly continuous basis. The maximum observed mean renal linear parameter increase found was approximately 15%. However, a 10 and 15% increase is a more representative expectation among the 4 parameters (sonographic length, radiographic length, sonographic width, radiographic width) under consideration. The rate of renal size increase was rapid during the first 2 to 3 months following uninephrectomy. Thereafter, the rate of increase was slow, but occurred to varying degrees in both the length and width as assessed radiographically or ultrasonographically. The mechanism creating the size change was hypertrophy, not hyperplasia. Within limits of the 3 diets used in the study, no significant diet effect was found on the rate or degree of long term compensatory hypertrophy. Radiographically and ultrasonographically measured renal length had the greatest correlation with each other as well as with post mortem measurements and are, therefore, the recommended parameter for imaging assessment of compensatory hypertrophy. When the prenephrectomy, radiographic renal lengths and widths were normalized as a ratio of the second lumbar vertebral body length (L2) measured from ventrodorsal radiographs, the diet group means across dogs (approximately three L2 lengths for renal length; two L2 lengths for renal width) were in the middle of the respective previously published normal radiographic ranges for mature dogs (e.g. 2.5 L2 < or = length < or = 3.5 L2; 1.58 L2 < or = width < or = 2.38 L2 lengths). Even after the hypertrophic changes occurred, the radiographic group mean lengths and widths across dogs were still within the specified normal ranges, although toward the upper end of the respective range. This information provides background for clinical interpretation of potential compensatory hypertrophy that may be encountered following uninephrectomy for spontaneous disease in aged dogs. In addition, it appears that available radiographic renal linear ranges for normal mature dogs are applicable to geriatric dogs as well.


The security of modern computer systems heavily depends on security tools, especially on antivirus software solutions. In the anti‐malware research community, development of techniques for evading detection by antivirus software is an active research area. This has led to malware that can bypass or subvert antivirus software. The common strategies deployed include the use of obfuscated code and staged malware whose first instance (usually installer such as dropper and downloader) is not detected by the antivirus software. Increasingly, most of the modern malware are staged ones in order for them to be not detected by antivirus solutions at the early stage of intrusion. The installers then determine the method for further intrusion including antivirus bypassing techniques. Some malware target boot and/or shutdown time when antivirus software may be inactive so that they can perform their malicious activities. However, there can be another time frame where antivirus solutions may be inactive, namely, during the time of update. All antivirus software share a unique characteristic that they must be updated at a very high frequency to provide up‐to‐date protection of their system. In this paper, we suggest a novel attack vector that targets antivirus updates and show practical examples of how a system and antivirus software itself can be compromised during the update of antivirus software. Local privilege escalation using this vulnerability is also described. We have investigated this design vulnerability with several of the major antivirus software products such as Avira, AVG, McAfee, Microsoft, and Symantec and found that they are vulnerable to this new attack vector. The paper also discusses possible solutions that can be used to mitigate the attack in the existing versions of the antivirus software as well as in the future ones. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Cytology and cytogenetics were used to study ascitic fluid obtained from five patients with alcoholic cirrhosis. Cytological examination showed that all fluids contained numerous mesothelial cells and some leucocytes. Cytogenetic analysis showed abnormal karyotypes in cultured cells from all five patients and in uncultured cells from three. A consistent abnormality was the presence of spreads with over 70 chromosomes. Clones of abnormal cells, with marker chromosomes, pseudodiploidy, or aneuploidy, in an effusion are characteristic of malignancy; the abnormal karyotypes fulfilled these criteria. This finding of abnormal karyotypes indicates that transformation of the mesothelium can occur in vivo, and such a reaction may be a reflection of the mutagenic effect of alcohol.


The stomach contents of 41 Arctic foxes (Vulpes lagopus) killed during winter and spring (December to June 1991–93) on Disko Island were examined. Fish, seabirds and marine invertebrates were found to be the most important winter food for Arctic foxes on Disko Island. Most fish remains in the stomachs were identified as capelin (Mallotus villosus), and cached fish appear to be important winter food for coastal foxes in the Disko Bay area. The stomachs of blue foxes contained more fish and marine invertebrates than those of white foxes, and stomachs of blue males contained more fish than those of blue females and white foxes of either sex. The age of 26 foxes was determined by X-rays and counting of annual lines in canine root cementum. Almost all the white foxes but less than a quarter of the blue foxes were in their first winter when harvested. The results of this study suggest that most of the white foxes were immigrants to Disko Bay while the blue foxes originated locally.


This paper presents a novel automated procedure for discovering expressive shape specifications for sophisticated functional data structures. Our approach extracts potential shape predicates based on the definition of constructors of arbitrary user-defined inductive data types, and combines these predicates within an expressive first-order specification language using a lightweight data-driven learning procedure. Notably, this technique requires no programmer annotations, and is equipped with a type-based decision procedure to verify the correctness of discovered specifications. Experimental results indicate that our implementation is both efficient and effective, capable of automatically synthesizing sophisticated shape specifications over a range of complex data types, going well beyond the scope of existing solutions.


The rapid increase in population, coupled with increase in the rate of urbanization, had lead to unplanned and uncontrolled expansion of Lokoja town. Consequently, this scenario has caused tremendous pressure on civic infrastructure systems, generated housing problems and unkempt environment among others. This study was carried out with the aid of Survey Research Design (SRD) using structured questionnaire, observation, photo-snaps, building demographic and housing facility survey. Using random sampling technique, every 5 th house in the five districts involved in the study was picked for interview, focusing on building characteristics, condition of sanitary and infrastructural facilities as well the quality of the environment. Findings revealed that the study area exhibit slum condition which has un-denied consequences on the socio-economic lifestyle, health of residents and the general outlook of the environment. On this basis, upgrading program through the provision Urban Basic Services (UBS) and improved sanitation strategies were recommended for sustainable management of the area. These include, among others, public enlightenment campaign, environmental education and reintroduction of effective sanitary inspection schemes. Keywords: Environmental sustainability, uncontrolled expansion, slum, UBS, sanitary inspection.


Zinc (Zn) is an essential trace element needed for proper growth of plants, animals and human. The area where there is deficiency of Zn in the soil is also the area with widespread occurrence of Zn deficiency in human. Zinc fertilization in the field will not only help in correcting Zn deficiency in the crop and obtaining better yield and productivity, but will also help in fighting against malnutrition due to Zn in the population relying on that crop. Various approaches like industrial fortification, food supplementation and dietary diversification are implemented to fight against micronutrient malnutrition. However, these are neither sustainable as well as cost-effective, nor do they target the rural population. Biofortification of Zn in the grains of staple food crops is a better option to reach the poorest of the poor. However, biofortifying the crops with micronutrients meet up with several challenges. More than 50% of the Zn is lost during milling. The remaining fraction of Zn is also not available to the full extent for intestinal absorption due to presence of some antinutrient factors like phytates. Therefore, the biofortification programmes should aim at engineering Zn partitioning more to seed endosperm, curbing loss of Zn, Fe and other essentials during processing and Zn profiling of food crops along with Fe and other nutrients, antinutrients and promoters to get a better crop for a healthy life.


