Certain membrane lipids are involved in intracellular signalling processes, among them phosphoinositides and diacylglycerol (DAG). They mediate a variety of functions, including the effects of nutrients and neurohormonal stimuli on insulin secretion from pancreatic β-cells. To ensure specificity of the signal, their concentrations are maintained under tight spatial and temporal control. Here, live-cell imaging techniques were employed to investigate spatio-temporal aspects of lipid signalling in the plasma membrane of insulin-secreting β-cells. The concentration of phosphatidylinositol 4-phosphate [PtdIns(4)P] increased after stimulation with glucose or Gq protein-coupled receptor agonists. The glucose effect was Ca2+-dependent, whereas the receptor response was mediated by isoforms of novel protein kinase C (PKC). The increases in PtdIns(4)P were paralleled by lowerings of the phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate [PtdIns(4,5)P2] concentration. This relationship was not caused by conversion of PtdIns(4,5)P2 to PtdIns(4)P but rather reflected independent regulation of the two lipids. Stimulation of β-cells with glucose or a high K+ concentration induced pronounced, repetitive increases in plasma-membrane DAG concentration, which were locally restricted and lasted only for a few seconds. This pattern was caused by exocytotic release of ATP, which feedback-activates purinergic P2Y1-receptors and stimulates local phospholipase C-mediated DAG generation. Despite their short durations the DAG spikes triggered local activation of PKC. Novel PKCs were recruited to the plasma membrane both after glucose and muscarinic receptor stimulation. While the glucose-induced translocation was synchronized with DAG spiking, muscarinic stimulation induced sustained elevation of the DAG concentration and stable membrane association of the kinase. Also conventional PKCs translocated to the membrane after glucose and receptor stimulation. The glucose-induced response was complex with sustained membrane association mirroring the cytoplasmic Ca2+ concentration, and superimposed brief recurring translocations caused by DAG. Interruption of the purinergic feedback loop underlying DAG spiking suppressed insulin secretion. Since the DAG spikes reflected exocytosis events, a single-cell secretion assay was established, which allowed continuous recording of secretion dynamics from many cells in parallel over extended periods of time. With this approach it was possible to demonstrate that insulin exerts negative feedback on its own release via a phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5-trisphosphate-dependent mechanism.


This paper describes the utility of using simulated, rather than real, student solutions to problems within a peer-assessment setting and whether this approach can be used as a means of improving performance in chemical calculations. The study involved a small cohort of students, of two levels, who carried out a simulated peer-assessment as a classroom activity and their improvement in performance and attitude towards the activity was measured. The results demonstrate that a simulated peer-assessment approach can be successfully used in lieu of standard peer-assessment and that student attitudes favour the simulated approach.


An appendix is available for this article which was not included in the print edition of the Journal. The appendix may be found at the rear of the full text, PDF version of the article.

A popular conceptual model asserts that shade tolerance is characterized by morphological and physiological traits that enhance the net rate of carbon capture in low light. We tested this model by quantitatively reviewing growth, leaf lifespan, CO2 exchange and morphological data from 76 studies on woody seedlings grown under conditions of low light. Data were placed into three tolerance categories (intolerant, intermediate, tolerant), two light categories (less than 4% and 4–12%) and two leaf phenology categories (broad-leaved evergreen and winter deciduous). For both evergreen and deciduous groups, intolerant species had traits conferring greater growth potential than tolerant species in both light categories. These traits included greater leaf mass ratio, leaf area ratio, specific leaf area and mass-based photosynthetic rates above light compensation. However, in 0–4% light, growth rates were similar for intolerant and tolerant species, because low light together with higher respiration rates for intolerant species limited the expression of their growth potential differences. Deciduous and evergreen intolerant species were similar in many respects. However, both intermediate and tolerant deciduous species had markedly lower leaf mass ratios and higher root mass ratios than intermediate and tolerant evergreen species. In addition, deciduous species and intolerant evergreens must cope with as much as sixfold higher leaf turnover rates than tolerant evergreen species. Thus, rather than maximizing growth rates in low light, tolerant evergreen species minimize biomass loss through long leaf lifespans and low respiration rates. Tolerant deciduous species also minimize biomass losses by minimizing whole-plant respiration rates but they accomplish low biomass turnover though low leaf mass ratio and not low leaf turnover rates. Furthermore, unlike most tropical evergreens, tolerant deciduous species can gain large fractions of their total growing season carbon during short periods when the overstory is leafless and then allocate this carbon to storage (as reflected by high root mass ratios) rather than new leaves. In conclusion, we found no support for the low-light-enhanced carbon capture model of shade tolerance as viewed strictly from the perspective of physiological growth capacity. This can be explained by the disadvantages to net growth and survival of maintaining a high growth potential at low light, because high growth potential results in greater rates of whole-plant respiration, tissue turnover, herbivory and mechanical damage and in decreased storage. Thus, shade tolerance can be characterized by traits that maximize survival and net growth, where net growth includes losses to all agents.


Video-sharing platforms like YouTube contain a significant amount of user-generated content. The
younger audiences of these platforms have shown to be more prone to harmful content than when they
are watching film or television. This has multiple reasons and one of them is, because user-generated
content is under-regulated. In order to better protect these younger audiences, the Dutch regulatory
organ, NICAM (the Dutch Institute for the Classification of Audiovisual Media), has created an age
recommendation system called YouRateIt. With this age recommendation system, uploaders and
audiences of user-generated content can fill in a questionnaire which will result in an age
recommendation for audiences. This system has been tested, but not with real content creators on
YouTube, the largest online platform which provides user-generated content. This research answered
the question who YouTube content creators would feel about an online content rating system to inform
audiences below seventeen years old about possible harmful content. Data has been gathered with ten
semi-structured in-depth interviews with Dutch YouTube content creators. The transcripts of these ten
interviews have been thematically coded which has resulted in three main themes: professionalization,
monetization and responsibility. The thematic analysis of the data has revealed that content creators
can't be defined as professional or amateur but that there are new ways of working, with new needed
skills adapted to be successful on YouTube as an a new industry. Almost all content creators their
content has been monetized and most content creators reckon with these financial advantages in their
creation process. All content creators mentioned that parents are responsible in the end, but wouldn't
mind participating in a system which would make it easier for parents and children to navigate online.
They are more positive about the helpfulness for parents than for the children themselves.
Nevertheless, they do want to be professional and transparent and thus they wouldn't mind
participating in an age recommendation system like YouRateIt if it doesn't cost too much effort.
However, they are still very critical about the financial influences, since they rely heavily on YouTube
and their advertisers for their income. Multiple participants indicated that they would show reluctance
when their revenues would be lower because of an age recommendation system.


Why we don't really want simplicity, and how we can learn to live with complexity.If only today's technology were simpler! It's the universal lament, but it's wrong. In this provocative and informative book, Don Norman writes that the complexity of our technology must mirror the complexity and richness of our lives. It's not complexity that's the problem, it's bad design. Bad design complicates things unnecessarily and confuses us. Good design can tame complexity.Norman gives us a crash course in the virtues of complexity. Designers have to produce things that tame complexity. But we too have to do our part: we have to take the time to learn the structure and practice the skills. This is how we mastered reading and writing, driving a car, and playing sports, and this is how we can master our complex tools. Complexity is good. Simplicity is misleading. The good life is complex, rich, and rewarding?but only if it is understandable, sensible, and meaningful.