Summary form only given. The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has been defining the Long Term Evolution (LTE) for 3G radio access. LTE has several areas of focus. These areas include enhancement of the Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA), as well as optimization of the network architecture with HSDPA (downlink) and HSUPA (uplink). LTE project aims to ensure the continued competitiveness of the 3GPP technologies for the future LTE focuses on download rates of 100 Mbit/s, upload rates of 50 Mbit/s per 20 MHz of bandwidth, increased spectrum efficiency and sub-5ms latency for small IP packets. This paper provides an overview of the radio interface physical layer requirements. The paper then presents the implementation of the current LTE standards on a second generation flexible baseband processor. The implementation will be be limited to the receiver chain blocks and will be entirely in ANSI C, written for a fixed point digital signal processors. The underlying assumption of this implementation is to avoid any hardware accelerators that would make the hardware platform for the baseband processing standard specific. The SB3500 is the second generation of SandBlaster-based low power, high performance system on a chip (SoC) products developed to serve the software defined radio (SDR) modem applications space. It is a multi-core device, containing 3 dasiaSBXpsila DSP cores. The software implementation of LTE physical layer includes implantation of OFDM and receiver chain processing in ANSI C. The projected processing requirements of an LTE UE on the SB3500 are presented with the expected number of cores needed for the data rates analyzed. The down-sampling filter used for the initial synchronization and for the fine synchronization, FFT block, Channel estimation for each reference symbol, MIMO detector and the CRC block are included in this analysis. The specific architectural features of the SB3500 and the compiler optimizations to yield a real time software implementation of LTE are also presented.


Rapper 50 Cent has made it big in a very short space of time. Having been supported by Jam Master Jay, and produced by Dr Dre and Eminem, the rapper and poet has already experienced great success and critical acclaim. Whilst some 'talk the talk', 50 has 'walked the walk'. Growing up in Jamaica, Queens, he was born to a drug-dealing mother - she was killed in mysterious circumstances - and took over the family business at the age of 12. Living hard, he has been stabbed, shot 9 times (one bullet in his face) and has survived a number of assassination attempts. He is a potent and heady mixture of thug and poet.


Abstract Spiders, a group of predominantly insectivorous predators, occasionally use plant food to supplement their insect prey. In the current review, we tracked down 95 reported incidents of spiders feeding on plant food under natural conditions. Globally, >60 spider species representing ten families have been observed feeding on plant materials from over 20 plant families. Cursorial spiders including the families Anyphaenidae, Clubionidae, Eutichuridae, Salticidae, Thomisidae, and Trachelidae dominate among the spiders feeding on plant food (>80% of reported incidents). Spiders feed on a wide diversity of plant-derived products including floral nectar, extrafloral nectar, stigmatic exudate, plant sap, honeydew, seeds, Beltian bodies, Müllerian bodies and pollen (originating from very different plant types such as coniferous and deciduous trees, herbaceous plants and shrubs, annual weeds, grasses, climbing plants, orchids, carnivorous plants, and ferns). Furthermore, spiders have been shown to consume fungal spores in laboratory trials. Supplementary feeding on plant materials by spiders was shown to be global in extent and widespread across spider taxa, plant taxa and plant materials; however, the extent to which the different categories of plant food contribute to the spiders' diet and how this may affect their behavior and life history is still largely unexplored. This review is expected to lay a foundation for future research on this topic.


OBJECTIVE: To describe the quality of care for routine tonsillectomy at US children's hospitals. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of low-risk children undergoing same-day tonsillectomy between 2004 and 2010 at 36 US children's hospitals that submit data to the Pediatric Health Information System Database. We assessed quality of care by measuring evidence-based processes suggested by national guidelines, perioperative dexamethasone and no antibiotic use, and outcomes, 30-day tonsillectomy-related revisits to hospital. RESULTS: Of 139 715 children who underwent same-day tonsillectomy, 10 868 (7.8%) had a 30-day revisit to hospital. There was significant variability in the administration of dexamethasone (median 76.2%, range 0.3%–98.8%) and antibiotics (median 16.3%, range 2.7%–92.6%) across hospitals. The most common reasons for revisits were bleeding (3.0%) and vomiting and dehydration (2.2%). Older age (10–18 vs 1–3 years) was associated with a greater standardized risk of revisits for bleeding and a lower standardized risk of revisits for vomiting and dehydration. After standardizing for differences in patients and year of surgery, there was significant variability (P < .001) across hospitals in total revisits (median 7.8%, range 3.0%–12.6%), revisits for bleeding (median 3.0%, range 1.0%–8.8%), and revisits for vomiting and dehydration (median 1.9%, range 0.3%–4.4%). CONCLUSIONS: Substantial variation exists in the quality of care for routine tonsillectomy across US children's hospitals as measured by perioperative dexamethasone and antibiotic use and revisits to hospital. These data on evidence-based processes and relevant patient outcomes should be useful for hospitals' tonsillectomy quality improvement efforts.


Extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBLs) and AmpC β-lactamases are plasmid (but also chromosomally) encoded enzymes found in Enterobacteriaceae, determining resistance to a variety of important antibiotics including penicillins, cephalosporins, and monobactams. In recent decades, the prevalence of ESBL/AmpC-producing bacteria has increased rapidly across the world. Here, we evaluate the potential use of bacteriophages in terms of a reduction of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in healthy animals. The aim of our studies was to isolate bacteriophages capable of destroying ESBL/AmpC-producing Escherichia coli isolated from livestock habitats. The efficacy of isolated phages against ESBL/AmpC E. coli strains varies, but creation of a phage cocktail with broad activity spectrum is possible. This may indicate that the role of phages may not be limited to phage therapy, but bacterial viruses may also be applied against spread of bacteria with antibiotic resistance genes in the environment. We also addressed the hypothesis, that phages, effective for therapeutic purposes may be isolated from distant places and even from different environments other than the actual location of the targeted bacteria. This may be beneficial for practical purposes, as the construction of effective phage preparations does not require access to disease outbreaks.


The transcription factors Runx2 and Osx are necessary for osteoblast and odontoblast differentiation, while Dspp is important for odontoblast differentiation. The relationship among Runx2, Osx, and Dspp during tooth and craniofacial bone development remains unknown. In this study, we hypothesized that the roles of Runx2 and Osx in the regulation of osteoblast and odontoblast lineages may be independent of one another. The results showed that Runx2 expression overlapped with Osx in dental and osteogenic mesenchyme from E12 to E16. At the later stages, from E18 to PN14, Runx2 and Osx expressions remained intense in alveolar bone osteoblasts. However, Runx2 expression was down-regulated, whereas Osx expression was clearly seen in odontoblasts. At later stages, Dspp transcription was weakly present in osteoblasts, but strong in odontoblasts where Osx was highly expressed. In mouse odontoblast-like cells, Osx overexpression increased Dspp transcription. Analysis of these data suggests differential biological functions of Runx2, Osx, and Dspp during odontogenesis and osteogenesis.


We examine the range of validity of the Gaussian model for various water-like liquids whose intermolecular potentials differ from SPC/E water, to provide insight into the temperature dependence of the hydrophobic effect for small hard sphere solutes. We find that low compressibility liquids that have more close-packed network structures show much larger deviations from Gaussian fluctuations for low or zero occupancies relative to more compressible fluids with more open networks. Water appears to be a unique molecular fluid in possessing equilibrium density fluctuations that are faithfully described by the Gaussian theory. We ascribe this success to the fact, shown here, that the orientational correlations near a small hard sphere solute involve remarkably little reorganization from the bulk, which is a consequence of water's low solvent reorganization enthalpy and entropy.


ABSTRACT High-quality training is a prerequisite to teaching future general practitioners. To inspire and guide all countries to implement General Practice (GP) specialist education and training and bring it to the highest standards, we aimed, within the European context, to produce a collaborative document entitled 'Educational Requirements for GP Specialty Training'. Through an iterative process existing documents from the European Academy of Teachers in GP and Family Medicine (EURACT) and the World Organization of Family Medicine Doctors (WONCA) were collated. Other reports, grey literature about specialty GP training and requirements for trainees, trainers and training institutions were included. State-of-the-art GP specialty training 'core' competences, characteristics and essential features of GP are described. General principles and specified tools for training and assessment are summarised. Recommendations on the duration and place(s) of training and selection of trainees are provided. Trainers should be accredited teachers and quality training institutions are essential. New insights, existing gaps and issues for debate have highlighted areas for further research. This document was produced in the specific context of Europe but its general principles are relevant to GP training in all countries.


This paper is an analysis of how African traditional communication and the literature produced about it portray African traditional communication. The analysis premises an interest to ascertain whether the portrayal is in a perspective showing traditional media as capable of playing expected public information role. Drawing on contemporary literature, the paper concludes that much of the literature on the subject often portrays traditional communication in the objectionable linear conduit metaphor model of communication. The paper argues that this model is not conducive to the demands of an effective and robust public information requirement. The paper, drawing also on observations from proceedings at a local forum, found the positive modern-communication potentials lurking in aspects of traditional media like the social debating fora and the talking drums. The paper recommends immediate commencement of systematic refinement of these aspects since, in the belief of the paper, the communication potentials of these media as presently known are not enough for optimal relevance in the highly demanding public information market. SOPHIA: An African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 9 (1) 2006: pp. 62-67


The article describes the incorporation of assessment and assurance of learning features in a WWW webfolio system containing student artifacts produced over a fifteen year period by cohorts of students in response to course assignments and program learning objectives. The webfolio system maintains the artifacts; associated assignments; program and course learning objectives; faculty formative comments to students about the artifacts; rubrics; artifact evaluation scores, standards and levels of knowledge along with course information. The data can be maintained indefinitely allowing tracking of trends in assessment results. The relationships among the previously mentioned categories of data as they appear to the users (students, faculty, and administrators) are shown and use of the data to support authentic assessment, assurance of learning, and program improvement is described. Although the data categories are presented in the context of a system built by the authors, similar data would need to be maintained by any system supporting authentic assessment based on student work samples. The paper should be of interest to those involved in using educational technology for assurance of learning and curriculum assessment purpose; those involved in maintaining authentic student work samples for accreditation purposes; and those interested in the use of authentic work samples for professional certification.


Drawing on narrative data from a multiple case study, I recount the life stories of two resilient Black South African university students to theorize about the processes that encouraged these students, familiar with penury and parental illiteracy, to resile. I aimed to uncover lessons for school psychologists about resilience, and their role in its promotion, from these students' recollections. To this end, I first synthesize what the resilience literature reports as generic processes of resilience. Thereafter, I illustrate how these processes were common to the students' stories of resilience, drawing attention to how Africentricism shaped these processes. The understanding of resilience that flows from this case study illustrates the more recent contentions that resilience theory needs to account for the influence of culture on positive adjustment and translate this into culturally sensitive interventions towards resilience. The broad implications for school psychologists include recognition that resilience processes are nuanced by the socio-cultural ecology in which youths are situated and awareness that resilience processes require multiple ecosystemic partners. For school psychologists working with students of African descent, the importance of understanding how resilience processes are informed by an Africentric world view is foregrounded, along with attentiveness to the caveats implicit in this lesson.


Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of a self-management intervention (including an eHealth module), compared with usual care, in employees with chronic non-specific complaints of the arm, neck or shoulder (persisting >3 months). Methods Participants were randomised into the self-management group (SG) or usual care group (UCG). The SG participated in 6 self-management sessions and could use an eHealth module; the UCG could use all available usual care. The primary outcome of the study was score on the Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand questionnaire (DASH). Secondary outcomes included: absenteeism, pain in the previous week, quality of life, pain catastrophising, self-efficacy, work style, presenteeism, fatigue, and limitations experienced during work. Data were analysed using generalised estimating equations (GEE) linear regression and Mann-Whitney U tests, and were collected at baseline, 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month follow-up. Results On the general module of the DASH, no significant difference between SG and the UCG was detected. On most of the other outcome measures, there were no significant between-group differences. In the DASH work module, the between-group effect was −3.82 (95% CI −7.46 to −0.19, p=0.04). For limitations experienced in job-related activities the between-group effect was −1.01 (95% CI −1.97 to −0.04, p=0.04). The mean hours of sport activities in the past 3 months, measured at 12 months, was 1.00 h (95% CI −1.90 to −0.12 h, p=0.03) less in the SG compared with the UCG. Conclusions The self-management intervention improved the participants' perceived disability during work. Since no significant between-group differences were found on most outcome measures, the results of this study should be interpreted with caution. Trial registration number Dutch Trial Registration number NTR 3816.