I read with interest the article of Dr. Du et al. describing their personal technique of robotic assisted (RATS) right upper lobectomy to treat early lung cancer (1). The authors after an explanation of their technique conclude that RATS is a feasible and reliable surgical approach for non-small cell lung cancer. Hence, this is another paper which confirms that RATS is as good as the other available minimally invasive techniques to perform lung resection and lymphadenectomy to treat lung cancer. While seeing the images in the paper and other videos, I note with interest that one of the most attractive advantage of RATS is the flexibility of the robotic arms which allow the surgeon to move instruments freely inside the chest according to the intraoperative necessity, and without the imposed schemes of geometry (2,3). Robotic assisted thoracic surgery is a beautiful medical example to confirm the Hippocrates aphorisms that surgery is of all the arts the most noble.


As of June 1, 2015, the Tokyo Stock Exchange mandated a "corporate governance code" on firms that would list their stock on its exchange. In effective, the code required most listed firms to appoint outside directors to their boards. The code itself was the output of a study committee organized under the auspices of the Financial Service Agency and the Exchange. And it had as its formal impetus the 2014 amendments to the Corporate Code that increased pressure on firms to appoint outside directors. The mandates trace their origins to debates within other countries over corporate governance, and to the on-going political disputes over reviving Japanese economic growth. In this article, we explore four questions relating to the mandate: (a) what do the outside director mandates actually require, (b) who actually decides the substance of the mandate, (c) what process resulted in the mandate, and (4) what relation does the mandate bear to economic theory and empirical research? By standard economic theory, market pressure will push shareholders to select those directors (whether insiders or outsiders) who most effectively increase stockholder wealth. To mandate the appointment of anyone else (again, whether insiders or outsiders) will necessarily cause stockholder welfare to fall. The proponents of the new mandate argued aggressively that that it would stimulate the Japanese economy. We suspect they will soon adopt other measures that require outside directors even more rigidly. Nothing in economic theory or research, however, provides any support for their claims.


A general model that explains the mechanisms of the cleaning process of technological liquids and gases, and that estimates and controls the results of these processes, has not yet been found. It is possible to simulate the magnetic filtration of a technological medium by using electrical circuit theory. Characteristics of filtration processes under different regimes can be easily obtained by an appropriate change of nonlinearity parameters of the circuit. Furthermore, the presented model seems to be promising for non-magnetic filtration and other processes similar to filtration, such as separation, absorption, flotation and classification.


Converging evidence supports the hypothesis that the prefrontal cortex is critical for executive control. One prefrontal subregion, the anterior cingulate cortex has previously been shown to be active in situations involving high conflict, presentation of salient, distracting stimuli, and error processing, i.e. situations that occur when learning new response contingencies, when previously learned response strategies fail, or when a shift in attention or responding is required. These situations all involve goal-oriented monitoring of performance in order to effectively adjust cognitive processes. Several neuropsychological disorders, for instance schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and obsessive compulsive disorder, are correlated with morphological changes in the anterior cingulate cortex. Individuals with these disorders show impairments on tasks that require goal-oriented monitoring. The current studies used multiple behavioral paradigms to assess the effects of anterior cingulate cortex excitotoxic lesions in rats on executive control. Animals with anterior cingulate cortex lesions showed greater decline in cognitive capacity as tasks progressed, longer response latencies to conflicting stimuli, impaired reversal learning, impaired error processing, and impaired performance in the presence of previously relevant distractors. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the anterior cingulate cortex is involved in executive control, specifically monitoring impairments in performance that signal the need to adjust cognitive control.


This thesis investigated social learning mechanisms and strategies relating to the characteristics of a model (the individual transmitting the information) and the prior experience of an observer (the individual acquiring the social information) in children and chimpanzees. Experimental designs that mirrored naturalistic settings enabled an investigation of how social learning mechanisms and strategies were affected by: (1) the characteristics of a model, (2) the prior experience of an observer, (3) continued model demonstrations and (4) repeated observer interactions with the task. If models provided viable novel solutions then their characteristics seemed ineffectual upon children's copying of these solutions. Yet the characteristics of the model did influence children's copying of irrelevant actions; children who observed an adult reproduced more causally irrelevant actions than those who observed a child. Furthermore, when a known peer with higher, rather than lower, past-proficiency matched a child's original solution the child was more likely to continue using this solution. Chimpanzees were biased towards touching the tool seeded by a known conspecific with higher, rather than lower, past proficiency but this bias did not affect which tool a chimpanzee successfully used. Both species showed an ability to learn multiple demonstrated methods of success within their corresponding tasks and to explore beyond demonstrated methods. It is argued that both species show more task-behavioural flexibility than previously thought and the implications for this in terms of cultural evolution are discussed.


Rock creep is a hot topic and key point in engineering geology. Based on renormalization group theory, the rock creep instability of micro-mechanism can be described as follow: with the expanding and interaction of micro-cracks and the main fault forms, which leads to failure. Comparing with the similarity of rock creep and rock compression process, and combining results of rock creep process, it is shown that there a distinct pertinence between different stages of rock creep. The relationship characteristics of different evolutionary stages can be used to provide scientific foundation for rock creep.


Various types of spatiotemporal behavior are described for two-dimensional networks of excitatory and inhibitory neurons with time delayed interactions. It is described how the network behaves as several structural parameters are varied, such as the number of neurons, the connectivity, and the values of synaptic weights. A transition from spatially uniform oscillations to spatiotemporal chaos via intermittentlike behavior is observed. The properties of spatiotemporally chaotic solutions are investigated by evaluating the largest positive Lyapunov exponent and the loss of correlation with distance. Finally, properties of information transport are evaluated during uniform oscillations and spatiotemporal chaos. It is shown that the diffusion coefficient increases significantly in the spatiotemporal phase similar to the increase of transport coefficients at the onset of fluid turbulence. It is proposed that such a property should be seen in other media, such as chemical turbulence or networks of oscillators. The possibility of measuring information transport from appropriate experiments is also discussed.


The integration of immigrants can be also defined as the integration with immigrants focusing on the relationships between the partners, making a gap from the perspective of assimilation as a homologation process. The aim is to resonate on the arising problems related to multiple valence concepts. The integration process viewed as a procedure for reciprocal knowledge and as sharing human values, involves that immigrant and native, could be considered as the autonomous subjects able to reflexibility constructing social ties in free and responsible fashion. In this case a social individual is a subject rather than a social actor. The ideal homo civicus refers to an equilibrium between the subject and society in which the social ties represent the associating elements. The homo movens considered inside an insular perspective, allowed to resonate on the integration concept differently. Integration constitutes a development process assuming peculiar character depending on social, cultural, political and economical dimensions involving deeper elaboration and not a merely imitation of models deriving from different social contexts. Homo insularis represents, together to homo movens or itinerans, the social individual able to get over the limits. Oriented politics could be effective in respect to the integration processes with, and not of, immigrants, thus referring to an integrated society.