Alkaloid constitutes the largest group among nitrogen-containing secondary metabolites.
Alkaloid presents in plant and animal kingdom. Alkaloid exibits many biological and
medical functions. Gadung (Dioscorea hispida Dennst) has been known for its high
carbohydrate and alkaloid content. In order to utilize gadung as food source, hence the
alkaloid was separated by microwave assisted extraction. Solid-liquid extraction of
gadung's alkaloid involved the selection of solvent, mass transfer process, heat transfer
process and also being influenced by several process variables such as extraction time,
solvent concentration, solvent-materia ratio and microwave power. Thus this research
objectives were to choose the suitable solvent, study the influence of the process variables
which is comprised of ethanol concentration (96%-75%), solvent-material ratio (10:1-20:1)
and microwave power (100-400W) to the extraction yield, and also to develop mass
transfer model of the gadung alkaloid extraction. The research was conducted in three
major steps i.e raw material preparation, microwave assisted extraction of gadung alkaloid
and mass transfer modelling. The solvents were chosen based on Hildebrand solubility
parameter, which was predicted by group contribution methods. A pre-experiment was
conducted to determine the best extraction time. The mass transfer coefficient was
evaluated by using MATLAB program. The result showed that the selected solvents for
microwave assisted extraction of alkaloid from gadung was ethanol-water mixture. The
highest extraction yield achieved when the alkaloid was extracted using 85% of ethanol as
solvent at solvent-material ratio of 12.5:1, using microwave power of 100W for 20
minutes. The final mathematical mass transfer model of the alkaloid extraction was
C = 0.0008 − 0.0008.e−0.10061.t and the mass transfer coefficient was 0.10061 s-1. The model
showed a good agreement with the experimental data with average absolute relative
deviation of 2.96%.


In this note, the input-output linearization problem (IOLP) for a class of single-input-single-output nonlinear systems with multiple delays in the input, the output, and the state is studied. The problem is solved by means of various static or dynamic compensators, including state and output feedback. The mathematical setting is based on some noncommutative algebraic tools and the introduction of a nonlinear version of the so-called Roesser models for this class of systems. These are claimed to be the cornerstones for studying nonlinear time-delay systems. Necessary and sufficient conditions are given for the existence of a static or pure shift output feedback which solves the IOLP. Sufficient conditions for the existence of a dynamic state feedback solution are included as well.


It is known that in severe acquired brain injuries there is process of neuroinflammation, with the activation of a local and general stress response. In our study we considered six patients with disorders of consciousness (five in vegetative state and one in minimal consciousness state) in subacute phase, which had both a clinical assessment and a functional imaging (fMRI): in all these patients we analised blood levels of osteopontin (OPN), a cytokin involved in neuroinflammation but also in neurorepair with a still discussed role. Besides we studied the lymphocyte subsets and blood levels of some hormones (ADH, ACTH, PRL, GH, TSH, fT3, fT4). We found a positive correlation between the levels of serum osteopontin (higher than normal in all subjects) and the severity of the brain injury, especially for prognosis: actually, the patient with the lowest level has emerged from minimal consciousness state, while the one with the highest level has died a few days after the evaluation. The lymphocyte subset was altered, with a general increase of CD4+/CD3+ ratio, but without a so strict correlation with clinical severity; the only hormone with a significant increase in the worse patients was prolactin. In fMRI we detected some responses to visual and acoustic stimuli also in vegetative states, which had no clinical response to this kind of stimulation but generally have had a better prognosis. So we conclude that osteopontin could be a good marker of neuroinflammation and relate to a worse prognosis of brain injuries; the lymphocyte alterations in these disorders are not clear, but we suspect an unbalance of CD4 towards Th2; PRL is the best endocrinological marker of brain injury severity; fMRI surely plays an important role in the detection of subclinical responses and in prognostic stratification, that is still to define with more studies and statistical analysis.


The edrophonium (Tensilon) tonogram was devised to magnify the objective response of paretic extraocular muscles to a test dose of an antimyasthenic agent. While the intravenous administration of edrophonium chloride (Tensilon), as a rapid diagnostic procedure for myasthenia gravis is widely practiced, edrophonium tonography represents a sensitive refinement in recording the myasthenic response. In cases of subtle and confusing ophthalmoplegia, the value of this procedure may be of diagnostic significance. Derivatives of physostigmine had been used therapeutically by Walker 1,2 and others, 3-6 but the diagnostic value of a rapid test was not emphasized until Osserman and Kaplan 7 described the intravenous use of edrophonium. This analogue of neostigmine is a rapid anticurare agent whose maximum effect occurs within one minute. Breinin 8 has evaluated anticholinesterase and anticurare agents by use of electromyography. He suggests the occurrence in myasthenic patients of characteristic innervation patterns and drug response patterns. Kornblueth et


Coarrays have been part of the Fortran standard since Fortran 2008 and provide a syntactic extension of Fortran to support parallel programming, often called Coarray Fortran (CAF). Although MPI is the de facto standard for parallel programs running on distributed memory systems and little scientific software is written in CAF, many scientific applications could benefit from the use of CAF. We present the migration from MPI to CAF of the libraries PSBLAS and MLD2P4 for the solution of large systems of equations using iterative methods and preconditioners. In this paper we describe some investigations for implementing the necessary communication steps in PSBLAS and MLD2P4 and provide performance results obtained on linear systems arising from discretization of 2D and 3D PDEs.


Revision with unchanged content. The objective of biological research is to understand the structural and the functional aspects of life. Though living organisms are diverse in almost every aspect, they are made of cells, and share the same machinery for their basic functions. The structural and functional aspect of life is traceable to genes, given that the information from the genes determine the protein composition and thereby the function of the cell. Hence, predicting the functions of individual genes is the gate way for understanding the blueprint of life. The rationale behind the ongoing genome sequencing projects is to utilize the sequence information to understand the genes and their functions. The exponential increase in the amount of sequence information enunciated the need for an automated approach to acquire knowledge about their biological function. This book introduces the general strategies used in the automated annotation of genes and protein sequences. Specifically, it describes a method utilizing the machine learning approach to predict gene function. This book is addressed to researchers involved in predicting gene function and applying machine learning algorithms to other biological problems.


ABSTRACT: We investigated pituitary regulation of late-gestation fetal growth in the spontaneous dwarf rat, a strain with an autosomal recessive mutation (gene symbol dr) in the growth hormone (GH) gene resulting in complete isolated GH deficiency. GH-normal/GH-deficient (Dr/dr) females were crossed with Dr/dr or dr/dr males, producing both GH-deficient and GH-normal fetuses within the same litter. Pups were killed within 3 h after birth to approximate the developmental state of a late-gestation fetus. The body weight of GH-deficient fetuses was inhibited by 14% in comparison to GH-normal animals, but tail length remained unaffected. The brain and lungs were the only organs whose growth appeared to be pituitary-independent. Other organs showed moderate pituitary dependence in proportion to body weight. Serum IGF-I and IGF-II were reduced by 73% and 52%, respectively, in the absence of GH. The major IGF-binding proteins (IGFBP) were analyzed by Western ligand blot. The predominant 26- to 30-kD IGFBP band normally seen in neonatal rat serum was greatly increased in GH-deficient sera, to 250% of GH-normal sera as measured by densitometry. However, addition of α-Hec 1 antibody to IGFBP-2, which has been used to identify IGFBP-2 as the major neonatal IGFBP, resulted in immunoprecipitation of only a small amount of the 26- to 30-kD band from the GH-deficient fetuses, suggesting the presence of an additional IGFBP. Northern analysis of GH-deficient livers did not reveal any visible increase in IGFBP-1, IGFBP-2, or IGFBP-4 mRNA. We conclude that pituitary GH exerts a modest, but significant, selective effect on fetal body weight and organ growth. Serum levels of both IGF-I and IGF-II, as well as their binding proteins, were shown to be pituitary-GH–dependent in the fetal period. The increase of low-molecular-weight binding proteins in the GH-deficient fetus, which we were unable to attribute to IGFBP-1, -2, -3, or -4, may indicate the presence of unique fetal binding protein(s). The spontaneous dwarf rat may be an important model for further investigation of the development of pituitary dependence in fetal growth.


Abstract Objectives: The study aimed to determine whether age and sex predict self-reported and performance-based mobility-related outcomes in community-dwelling middle and older aged adults with chronic conditions; and if sociodemographic factors and comorbidity influence this relationship. Methods: Data from a previous randomised controlled trial where the intervention had no clinical effect was analysed (n = 271). Unadjusted regression models and multivariate regression analyses including linear, median, logistic and ordered logistic regression were performed examining the relationship between participant characteristics at baseline and 9 months. Independent variables were: age, sex, comorbidity, education level, income level, marital status and age and sex interaction term. The dependent variables were: self-reported outcomes: fall history, Late Life Function and Disability Instrument function component score, Short Form 36 Health Survey Questionnaire physical component score and performance-based mobility outcomes: 2-minute walk distance, [Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB)] balance, chair stands, eight-foot walk and SPPB total score. Results: Older age and female sex predicted poorer self-reported mobility, but only older age predicted performance-based mobility outcomes. Participants with more comorbidity, low income and lived alone had poorer mobility. Conclusion: The differences of the self-reported mobility outcomes but not the performance measures between males and females may be implicated by gender differences, more than sex differences. Our findings support the need for more mechanistic studies on the impacts of sex and gender on mobility.


This article considers the relationship between sexuality and schooling and draws on data from an ethnographic school-based study. It considers the ways in which sexualities are shaped and lived through pupil cultures that are often marginalized or overlooked by teachers and rarely find their way into the official curriculum. It discusses the normative power of heterosexuality in schools and, particularly, the relationship between masculinities and heterosexuality. Themes of embodiment, physicality, and performance play a part in the ways in which informal groups of students actively ascribe meanings to issues of sex and gender. Through interviews with young men in school, it is suggested that school processes produce sites for the enactment of heterosexual masculinities that suggest the normative presence of heterosexuality and the fragility of sex/gender categories. The article aims to contribute to an understanding of sexual majorities by focusing on the processes that are constitutive of dominant practice in school arenas.


Emergency contraception, also known as postcoital contraception, is therapy used to prevent pregnancy after an unprotected or inadequately protected act of sexual intercourse. Common indications for emergency contraception include contraceptive failure (eg, condom breakage or missed doses of oral contraceptives) and failure to use any form of contraception (1–3 1–3 1–3). Although oral emergency contraception was first described in the medical literature in the 1960s, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first dedicated product for emergency contraception in 1998. Since then, several new products have been introduced. Methods of emergency contraception include oral administration of combined estrogen–progestin, progestin only, or selective progesterone receptor modulators and insertion of a copper intrauterine device (IUD). Many women are unaware of the existence of emergency contraception, misunderstand its use and safety, or do not use it when a need arises (4–6 4–6 4–6). The purpose of this Practice Bulletin is to review the evidence for the efficacy and safety of available methods of emergency contraception and to increase awareness of these methods among obstetrician–gynecologists and other gynecologic providers.


Business corporations (and unincorporated joint-stock companies) formed in Britain and the United States in the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century were lightly regulated by today's standards and, as startups, sold equity directly to investors without the aid of intermediaries, yet they suffered relatively few governance breakdowns. That is because republican government-style checks against the arbitrary power of any group of stakeholders (managers, blockholders, directors) suffused their founding documents (charters/constitutions, articles of agreement, bylaws), raising the expected costs of defalcation above the expected benefits. Over the latter half of the nineteenth century, however, the original checks disintegrated. They were functionally replaced twice, first by financial capitalism a la J.P. Morgan, then by corporate raiders and takeover specialists like KKR, but politicians neutralized the first and managers (and judges) the second, leaving many widely-held corporations today under the control of CEOs/Board Chairmen who can self-deal with near impunity and have apparent incentives to do so. A return to the precepts of the republican model could help to improve governance outcomes in the future.


Endometrial carcinoma (ECa) is the fourth most common cancer among women. The oncogene PELP1 is frequently overexpressed in a variety of cancers, including ECa. We recently generated SMIP34, a small-molecule inhibitor of PELP1 that suppresses PELP1 oncogenic signaling. In this study, we assessed the effectiveness of SMIP34 in treating ECa. Treatment of established and primary patient-derived ECa cells with SMIP34 resulted in a significant reduction of cell viability, colony formation ability and induction of apoptosis. SMIP34 enhanced the efficacy of mTOR inhibitors in reducing viability of ECa cells. RNA-seq analyses showed that SMIP34 regulated genes that are negatively correlated with ribosome biogenesis and eukaryotic translation pathways. Mechanistic studies showed that the Rix complex, which is essential for ribosomal biogenesis, is disrupted upon SMIP34 binding to PELP1. Biochemical assays confirmed that SMIP34 reduced ribosomal biogenesis and new protein synthesis. SMIP34 is also effective in reducing cell viability in ECa organoids in vitro and explants ex vivo. Importantly, SMIP34 treatment resulted in a significant reduction of the growth of ECa xenografts. Collectively, these findings underscore the potential of SMIP34 in treating ECa.