This thesis examines postcards of Pacific peoples that were produced in Sydney by the photographic firm Kerry & Co. during the first decade of the twentieth century. Like other visual images and technologies of that period, postcards have played an important role in shaping contemporary understandings of indigenous peoples, and, despite created for commercial purposes, they also relate to the production of anthropological knowledge at the turn of the century. This study is divided into three parts. The first part is devoted to the socio-cultural and historical contexts in which the Kerry & Co. postcards are embedded. Particular attention will be given to the company"s postcard sample book around which the discussion of the Kerry postcards body will revolve. The second part, focusing on the three Aboriginal series, is characterised by a microhistorical approach to a photographic encounter on Wailwan land, and by the consideration of "contact zones" for the understanding of the social dynamics in front of Kerry"s camera. The focus of both chapters is on the excavation of the origins and identities of the nameless Aboriginal "postcard people", and on the identification of their agency during the shared moment of the postcard imagery"s production. The third part of the thesis focuses on the Samoan series which, for the "recycled" nature of its twelve motifs, assumes an even more "exotic" role within Kerry"s body of indigenous people. The headdress tuiga becomes a cultural marker for Samoa in Kerry"s stereotyping apparatus, and the whole series can be considered as born as a metaphor – their motifs being stripped of personal meanings already before entering Kerry"s factory. I argue that, focusing on postcards as material objects in their own right, discloses many aspects of the dynamic relationships between societies, and reveals how active they are in creating meanings about cultures.


Vitamin D Deficiency Versus skin cancer With so much recent evidence for adverse effects of low vitamin D levels, we blithely encourage our patients to get out into the sun as much as possible, for the good of their health. Unlike our colleagues in Australia and the southern USA, we in northern Europe don't worry too much about the other side of the coin, skin cancer risk. But should we? It's rare in childhood, but malignant melanoma in young adults is becoming more prevalent, and early ultra-violet (UV) light exposure can increase risk. Researchers looked at 32 Polish children aged 8 to 10 years who enjoyed a 12-day July beach holiday on the Baltic Sea (Narbutt J et al. Br J Dermatol 2018. doi: 10.1111/bjd.16668). Before and after, they measured serum 25-hydroxy-vitamin D3 levels, as well as urinary cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPD), specifically thymine dimer. These substances are produced when ultraviolet radiation damages DNA, and are said to correlate with skin cancer risk. They found, as expected, a significant increase in 25-OH-VitD3 levels (from mean 65 to 79 nmol/L; p<0.001). More worryingly, they also found a 10-fold, highly significant increase in urinary CPD excretion (p<0.001). Those with fairer skin types (types I and II) showed greater increases. Similar studies on adults in much sunnier locations such as Tenerife, who received far more UV radiation, have shown comparable CPD increases, suggesting that in children, even in northern latitudes, the cancer risk is not trivial. In this study, children applied their own sun-screen lotion and this was probably inadequate. The amount of UV exposure needed to enhance vitamin D levels adequately is a small fraction of what these children received, and the authors claim that more rigorous photo-protection wherever children are exposed to sun will reduce cancer risk while maintaining vitamin D levels.


Impaired gastric accommodation is an important cause of functional dyspepsia. Currently available tests that evaluate gastric accommodation provide relevant physiological information, but they pose technical difficulties and their clinical impact remains controversial. Gastric barostat remains the gold standard, but it is an invasive procedure. In recent years, emerging modalities including single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), three‐dimensional ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging have been developed to measure gastric volumes and hold promise as alternative methods of assessing gastric accommodation non‐invasively. Studies are underway to validate these techniques with recent data proving the performance characteristics of SPECT. The non‐invasive nutrient drink test measures satiety scores as a surrogate marker of gastric accommodation and remains controversial. More recently, intragastric monitoring has been proposed as yet another non‐invasive modality to assess gastric accommodation. Each of these different modalities brings its associated advantages and disadvantages, as is discussed in this review. Ongoing studies to validate these new techniques are in progress and are likely to lead to further progress in neurogastroenterology.


Relevance. Plant growth biostimulants based on natural raw materials are ecologically safe and harmless to humans. Stevia (Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni) contains in its leaves sweet diterpene steviol glycosides, which are similar in structure and properties to gibberellins, as well as a number of other valuable biologically active compounds. Water extracts from stevia leaves are capable to accelerate growth, to increase the yield and quality of plants. However, further study and development of application technologies of the extracts for specific crops and different growing conditions are required. The purpouse of this work is to investigate the effect of an aqueous extract from stevia leaves on the yield and quality of lettuce and small radish under photoculture conditions. Materials and methods. The objects of the study were lettuce var. Typhoon and small radish var. Riesenbutter. The plants were grown in photoculture at the biopolygon of the FSBSI Agrophysical Research Institute (St. Petersburg) at an illumination of 10–20 klx, a temperature of 22–26°С (day) and 18–20°С (night). Watering was carried out with water, top-dressing was carried out with Knop's nutrient solution three times a week. Peat with mineral additives was used as a substrate. The original extract was prepared by extraction from stevia dry leaves powder with hot water (80°С) in a ratio of 1 g of leaves: 100 ml of water. Foliar treatment of plants was carried out twice at dilution of the original extract from stevia leaves 1:10, 1:50, and 1:100 (extract : water) at the rate of 0.20-0.25 ml / lettuce plant and 0.09-0.1 ml / radish plant; control plants were treated with water. The data were processed according to standard procedures using the Excel 2016 software. Results. Foliar treatment with an extract from stevia leaves did not significantly affect the size and weight of radish root crops, but increased the yield due to a decrease in the number of bolting plants. A significant decrease of bolting was observed in all treatment options (by 34-51%). When using a dilution of 1: 100, the yield of marketable root crops increased by 20% and the yield per sq. m. – by 25%. Foliar treatment with stevia extracts increased the mass of lettuce plants, as well as their biological value. The content of photosynthetic pigments, sugars, and vitamin C significantly increased, and a tendency towards a decrease in the content of nitrates was observed. According to data, we recommend for foliar treatment are dilutions of the original extract 1:50 and 1: 100. The effect of using of an extract from stevia leaves is similar in action to some biostimulants from plants with hormone-like properties, which determines the possibility of using it as a safe plant growth stimulant.


Abstract To solve the problem that the H / α -Wishart unsupervised classification algorithm can generate only inflexible clusters due to arbitrarily fixed zone boundaries in the clustering processing, a refined fuzzy logic based classification scheme called the H / α -Wishart fuzzy clustering algorithm is proposed in this paper. A fuzzy membership function was developed for the degree of pixels belonging to each class instead of an arbitrary boundary. To devise a unified fuzzy function, a normalized Wishart distance is proposed during the clustering step in the new algorithm. Then the degree of membership is computed to implement fuzzy clustering. After an iterative procedure, the algorithm yields a classification result. The new classification scheme is applied to two L-band polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) images and an X-band high-resolution PolSAR image of a field in LingShui, Hainan Province, China. Experimental results show that the classification precision of the refined algorithm is greater than that of the H / α -Wishart algorithm and that the refined algorithm performs well in differentiating shadows and water areas.


One of the aspects of the theory of language acquisition and the theory of linguistic personality is the problem of teaching an adult personality a foreign language. In the development of this aspect, the research data on the biand multilingualism are taken into account. The article proposes a technique for describing the process of acquisition of a foreign language based on a communicative-cognitive model and the technology for foreign language teaching in the context of its functioning. The communicative-cognitive activity of a secondary linguistic personality is aimed at linguistic communication. A verbal conversation that occurs in the process of linguistic communication carries the activity, which is performed by speaking personalities – a subject of the communicative-cognitive activity and a subject of the teaching activity. This type of activity or speech activity of a speaking personality is considered in the context of a dialogue. The authors propose the typology of dialogues and the principles of modeling a linguistic communication for educational purposes. The communicative-cognitive activity of a secondary linguistic personality needs constant research and description as the study of this aspect helps to optimize and improve the process of foreign language acquisition.