Snake venoms are natural sources of biologically active molecules that are able to act selectively and specifically on different cellular targets, modulating physiological functions. Thus, these mixtures, composed mainly of proteins and peptides, provide ample and challenging opportunities and a diversified molecular architecture to design and develop tools and agents of scientific and therapeutic interest. Among these components, peptides and small proteins play diverse roles in numerous physiological processes, exerting a wide range of pharmacological activities, such as antimicrobial, antihypertensive, analgesic, antitumor, analgesic, among others. The pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries have recognized the huge potential of these privileged frameworks and believe them to be a promising alternative to contemporary drugs. A number of natural or synthetic peptides from snake venoms have already found preclinical or clinical applications for the treatment of pain, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases and aging skin. A well-known example is captopril, whose natural peptide precursor was isolated from Bothrops jararaca snake venom, which is a peptide-based drug that inhibits the angiotensin-converting enzyme, producing an anti-hypertensive effect. The present review looks at the main peptides (natriuretic peptides, bradykinin-potentiating peptides and sarafotoxins) and low mass proteins (crotamine, disintegrins and three-Finger toxins) from snake venoms, as well as synthetic peptides inspired by them, describing their biochemical, structural and physiological features, as well as their applications as research tools and therapeutic agents.


Introduction:

In March 2015 the UK Supreme Court ruled that "a doctor has a duty to take reasonable care to ensure that the patient is aware of any material risk involved in any suggested treatment and of any reasonable alternative or variant treatments".  Furthermore, it requires that the test of materiality is whether in the chances of the particular case a reasonable person in the patient's position would be likely to attach significance to it". With this in mind we thought it appropriate to revisit the last Cochrane review on treatment of thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS). We note that 1) no randomized control trials were found where the outcomes of surgical management were superior to conservative management, but 2) surgical management carries significant risks. These 2 points have important implications on consent and treatment in the post-Montgomery era. Before the Montgomery ruling, the Bolam test of "whether the treatment delivered would have been acceptable to a responsible body of medical opinion" ruled.

This meant that as long as the procedure was generally acceptable and its main risks listed, consent was valid. However, post-Montgomery valid consent must take into account all risks that the patient, rather than the doctor, would consider significant, as well as the details of any reasonable alternative treatments. In conclusion, we are of the opinion that in light of the Montgomery ruling it is ill advised that surgery is performed prior to a period of conservative treatment.

Thoracic outlet disorder (TOS) is an oftentimes ignored fringe nerve pressure that makes troubles for the clinician in regards to analysis and the board. The term 'thoracic outlet disorder' was initially authored in 1956 by Peet to demonstrate pressure of the neurovascular structures in the interscalene triangle comparing to the conceivable etiology of the symptoms.2–4 Since Peet gave this definition, the condition has developed as one of the most dubious subjects in musculoskeletal medication and recovery. This discussion reaches out to pretty much every part of the pathology including the definition, the rate, the pathoanatomical commitments, analysis and treatment.

The neural holder depicted as the 'thoracic outlet' is involved a few parts. Proximally, the cervicoaxillary channel is partitioned by the principal rib into two segments. The proximal part of this waterway is involved the interscalene triangle and the costoclavicular space, while the axilla contains the distal part of the trench. The proximal segment is all the more clinically important, because of its job in neurovascular compression.

12 More explicitly, the thoracic outlet incorporates three bound spaces stretching out from the cervical spine and mediastinum to the lower fringe of the pectoralis minor muscle (Fig. 1). The three compartments incorporate the interscalene triangle, the costoclavicular space and the thoraco-coraco-pectoral space or retropectoralis minor space.4,13 The interscalene triangle is flanked by the foremost scalene muscle anteriorly, the center scalene muscle posteriorly, and the average surface of the main rib poorly.


: Neuralgic amyotrophy (NA) is a distinct peripheral nervous system (PNS) disorder characterised by sudden attacks of neuropathic pain, usually in a unilateral upper extremity, and patchy paresis with amyotrophy. Under-recognition of NA patients may be frequent because symptoms of NA can be similar to those of common orthopedic disorders. The lesion sites of NA are commonly considered to be brachial plexus (BP) and/or individual branches of the BP. The cause of NA remains unknown. Some evidence support the concept of a complex pathogenesis in NA that includes underlying predisposition and susceptible PNS structures, and it can be triggered by infection, trauma, and strenuous exercise. Typical presentation of NA is characterized by patchy paresis of the periscapular and periglenohumeral muscles. In such cases, STIR-MRI often shows hyperintense signal abnormalities on the affected side of the proximal upper BP. NA is considered to be broad and encompasses a spectrum of atypical presentations, including involvement of lower part of BP, isolated nerves (anterior interosseous nerve or posterior interosseous nerve), or lumbosacral plexuses. Functional prognosis of NA is less favorable than previously assumed. Administration of corticosteroids and intravenous immunoglobulin was described as potential therapeutics for NA, although their efficacy remains unestablished.


To investigate chemical and color changes of the polymeric constituents of black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) wood during heat treatment, extractive-free wood flour was conditioned to 30% initial moisture content (MC) and heated for 24 h at 120 °C in either an oxygen or nitrogen atmosphere. The color change was measured using the CIELAB color system. Chemical changes of the wood components were determined by means of solid state cross-polarization/magic angle spinning 13C-nuclear magnetic resonance (CPMAS-13C-NMR), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), diffuse reflectance UV-Vis (DRUV) spectroscopy, and elemental (CHN) analysis. The results showed that lightness (L*) decreased, while chromaticity indexes (a* and b*) and chroma (C*) increased after heat treatment. There was greater color difference in the samples heated in the presence of oxygen compared to nitrogen. CHN analysis showed an increase in hydrogen and oxygen and a decrease in carbon content. NMR spectra confirmed the cleavage of the ß-O-4 structure in the lignin, resulting in a decrease in etherified lignin units and an increase in phenolic structures. DRUV and FTIR spectra confirmed the formation of extensive conjugated structures, such as unsaturated ketones and quinones due to the cleavage of the lignin units. Formation of quinones can be attributed to heat treatment in the presence of oxygen.


Reported as one of the most visited top attractions in Taiwan, night markets are well-recognized for their diversity and very distinctive service model. After regular working hours have finished, these multiform commercial clusters emerge as an essential component of cities' urban fabrics. Many researchers have previously studied the walkable environment and physical activities in alternative study cases located in historical districts such as in the case of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Mansouri & Ujang, 2017), but very few have demonstrated the alteration in the space usage and the transformation suffered on street networks related to commercial zones after their reshaping caused by such informal business. This research has been conducted in a night market located in Taipei City, which is Taiwan's major urban centre and its most multicultural hub.

Understanding these unique commercial zones has appeared as a very important research topic within multiple disciplines. It also contributes to visualize vendors' business dynamics are directly affected by the perception that visitors visualize based on their experience. Therefore, learning about night markets' dynamics enhances (in different ways and professional fields) the improvement of the spatial experience regarding user-centered design and it promotes the venue as a worth visiting destination. This research initial results are certainly valuable contribution for a smart city approach with the integration of computational simulation and user-centered design.


The vapor transport properties of nanocomposite materials obtained with different techniques and based on a high free volume glassy polymer suitable for membrane separations, poly[1‐(trimethylsilyl)‐1‐propyne] (PTMSP), have been determined and modeled. The simple mixing in solution of hydrophobic fumed silica nanoparticles with PTMSP leads to mixed matrix membranes, which show higher free volume and higher values of diffusivity and permeability than the pure polymeric material. If a sol‐gel route is followed, with PTMSP and Tetraethoxysylane (TEOS) as precursor of the silica phase, one obtains hybrid matrices characterized by lower vapor diffusion and sorption values with respect to the pure polymer. Although the trends observed are very regular functions of the silica content in the composite, none of the behavior observed obeys traditional models for composites permeability, such as the Maxwell's one. Both types of behaviors were modeled considering the variation of polymer fractional free volume induced by the inorganic phase: in the mixed matrices the poor interactions between silica and polymer chains favor the formation of nanovoids at the interface, increasing the free volume and the vapor diffusivity, while in the more interconnected hybrid matrices the inorganic domains act as constraints, reducing the volume occupied by the polymeric phase, which is naturally endowed with a very high excess free volume.


IN 1964, we described a new method to evaluate one aspect of body-image, namely, the internalized picture that the person has of the physical appearance of the body. 1 The instrument used in this assessment, called the adjustable body-distorting mirror, consists of a special full length mirror which can be adjusted to reflect the body of the observer on a distortion continuum from extremely distorted to completely undistorted. A normative study indicated that there is a wide range of reflections of the body acceptable to the subject. 2 Recently, we reported observations on a group of 20 chronic schizophrenic patients, many of whom were rated clinically as having distortions of body-image. 3 In view of the rather wide range of acceptable reflections shown by normals, the issue was whether an even broader range of acceptability characterized those patients judged clinically to suffer from distortions of bodyimage. By using as stimulus


OBJECTIVES
To test the hypothesis that finger skin vasomotion (FSV), a known factor influencing microvascular blood flow motion, is impaired in SSc patients. Possible relationships between FSV abnormalities and the severity and/or activity of SSc were also investigated.

METHODS
FSV was investigated by means of spectral Fourier analysis of finger skin laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF) tracing, recorded before and following acetylcholine (ACh) or sodium nitroprusside (SNP) iontophoresis in 26 SSc patients and in 20 age-matched healthy controls. The power spectral density (PSD) of the 0.01-0.02, 0.02-0.06 and 0.06-0.2 Hz LDF oscillations (related to endothelial-, sympathetic- and myogenic-dependent FSV, respectively) was measured in PU(2) (perfusion units)/Hz.

RESULTS
Compared with controls, SSc patients exhibited a significantly lower post-ACh and/or post-SNP percentage increase in PSD of 0.01-0.02 Hz (492 +/- 297% vs 283 +/- 167%; P < 0.005), of 0.02-0.06 Hz (336 +/- 205% vs 239 +/- 170%; P < 0.05) and of 0.06-0.2 Hz (223 +/- 91% vs 194 +/- 227%; P < 0.01) skin LDF oscillations. The post-SNP normalized PSD value of the 0.01-0.02 Hz and of the 0.02-0.06 Hz LDF oscillations was negatively related to SSc severity index (r = -0.407, P < 0.05 and r = -459, P < 0.05, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS
This study showed a selective abnormality of the endothelial, sympathetic and myogenic-dependent FSV in SSc patients, consistent with a parallel endothelial, sympathetic and myogenic macrovascular dysfunction. This study also suggests a possible role of endothelial and sympathetic dysfunction in the progression of SSc.


2InsUtute of General Pathology, University of Genoa, 1-16132 Genoa, Italy 3To whom correspondence should be addressed The genotoxicity of a-hexachlorocyclohexane (a-HCH) was evaluated in primary cultures of mouse, rat and human hepatocytes. DNA fragmentation was measured by the alkaline elution technique and DNA repair synthesis by quantitative autoradiography. A 20 h exposure to subtoxic concentrations ranging from 0.056 to 032 mM produced a dose-dependent frequency of DNA breaks in rat hepatocytes and in hepatocytes from four of five human donors, but not in mouse hepatocytes. DNA repair induction was absent in hepatocytes from all three species. The reduction in the frequency of DNA breaks observed in rat hepatocytes simultaneously exposed to metyrapone suggests that aHCH is transformed into reactive species by a cytochrome P450-dependent reaction. The detection of DNA fragmentation but not of DNA repair synthesis may be tentatively explained by assuming that a-HCH behaves as a chemical eliciting short patch DNA repair, which is more easily revealed as genotoxic by the occurrence of DNA singlestrand breaks.


We present an approach for the text-to-image retrieval problem based on textual content present in images. Given the recent developments in understanding text in images, an appealing approach to address this problem is to localize and recognize the text, and then query the database, as in a text retrieval problem. We show that such an approach, despite being based on state-of-the-art methods, is insufficient, and propose a method, where we do not rely on an exact localization and recognition pipeline. We take a query-driven search approach, where we find approximate locations of characters in the text query, and then impose spatial constraints to generate a ranked list of images in the database. The retrieval performance is evaluated on public scene text datasets as well as three large datasets, namely IIIT scene text retrieval, Sports-10K and TV series-1M, we introduce.


Insulin-like growth factor binding protein-1 (IGFBP-1) has been implicated in the development of cardiovascular disease, but it is not known whether IGFBP-1 is related to cardiovascular mortality. We examined the relation of circulating IGFBP-1 to death from coronary heart disease, cardiovascular disease, and all causes in a cohort study consisting of 622 men aged 65–84 years, at baseline in 1984. Fasting serum IGFBP-1 and other risk factors were measured in 1984 and 1989. Cardiovascular events for those who died between 1984 and 1995 were analyzed, and cardiovascular diagnoses were coded centrally according to standardized procedures. Of the 622 men, 358 died between 1984 and 1995; 160 deaths were due to cardiovascular causes, 113 of which were coronary deaths. High fasting serum IGFBP-1 concentration (> 75 percentile) in 1984 was associated with increased five-year total mortality (OR 2.05, 95% CI 1.41–2.99; p < 0.0002), cardiovascular mortality (OR 2.20, 95% CI 1.37– 3.50; p < 0.0009) and coronary heart disease mortality (OR 2.29, 95% CI 1.35–3.88; p < 0.002). After adjustment for age, high serum IGFBP-1 concentrations still carried an increased risk of total mortality due to (OR 1.73, 95% CI 1.16–2.59; p < 0.007), cardio-vascular (OR 1.91 95% CI 1.18–3.09; p < 0.008) and coronary heart disease (OR 2.02. 95% CI 1.18–3.47; p < 0.01). In conclusion, high fasting serum IGFBP-1 is related to increased five-year total and cardiovascular mortality in elderly men.