The greater use of magnetic resonance imaging (MR) in brachytherapy, for both image based planning and image guided procedures, presents a number of challenges for the physicist involved. MR is widely acknowledged as the imaging modality of choice to appreciate a patient's pelvic anatomy and is thus used more often for brachytherapy of gynecologic and prostate cancers. Incorporating MR in brachytherapy treatments requires changes throughout the clinical workflow from implantation through target definition, applicator digitization and post-implant evaluation. These presentations will review the some of the concerns encountered in image based brachytherapy environment, highlight the challenges to incorporating more information from MR, and discuss some of the technical developments underway to facilitate the further use of MR in brachytherapy.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. To review the rationale for incorporating MR in image based brachytherapy for treatment of gynecologic and prostate cancers. 2. To review the technical challenges encountered when using brachytherapy devices in an MR environment. 3. To discuss some developments to facilitate MR based planning and guidance. J. Cunha, Phillips Healthcare.


A star is an arborescence in which the root dominates all the other vertices. A galaxy is a vertex-disjoint union of stars. The directed star arboricity of a digraph D, denoted by dst(D), is the minimum number of galaxies needed to cover A(D). In this paper, we show that dst(D) ≤ Δ(D) + 1 and that if D is acyclic then dst(D) ≤ Δ(D). These results are proved by considering the existence of spanning galaxies in digraphs. Thus, we study the problem of deciding whether a digraph D has a spanning galaxy or not. We show that it is NP-complete (even when restricted to acyclic digraphs) but that it becomes polynomialtime solvable when restricted to strongly connected digraphs.


A Multi-agent System (MAS) is comprised of multiple interacting intelligent agents. Agents in the MAS could all be of same type (homogeneous) or different (heterogeneous). MAS are used to solve problems which are either difficult for an individual agent to solve or when the problem is inherently comprised of multiple actors interacting together. However, the nature of MAS design coordination among agents in MAS is always a core issue. Coordination and cooperation allows the agents to manage their inter dependencies and the type and nature of interactions. Coordination and cooperation differ in degree of inter-agent knowledge and beliefs. Agent coordination is usually achieved in the backdrop of a communication system between agents. This paper is a based on the review of various work on selection of multi-agent for various task domain.


In this exploratory qualitative study, the open-ended responses of 71 Turkish–Muslim university students (43 women, 28 men) regarding their religious socialization experiences were coded by NVivo 8. Results indicate that both parents play a major role in their offspring's religious socialization. However, participants perceive their same-sex parents in particular as being more influential. Parents' methods for transmitting religious values and practices include having religious talks with their children, answering their questions about Islam, sending them to mosques, reinforcing and/or punishing their behaviours. Peers, siblings, and cousins are other important religious socialization agents whom the participants generally perceive as partners in religious activities. Some religious peer groups, same-sex siblings and cousins play a significant role in the participants' religious learning. In Turkish–Muslim families, the oldest siblings exert a major influence on the religious socialization of their younger brothers and sisters as do grandparents, aunts and uncles.


. For a medium or large-sized gear drive, in order to achieve the optimum weight reduction effect, an approach of weight reduction design is proposed that multi-objective optimization of gear parameters is carried out firstly, and then structural optimization is adopted to design the gear former. The rational design parameters of a gear drive are determined by the multi-objective optimization with minimizing the sum of gear volumes and the equivalent moment of inertia of input shaft (EMI) synchronously. Conceptual design of the former is given by structural topology optimization of the gear, and the reasonability of topology optimization can be demonstrated by static and dynamic analysis. The results indicate that for a double-reduction gearbox of 500KW co-rotating twin screw pulping extruder, the EMI of the gear drive reduces by 20.88% through the multi-objective optimization of gear parameters, and the moment of inertia of a bull gear reduces by 38.86% through structural topology optimization.


We observe that human poses exhibit strong group-wise structural correlation and spatial coupling between keypoints due to the biological constraints of different body parts. This group-wise structural correlation can be explored to improve the accuracy and robustness of human pose estimation. In this work, we develop a self-constrained prediction-verification network to characterize and learn the structural correlation between keypoints during training. During the inference stage, the feedback information from the verification network allows us to perform further optimization of pose prediction, which significantly improves the performance of human pose estimation. Specifically, we partition the keypoints into groups according to the biological structure of human body. Within each group, the keypoints are further partitioned into two subsets, high-confidence base keypoints and low-confidence terminal keypoints. We develop a self-constrained prediction-verification network to perform forward and backward predictions between these keypoint subsets. One fundamental challenge in pose estimation, as well as in generic prediction tasks, is that there is no mechanism for us to verify if the obtained pose estimation or prediction results are accurate or not, since the ground truth is not available. Once successfully learned, the verification network serves as an accuracy verification module for the forward pose prediction. During the inference stage, it can be used to guide the local optimization of the pose estimation results of low-confidence keypoints with the self-constrained loss on high-confidence keypoints as the objective function. Our extensive experimental results on benchmark MS COCO and CrowdPose datasets demonstrate that the proposed method can significantly improve the pose estimation results.


What was childhood like in ancient Greece? What activities and games did Greek children embrace? How were they schooled and what religious and ceremonial rites of passage were key to their development? These fascinating questions and many more are answered in this groundbreaking book-the first English-language study to feature and discuss imagery and artifacts relating to childhood in ancient Greece.Coming of Age in Ancient Greece shows that the Greeks were the first culture to represent children and their activities naturalistically in their art. Here we learn about depictions of children in myth as well as life, from infancy to adolescence. This beautifully illustrated book features such archaeological artifacts as toys and gaming pieces alongside images of them in use by children on ancient vases, coins, terracotta figurines, bronze and stone sculpture, and marble grave monuments. Essays by eminent scholars in the fields of Greek social history, literature, archaeology, anthropology, and art history discuss a wide range of topics, including the burgeoning role of childhood studies in interdisciplinary studies; the status of children in Greek culture; the evolution of attitudes toward children from the Bronze Age to the Hellenistic period as documented by literature and art; the relationships of fathers and sons and mothers and daughters; and the roles of cult practice and death in a child's existence.This delightful book illuminates what is most universal and specific about childhood in ancient Greece and examines childhood's effects on Greek life and culture, the foundation on which Western civilization has been based.


This study analyze that conduct a study on benefit from urban generation based on public perspective considering social utility. The benefits of urban regeneration were not only economic and financial effects, but also positive for non-financial and unfeasible value, like an environment, quality of life, etc. Although previous major researches focused on the former, it is compulsory to study about the later values considering current urban regeneration projects with regard to public policy. Government-driven projects"s goal should be more focused on social and promote public interest. The methodology employed in the study were cost-benefit analysis to widely used to evaluate potential public projects. It considered macro and broadly effects of personal benefit by supposing inner-effect of the region. Also it tried to compare the benefits of urban regeneration with another urban development method, new town development. As a result, urban regeneration project would bear social benefits and affect residents positively, which is also desirable as a public policy measure.


The goal of the current study was to identify risk factors that predict sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization across young women's relationship histories, within a socioeconomically diverse sample recruited from a university, a 2-year college, and community organizations serving low-income young women. We interviewed 148 young women aged 18 to 24 years about partner victimization (physical IPV, coercive control, and sexual IPV) within each of their relationships (up to four relationships, beginning with their first; 388 in total). We used the life history calendar to structure the interviews and obtain detailed information about each relationship, including age difference between participants and their partners, and relationship length. We used multilevel modeling to examine primary caregiver highest grade completed (an indicator of socioeconomic status [SES]), participant age, age difference, relationship length, setting, and physical IPV/coercive control as predictors of sexual IPV during their first relationship and across Relationships 1 to 4. Sexual IPV during participants' first relationship was inversely associated with SES and age, and positively associated with physical IPV/coercive control; 2-year college and community participants reported lower rates of sexual IPV during the first relationship, compared with university participants. The trajectory of sexual IPV across Relationships 1 to 4 declined among university participants and increased among 2-year college participants; age difference and physical IPV/coercive control positively covaried with sexual IPV across Relationships 1 to 4. Low SES, young age, large age difference, and the presence of physical IPV and coercive control may be risk factors for sexual IPV victimization within adolescent relationships. Sexual violence prevention and intervention approaches should incorporate these risk factors, and be designed to reach an increasingly socioeconomically diverse population across a variety of settings, to be effective.


Impaired resting metabolism in peripheral muscles potentially contributes to exercise intolerance in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This study investigated the cytosolic energy metabolism of the quadriceps, from glycogen degradation to lactate accumulation, in exercising patients with COPD, in comparison to healthy controls. We measured, in 12 patients with COPD and 10 control subjects, resting and post-cycling exercise quadriceps levels of 1) energy substrates and end products of glycolysis (glycogen, glucose, pyruvate, and lactate) and intermediate markers of glycolysis (glucose-6-phosphate, glucose-1-phosphate, fructose-6-phosphate) and 2) the activity of key enzymes involved in the regulation of glycolysis (phosphofructokinase, lactate dehydrogenase). Exercise intensity (P < 0.01), duration (P = 0.049), and total work (P < 0.01) were reduced in patients with COPD. The variations in energy substrates and end products of glycolysis after cycling exercise were of similar magnitude in patients with COPD and controls. Glucose-6-phosphate (P = 0.036) and fructose-6-phosphate (P = 0.042) were significantly elevated in patients with COPD after exercise. Phosphofructokinase (P < 0.01) and lactate dehydrogenase (P = 0.02) activities were greater in COPD. Muscle glycogen utilization (P = 0.022) and lactate accumulation (P = 0.025) per unit of work were greater in COPD. We conclude that cycling exercise induced changes in quadriceps metabolism in patients with COPD that were of similar magnitude to those of healthy controls. These intramuscular events required a much lower exercise work load and time to occur in COPD. Our data suggest a greater reliance on glycolysis during exercise in COPD, which may contribute to exercise intolerance in COPD.


Presents the study of a shape representation space by means of its identification to the invariants space. This approach has an algebraic meaning translated by the completion criterion for the set of invariants introduced by Crimmins (1982). The author introduces a new property for Fourier descriptors, the stability which expresses the fact that a low level divergence in the invariants does not induce a noticeable distortion of the shape. This stability gives a topologic meaning to the identification of the space shape with the space of invariants. A complete and stable set of Fourier descriptors with regard to the starting point and the direct group of similarities in the case of the planar closed contours is constructed.<<ETX>>


The combustion of biomass is considered renewable since it is carbon neutral, but
the combustion still releases nitrogen oxides (NOx). Although not a greenhouse gas,
the emission of NOx leads to acidification, eutrophication and smog. Therefore, it
is interesting to evaluate techniques to remove NOx from biomass combustion. The
technique looked into in this project is urea selective non-catalytic reduction(SNCR),
where a spray consisting of urea and water is injected into the flue gas.
The aim of this project is to create a model for of the urea-SNCR process that can
be used for design and optimization of the technique. Since the process is dependent
on many complex phenomena such as turbulence, multiphase flow, chemical kinetics
and mixing, a variety of models are evaluated with varying complexity. Three
models are evaluated, both reactor models and computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
models. The evaluated models are: reactor models - continuous stirred-tank reactor
and continuous plug flow reactor, and turbulence models - k- and detached eddy
simulation (DES). In order to determine the accuracy of the models, a comparison
is made with measurement data from a biomass boiler located in Rorvik, Sweden.
From the measurement data two operating temperatures are chosen, one over the
optimal NOx reduction temperature and one below.
The results show that it is important to account for heat losses, and that there is a
large difference between DES and k- for the higher temperature. This discrepancy
is caused by the high sensitivity of the NOx reduction reaction to the reaction
temperature. There are arguments for and against the use of DES instead of k-,
but more measurement data are needed in order to arrive at a definite conclusion.


Background: Denture stomatitis is a very common oral mucosal lesion, affecting approximately 50% of denture wearers in some populations. More recently there is an increased interest to use natural antimicrobial compounds, like plant extracts of medicinal plants. Objectives: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the efficacy of green tea extract compared with nystatin drop in the treatment of denture stomatitis. Patients and Methods: This was a clinical trial study with 30 patients in two parallel groups, 15 patients received nystatin drop and the other ones green tea extract. The patients in two weeks were recommended to use mouthwash 4 times a day each time 15 - 20 drops for 2 - 3 minutes and after that they should avoid eating and drinking for 30 minutes; patients in the two groups were suggested to use the drug at a specific time. Amount of inflammation and erythema were recorded in each session and measured with a graded blade and recorded according to a 6-point scale. At each visit, mycological samples were taken from the palatal mucosa for culture. Results: Age and sex differences between the groups were not significant. The erythema surface of the palatal was significantly reduced in the both groups at follow-up visits compared with the pretreatment condition. No significant difference was seen between the two groups at the same visits in erythema surface and colony counts of the palatal mucosa (P > 0.05). Conclusions: This study indicated that green tea extract can be effective in reducing the number of Candida colonies and erythematic area comparable to nystatin drop in the management of denture stomatitis.


Family-school-community partnerships are critically important for the academic success of all students. Unfortunately, in the face of specific barriers, Mexican immigrants struggle to engage in partnership efforts. In the hopes of promoting the engagement of Mexican immigrant families in partnerships, this article presents the findings of a transnational ethnography, exploring family-school-community partnership experiences of Mexican nationalists in Veracruz and Mexican immigrants in North Carolina. A portrait of partnerships in Mexico is contrasted with a portrait of partnerships in the United States, highlighting similarities and differences in role, structure, and function. School counselors are offered strategies for utilizing the knowledge of partnerships in Mexico to promote and support the engagement of Mexican immigrants in partnerships in the United States.


Meningococcal conjugate vaccines have several advantages over polysaccharide vaccines, including the ability to induce greater antibody persistence, avidity, immunologic memory, and herd immunity. Since 1999, meningococcal conjugate vaccine programs have been established across the globe. Many of these vaccination programs have resulted in significant decline in meningococcal disease in several countries. Recent introduction of serogroup A conjugate vaccine in Africa offers the potential to eliminate meningococcal disease as a public health problem in Africa. However, the duration of immune response and the development of widespread herd immunity in the population remain important questions for meningococcal vaccine programs. Because of the unique epidemiology of meningococcal disease around the world, the optimal vaccination strategy for long-term disease prevention will vary by country.


By using finite difference software FLAC3D, the displacement field and stress field of the long-short-pile composite foundation were studied, as well as the distribution of axial force, neutral position and penetration amount. The effects of the main parameters of long-short-pile composite foundation on its working properties, such as the modulus and thickness of the cushion, the length and quantity of the long pile, are investigated in detail. The results show that the modulus and thickness of cushion have less effect on the foundation settlement, while they can affect the pile-soil stress ratio significantly. Moreover, increasing the number of piles can control the foundation settlement effectively. The stresses in upper soil layer can be transferred to lower soil layer effectively, with the increasing of the number of long piles. Then the foundation settlement can be reduced correspondingly. While the variation of the number of piles has less effect on the stress field when the number of piles reaches a certain extend, and the reduction of the foundation settlement tends to slow down. Further, the foundation settlement decreases with the increasing of long-pile length. Finally, based on the foundation settlement control, the recommended values of parameters are given.