In earlier studies of the environmental impact of pavement roughness on life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, it was assumed that pavement roughness (usually measured by International Roughness Index, IRI) has no impact on vehicle speed. However, because ride comfort increases when a pavement becomes smoother (that is, when roughness decreases), it is possible that people will drive faster on a smoother pavement. Because most vehicles achieve maximum fuel efficiency between 40 and 50 mph (64 and 80 km/h), fuel use increases at speeds beyond this range, and this increase in speed might offset the benefits gained from the reduced rolling resistance associated with reduced pavement roughness. Therefore, to investigate the impact of changes in pavement roughness on driving behavior with respect to speed, this study built a linear regression model to estimate free-flow speed on freeways in California. The explanatory variables included lane number, total number of lanes, day of the week, region (Caltrans district), gasoline price, and pavement roughness as measured by IRI. Data from the California freeway network from 2000 to 2011 were used to build the model. The results show that pavement roughness has a very small impact on free-flow speed within the range of this study. For the IRI coverage in this study (90 percent of the records have an IRI of 3 m/km or lower and 90 percent of the records have an IRI change of 2 m/km or lower), a change in IRI of 1 m/km (63 in./mi) resulted in a change of average free-flow speed of about 0.48 to 0.64 km/h (0.3 to 0.4 mph), a value low enough to cause almost no change in fuel use. This result indicates that making a rough pavement segment smoother through application of a maintenance or rehabilitation treatment will not result in substantially faster vehicle operating speeds, and therefore the benefits from reduced energy use and emissions due to reduced rolling resistance will not be offset by the increased fuel consumption that accompany increases in vehicle speed. However, efforts to develop a good model for predicting free-flow speed were not fully successful. The Southern California Interstate Freeway model developed yielded the best result with an adjusted Rsquared of 0.72. For the rest of the regions in the state, the selected explanatory variables can only explain about half of the total variance, meaning that there are still other variables, such as vehicle type, with a substantial impact on free-flow speed that were not covered in this study.


GaN intermedial layers grown under different pressures are inserted between GaN epilayers and AlN/Si(111) substrates. In situ optical reflectivity measurements show that a transition from the three-dimensional (3D) mode to the 2D one occurs during the GaN epilayer growth when a higher growth pressure is used during the preceding GaN intermedial layer growth, and an improvement of the crystalline quality of GaN epilayer will be made. Combining the in situ reflectivity and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) measurements, it is suggested that the lateral growth at the transition of growth mode is favourable for bending of dislocation lines, thus reducing the density of threading dislocations in the epilayer.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the effects of soy isoflavones (SI) on the expression of estrogen receptor-α (ER-α) in senile rat ovaries and ovarian granulosa cell cultured in vitro treated with genistein, a major active component of SI.

METHODS
The animal model of perimenopause rats was established by unforced aging. The animals were treated by intragastric administration (ig) with low (50 mg/kg), middle (158 mg/kg) and high (500 mg/kg) dose of SI for 8 weeks. The expressions of ER-α mRNA and protein were detected by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and immunohistochemistry respectively. The granulosa cells of rat ovaries were isolated and administered with genistein (0, 0.1, 1, 5, 10, 100 µmol/L) for 48 h and the expression levels of ER-α mRNA detected by RT-PCR.

RESULTS
The ER-α mRNA expression levels of the low, middle and high dose groups of SI (0.207 ± 0.014, 0.316 ± 0.073 and 0.402 ± 0.170 respectively) were higher than those of the model group (0.671 ± 0.170) (all P < 0.01). The expression levels of ER-α protein for the low, middle and high dose groups of SI (7.35 ± 4.90, 13.90 ± 5.12 and 23.79 ± 10.31 respectively) were higher than those of the model group (2.74 ± 0.09) (all P < 0.01). The expression levels of ER-α mRNA in granulosa cells treated with 1, 5, 10 µmol/L genistein for 48 h were 0.927 ± 0.232, 1.067 ± 0.154, 1.118 ± 0.126 respectively (all P < 0.01). They were higher than those of the control group (0.671 ± 0.170). But the expression levels of 100 µmol/L genistein group were lower than those of the control group (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION
Soy isoflavones can up-regulate the expressions of ER-α mRNA and protein in senile rat ovaries. As a major active component of soy isoflavones, genistein can regulate the expressions ER-α mRNA in granulosa cells of rat ovaries. Such an effect is concentration-dependent. And 1-10 µmol/L genistein may up-regulate the expression of ER-α mRNA.


The gall wasp, Ophelimus eucalypti (Gahan), is a pest of New Zealand Eucalyptus botryoides Sm. and Eucalyptus saligna Sm (section Transversaria). The host range also includes E. grandis Maiden and E. deanei Maiden. There were no differences between female wasp-induced galls arising from E. botryoides or E. saligna. Gall mass peaks when larvae are only one third of their maximum mass. Larvae grow to fill the entire gall cavity prior to gall senescence. Maximum adult emergence from galls occurs in August and December. Adults live for about 10 days and females produce up to 350 eggs. Three species of eulophid parasitoids attack O. eucalypti in New


Software reliability growth models (SRGMs) are very important for estimating and predicting software reliability. However, because the assumptions of traditional parametric SRGMs (PSRMs) are usually not consistent with the real conditions, the prediction accuracy of PSRMs are hence not very satisfying in most cases. In contrast to PSRMs, the non-parametric SRGMs (NPSRMs) which use machine learning (ML) techniques, such as artificial neural networks (ANN), support vector machine (SVM) and genetic programming (GP), for reliability modeling can provide better prediction results across various projects. Gene Expression Programming (GEP) which is a new evolutionary algorithm based on Genetic algorithm (GA) and GP, has been acknowledged as a powerful ML and widely used in the field of data mining. Thus, we apply GEP into non-parametric software reliability modeling in this paper due to its unique and pretty characters, such as genetic encoding method, translation process of chromosomes. This new GEP-based modeling approach considers some important characters of reliability modeling in several main components of GEP, i.e. function set, terminal criteria, fitness function, and then obtains the final NPSRM (GEP-NPSRM) by training on failure data. Finally, on several real failure data-sets based on time or coverage, four case studies are proposed by respectively comparing GEP-NPSRM with several representative PSRMs, NPSRMs based on ANN, SVM and GP in the form of fitting and prediction power which show that compared with the comparison models, the GEP-NPSRM provides a significantly better power of reliability fitting and prediction. In other words, the GEP is promising and effective for reliability modeling. So far as we know, it is the first time that GEP is applied into constructing NPSRM.