Is extreme value theory a suitable approach for modeling the behavior of speeding data? In the following thesis I will reply to this question by introducing the basic concepts of extreme value theory. For this purpose, I am going to analyze a set of speeding values recorded by the Berlin police from 2009 to 2011. First, I will approach this question by using basic statistic indicators. Afterwards, I am going to enlarge the understanding of the underlying distribution by using a quantile plot approach. Finally, I will calculate the extreme value index by using Hill's estimator and moment estimators as well as the endpoint. I am going to show that the resulting endpoint depends on the chosen estimator for the extreme value index. For several speed limits, the realized maximum will be close to the estimated endpoint, whereas for other speed classes an even more excessive speeding behavior should be expected.


Introduction:
Whilst most of the attention has been devoted to the left ventricle
in cardiovascular disease, the right ventricle has been somewhat neglected. In the last decades, there has been a renewal of
interest in the right ventricle, in part driven by advances in
cardiovascular imaging.
Methods:
Cardiovascular magnetic resonance is arguably the best imaging modality for the study of the right ventricle.
In this research thesis, cardiovascular magnetic resonance
was used as the primary research tool to assess the right ventricle
in different conditions and settings.
Results:
This thesis encompasses five studies that have been published as
peer - reviewed articles. The results of these studies were the following: 1)Right ventricular dilatation and dysfunction was
found in a group of patients with Marfan syndrome, further supporting the existence of a Marfan - related cardiomyopathy; 2)
In thalassaemia major, right ventricular volumes and ejection fraction differed from healthy controls, and new reference ranges based on patients without iron overload were derived;
3) Myocardial iron loading in thalassaemia major was associated with progressive right ventricular dysfunction; 4) Right ventricular
dysfunction due to myocardial siderosis was reversible with effective iron chelation therapy, and; 5) In advanced heart failure,
right ventricular function was a predictor of response and
outcomes in patients undergoing cardiac resynchronization therapy.
Conclusion:
The right ventricle is an essential component of the circulatory system, and should be more widely evaluated in patients
with cardiopulmonary disease.


In this review, we discuss the persistence and the related first-passage properties in extended many-body nonequilibrium systems. Starting with simple systems with one or few degrees of freedom, such as random walk and random acceleration problems, we progressively discuss the persistence properties in systems with many degrees of freedom. These systems include spin models undergoing phase-ordering dynamics, diffusion equation, fluctuating interfaces, etc. Persistence properties are nontrivial in these systems as the effective underlying stochastic process is non-Markovian. Several exact and approximate methods have been developed to compute the persistence of such non-Markov processes over the last two decades, as reviewed in this article. We also discuss various generalizations of the local site persistence probability. Persistence in systems with quenched disorder is discussed briefly. Although the main emphasis of this review is on the theoretical developments on persistence, we briefly touch upon various experimental systems as well.


Abstract The aim of this paper is to compare the demographic potential of given Italian and Polish regions. The analysis shows that the demographic situation in Poland, unlike in Italy, is not directly related to the level of development of some regions and their geographical location. In Italy, the unfavorable demographic situation is typical of most of the less-developed southern regions, whereas in Poland it occurs in voivodships with different economic potential, situated in different parts of the country. This is probably the result of the current polycentric development of Poland, characteristic of a centralized economy, and the polar development in Italy. Certain demographic similarities, but of different levels, related to the dynamics of the population, the level of fertility, and net migration are observable in the macro-regions of Mezzogiorno and Eastern Poland.


with adverse perinatal outcome when present at delivery. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence, persistence and significance of placental shelves detected in the early second trimester. Methods: In 152 consecutive anomaly scans performed between 13 and 16 weeks of gestation, special attention was directed to placental structure and the presence of a placental shelf. When present, a midgestation scan was performed to verify if the finding persisted. If so, a third-trimester scan was performed. Delivery charts were reviewed for all cases initially diagnosed with the placental shelf, recording any placenta related complications. Results: In 17 of 152 (11.1%) early second-trimester scans a placental shelf was detected. In 3 of these 17 cases the shelf persisted to the 20–22 week scan. In the 2 cases that presented for the thirdtrimester scan the shelf was no longer present. In all 17 cases the perinatal outcome was good. Conclusions: In our study group early second-trimester placental shelves rarely persisted to mid-gestation and never to the third trimester. There were no placenta related perinatal problems. Early second-trimester placental shelf is a common, benign and transient sonographic finding.


Abstract. An increase in extreme precipitation is projected for many areas
worldwide in the coming decades. To assess the impact of increased
precipitation intensity on water security, we applied a regional-scale
hydrological and soil erosion model, forced with regional climate model
projections. We specifically considered the impact of climate change on the
distribution of water between soil (green water) and surface water (blue
water) compartments. We show that an increase in precipitation intensity
leads to a redistribution of water within the catchment, where water storage
in soil decreases and reservoir inflow increases. This affects plant water
stress and the potential of rainfed versus irrigated agriculture, and
increases dependency on reservoir storage, which is potentially threatened by
increased soil erosion. This study demonstrates the crucial importance of
accounting for the fact that increased precipitation intensity leads to water
redistribution between green and blue water, increased soil erosion, and
reduced water security. Ultimately, this has implications for design of
climate change adaptation measures, which should aim to increase the water
holding capacity of the soil (green water) and to maintain the storage
capacity of reservoirs (blue water), benefiting rainfed and irrigated
agriculture.


When the Wisconsin Supreme Court interprets state statutes, it follows a methodology first set in State ex rel. Kalal v. Dane County Circuit Court (2004). This method focuses primarily on the text of the statute, and circumscribes reference to legislative history and other secondary sources.Yet when the Wisconsin Supreme Court interprets the state constitution, it follows a different methodology, first set in Buse v. Smith (1976). This method looks at text, legislative and popular history, and contemporaneous legislative enactments. For amendments to the state constitution, legislative and popular history covers two sessions of the Legislature and the statewide discussion of the amendment in advance of its ratification by the people at the polls.In the first half of this paper, I outline the Court's interpretation of the state constitution through history, both from 1848 to 1976 and 1976 to present. In the second half, I critique the Court's current method, and decide that it is an unreliable guide for judicial interpretation of the state constitution. Additionally, I suggest that Kalal advanced certain rule of law values which make its method preferable. Thus, I conclude by recommending that the Court adopt the methodology of Kalal for interpreting both statutes and the state constitution.


This is a study of the services provided by Indian libraries during the COVID-19 lockdown and the problems faced by the libraries in providing their services. Using a Google Forms questionnaire survey, responses were sought from librarians through library groups covering schools, colleges and universities, mailing list forums and WhatsApp/Telegram groups. The findings show that libraries strived to stay connected with the users and provided remote services. Many libraries developed library/digital guides and e-content and responded to online reference queries. Librarians frequently participated in webinars. © 2021, National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources. All rights reserved.


I've had the opportunity to mentor over 150 pre- and post-doctoral fellows and faculty colleagues, several of whom have mentored or advised many more. From the Mentor's perspective, many keys to success with Mentees are well known. For example, define goals explicitly. Back up your mentoring commitments with long-term investments of time, required resources, regular meetings, and a research project of mutual interest. Provide emotional and psychological support; directly assist with career development. Train mentees in the anatomy and brevity of a manuscript. Optimal mentoring is often inter-disciplinary, with the primary mentor clearly designated. Mentor on publications, posters and presentations. Regarding "Secrets" (symposium organizers assigned the title of this talk), my first Secret is to assess the passion, enthusiasm and initiative for the work as shown in the eyes, language and demeanor of the potential Mentee. Second, get to know what is in the applicant's heart, as well as what is in the brain. Third, mentoring often doesn't stop when the mentee leaves (e.g. mentors recommend their mentees for every possible award). The first phase of the mentoring job isn't really over until publications first-authored by the Mentee are accepted, and the first job and research grant are secured. Fourth, supervised peer group mentoring can be very effective. In addition, I'll review ten "Lessons Learned" in mentoring research, publishing, applying for funds and finding work.


Copolymer electrolytes based on 5-(methacrylamido)tetrazole (MTet) and vinyl phosphonic acid (VPA) are prepared. The obtained copolymers are analyzed by FTIR, 1 H NMR, 13 C NMR, and 31 P NMR spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differantial scanning calorimetry (DSC), energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS), elemental analysis (EA), cyclic voltammetry (CV), and impedance spectroscopy. The morphology of the copolymers is characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The highest proton conductivity is obtained as 0.01 S/cm at 150 °C and in anhydrous conditions.


Research on health and nutrition confirms the important role of diet in maintaining health, reducing the risk of chronic disease, and reinforces the link between diet and heart disease, cancer and obesity. While death rates for cardiovascular diseases continue to decline, health risks in other areas are increasing. Obesity is on the verge of becoming epidemic and Syndrome X (the deadly trio of insulin resistance, obesity and hyperlipidaemia) has been implicated in many chronic diseases. To explore these new developments in nutrition and health research the Royal Society of Canada sponsored a symposium in 1996 that brought together researchers from around the world. "Current Perspectives on Nutrition and Health" is based on that symposium. The contributors explore recent findings on disease patterns, health maintenance and dietary approaches to reducing the risk of chronic disease. Internationally known experts provide new information on the influence of diet on heart disease, cancer, hypertension, kidney disease, diabetes, obesity and osteoporosis. As well, they examine recent developments in nutrition research in Britain and other European countries and discuss priorities for nutrition research in Canada as set forth in a report released by the Ministry of Health.


Background: Emotional stability is defined as a person's capacity to stay calm when faced with stress. An emotionally unstable person is more explosive, which confers that provoking of such persons puts them at enhanced risk of harmful behaviors. Whether the persons avoid emotions and the extent to which a person experiences anxiety in situations is determined by emotional stability. Emotional stability is associated with persons life, coping and adapting to various life situations. Moreover, it is intricately related to the individual's occupational life, which has been focused in this study.

Aims and Objective: To ascertain the subject's social adjustment, maladjustment, and their association with emotional stability.

Materials and Methods: Participants for this study were 100 working men selected from health, education, and banking sectors in and around Mangalore city, Karnataka, India. They were selected by a random sampling technique. Personal visits were made to the respective institutional heads of each of of these sectors; 35, 35, and 30 samples were selected from each of these sectors, respectively. They were randomly selected from each of these sectors. Eysenck Personality Inventory was administered to evaluate the emotional stability, and interview schedule was used to assess their social adjustment. Pearson's X2-test was carried out.

Result: The result reveals that there was a significant (r = -0.873, p < 0.001) relation between the emotional stability of these subjects with regard to their social adjustment at their workplace.

Conclusion: The implication of this study is to develop insight among the employers and employees with regard to their emotionality affecting the social adjustment, which may pervade into the compatible work environment important for work productivity.


Digital watermarking is a kind of data hiding technology. It is a way of embedding information (i.e., watermark) in multimedia data (image, audio or video), such that the embedded watermark can be later retrieved from the watermarked data for the purpose of content protection or authentication. Among different kinds of digital watermarking schemes, reversible watermarking has become a research hotspot recently. For about ten years, several reversible watermarking schemes have been proposed for protecting images of sensitive content, like medical or military images, for which any modification may impact their interpretation. These methods allow the user to restore exactly the original image from its watermarked version by removing the watermark. Thus it becomes possible to update the watermark content, as for example security attributes (e.g., one digital signature or some authenticity codes), at any time without adding new image distortions.


Abstract Osteoporotic hip fracture is the most severe kind of fracture with high morbidity and mortality. Patients' ambulation and quality of life are significantly affected by the fracture because only 50% regain their prefracture functional status, even if they undergo surgeries. There are many issues associated with the current preventive methods e.g., cost, side effects, patient compliance, and time for onset of action. Femoroplasty, the injection of bone cement into the proximal femur to augment femoral strength and to prevent fracture, has been an option with great potential. However, until now femoroplasty has remained at the stage of biomechanical testing. No in vivo study has evaluated its safety and effectiveness; there is not even an animal model for such investigations. The objective of this study was to develop a proximal femur fracture goat model that consistently fractures at the proximal femur when subject to vertical load, simulating osteoporotic hip fractures in human. Six pairs of fresh frozen mature Chinese goats' femora were obtained and randomly assigned into two groups. For the experimental group, a cylindrical bone defect was created at the proximal femur, while the control was left untreated. In addition, a configuration to mimic the mechanical axis of the goat femur was developed. When subjected to load along the mechanical axis, all the specimens from the bone defect group experienced femoral neck fractures, while fractures occurred at the femoral neck or other sites of the proximal femur in the control group. The biomechanical property (failure load) of the bone defect specimens was significantly lower than that of the control specimens (p<0.05). Osteoporotic hip fractures of humans were simulated by a goat fracture model, which may serve as a reference for future femoroplasty studies in vivo. The newly developed configuration simulating a femoral mechanical axis for biomechanical tests was practicable during the study.


A central theme of the cultural and creative industries (CCI) discourse is the exploitation of intellectual capital for economic benefits by CCI workers. Also, the CCI are seen as vehicles of cultural expression and should contribute significantly to employment generation. But beyond cultural expression and employment creation, the CCI can be a veritable pathway to the globalisation of local cultures. This paper reviews two segments of CCI in Nigeria to assess how the concept has fared, especially, with difficulties associated with registration and enforcement of IPRs in these two key segments. The paper explores a brief history and reviews activities in these two selected segments in terms of employment creation, economic value added and overall impact they are having on Nigeria's culture and political economy. It concludes that authentic cultural creativity can indeed globalize aspects of a country's culture and reposition its image in subtle but effective ways.


Agriculture is a basic economic branch through its impact on social life and the environment. We can speak of agriculture without having to refer to environmental consequences. Super intensive agriculture practiced due to technological level reached, has led to increased degradation of the environment and human life, requiring the concept of sustainable agriculture, in which the resource conservation is a fundamental condition. System of sustainable agriculture is increasingly accepted as an alternative to conventional agriculture, rational use of resources ensuring productivity, profitability and environmental protection. Agricultural productivity is influenced by the applied work technology, phyto- sanitary protection occupying an important place in these technologies. Combating pests and diseases is an important link in the process of growing plants. Use of new plant varieties and applying new technologies in preparation of germinative bed would not give the desired results without the application of phyto- sanitary appropriate treatments. Running with superior quality indices, of this work, influence decisively the production obtained per hectare. It is a fact accepted by everybody that phyto-sanitary treatments in agriculture, including fruit growing, namely fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and other substances, chemicals, led to a considerable increase yields, improving their quality. In Romania, the treatment plant or some fazes fertilization works only with liquids that are prepared with water or conditioned with some particular organic ingredients, to be applied as such.


Introduction The correlation between thiopurine drug metabolite levels in red blood cells (RBC) and clinical response is currently under debate, with some studies reporting a good correlation whereas others report a poor correlation. However, without a suitable alternative assay this is the only method presently available to guide dosing of patients treated with thiopurine drugs: azathioprine (AZA), mercaptopurine (MP) or thioguanine. Biologically, this method is not perfect given that RBC lack the critical drug-metabolising enzyme inosine-monophosphate dehydrogenase, which is central to the bioconversion of MP to thioguanine nucleotides that are then incorporated as fraudulent bases into nucleic acids. To try to get a better indicator of drug response and hence clinical outcome, we have developed a sensitive liquid chromatography- tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) assay to measure incorporated dTG in the DNA isolated from peripheral blood mononuclear cells of patients treated with thiopurines Methods DNA was isolated from blood samples collected from IBD patients on thiopurines. DNA was denatured then digested using P1 nuclease followed by treatment with alkaline phosphatase and finally diluted in MilliQ water prior to analysis. A total of 0.2 μg of DNA in 50 µL was injected for chromatographic separation followed by analysis on an API4000 triple quadrupole mass spectrometer. Standard curves and controls were validated and samples analysed to determine number of moles of dTG/1055 moles of dA. Results From a small cohort of 20 AZA treated IBD patients (10 Crohn's Disease and 10 Ulcerative Colitis) with dTG levels of 0.18 to 11.3 moles dTG/1055 moles dA (approximately 5 to 340 femtomoles/μg DNA) were detected with no detectable dTGs in un-treated patients. The intra- and inter-assay variability was below 7.8% and 17.0% respectively with a detection limit of 15.5 pg (54.7 femtomoles) and was quantified in DNA samples relative to endogenous dA. Conclusion This method enables the direct detection of a cytotoxic thiopurine metabolite in an easily obtainable, stable sample and will facilitate a better understanding of the mechanisms of action of these inexpensive yet effective drugs. Disclosure of Interest None Declared


Abstract A history of investigation on the antimanic and prophylactic effects of carbamazepine in Japan is described. Following the initial open trials in the early 1970s in which the antimanic and prophylactic effects of carbamazepine were indicated for the first time in the world, the mood stabilizing effect was confirmed by the double blind studies which were performed with a multi‐institutional cooperation in Japan in the late 1970s. During the course of the double blind trials, the problem of different therapeutic dosages of psychotropic drugs between Japan and Western countries emerged; that is, the doses of chlorpromazine and lithium carbonate, which were used as the control drugs to carbamazepine in the two double‐blind group‐comparison studies in Japan, were both much lower than the dosage used in most of the Western countries. The low dosage of control drugs made the evaluation of the results of the double blind studies performed in Japan difficult, and caused a delay of publication in the Western journals of the results. Whether the difference is due to biological factors or to psychosocial and cultural factors is an important problem in psychopharmacology and should be investigated further.


Mutations in SDHD and SDHAF2 (both located on chromosome 11) give rise to hereditary paraganglioma almost exclusively after paternal transmission of the mutation, and tumours often show loss of the entire maternal copy of chromosome 11. The 'Hensen' model postulates that a tumour modifier gene located on chromosome 11p15, a region known to harbour a cluster of imprinted genes, is essential to tumour formation. We observed decreased protein expression of the 11p15 candidate genes CDKN1C, SLC22A18 and ZNF215 evaluated in 60 SDHD-mutated tumours compared to normal carotid body tissue and non-SDH mutant tumours.We then created stable knockdown in vitro models, reasoning that the simultaneous knockdown of SDHD and a maternally expressed 11p15 modifier gene would enhance paraganglioma-related cellular characteristics compared to SDHD knockdown alone. Knockdown of SDHD in SNB19 and SHSY5Y cells resulted in the accumulation of succinate, the stabilization of HIF1 protein and a reduction in cell proliferation.Compared to single knockdown of SDHD, knockdown of SDHD together with SLC22A18 or with CDKN1C led to small but significant increases in cell proliferation and resistance to apoptosis, and to a gene expression profile closely related to the known transcriptional profile of SDH-deficient tumours. Of the 60 SDHD tumours investigated, four tumours showing retention of chromosome 11 showed SLC22A18 and CDKN1C expression levels comparable to levels in tumours showing loss of chromosome 11, suggesting loss of protein expression despite chromosomal retention.Our data strongly suggest that SLC22A18 and/or CDKN1C are tumour modifier genes involved in the tumourigenesis of SDHD-linked paraganglioma.


Gamma interferon (IFN-gamma) concentrations in blood, but not in lungs, rose significantly at 24 to 48 h after murine pulmonary infection with virulent pneumococci. In contrast, infection with avirulent pneumococcal strains produced minimal rises in serum IFN-gamma concentrations. Compared with that of immunocompetent mice, mortality was appreciably increased after pulmonary infection of IFN-gamma gene knockout mice, suggesting a protective role for IFN-gamma in host response to pneumococcal disease.


Effective power transactions can reduce generation costs for an electric utility. Making good transaction decisions, however, is not an easy task since transactions are coupled with the scheduling of generating units through power system demand and reserve requirements. The speed and quality of transaction decisions are nonetheless becoming critical to capture frequently emerging opportunities in the increasingly competitive power market. As transaction opportunities emerge, the known opportunities can be analyzed one at a time. When a large number of such opportunities emerge one by one as time proceeds, this kind of analysis will however lay a huge burden on transaction analysts. A different framework is presented in this paper. While analyzing a known set of opportunities, the economic effects of further purchasing/selling fixed sizes of power blocks are also analyzed. Within the framework, the integrated scheduling and transaction problem is solved by using the Lagrangian relaxation method. Four transaction modes that optimize transaction level and/or duration are developed to deal with various transaction opportunities. A reference table is then established to help transaction analysts quickly deal with emerging opportunities. The algorithm can also be re-run periodically to update the reference table while solving another set of known transactions. Numerical testing results based on Northeast Utilities (USA) data sets show that results can be obtained in reasonable computational times to help transaction analysts make quick and prudent decisions.


Why are attentional processes important in the driving of anticipations? Anticipatory processes are fundamental cognitive abilities of living systems, in order to rapidly and accurately perceive new events in the environment, and to trigger adapted behaviors to the newly perceived events. To process anticipations adapted to sequences of various events in complex environments, the cognitive system must be able to run specific anticipations on the basis of selected relevant events. Then more attention must be given to events potentially relevant for the living system, compared to less important events. What are useful attentional factors in anticipatory processes? The relevance of events in the environment depend on the effects they can have on the survival of the living system. The cognitive system must then be able to detect relevant events to drive anticipations and to trigger adapted behaviors. The attention given to an event depends on i) its external physical relevance in the environment, such as time duration and visual quality, and ii) on its internal semantic relevance in memory, such as knowledge about the event (semantic field in memory) and anticipatory power (associative strength to anticipated associates). How can we model interactions between attentional and semantic anticipations? Specific types of distributed recurrent neural networks are able to code temporal sequences of events as associated attractors in memory. Particular learning protocol and spike rate transmission through synaptic associations allow the model presented to vary attentionally the amount of activation of anticipations (by activation or inhibition processes) as a function of the external and internal relevance of the perceived events. This type of model offers a unique opportunity to account for both anticipations and attention in unified terms of neural dynamics in a recurrent network.


Simple experimental tests of fatigue life are often insufficient to characterise fatigue behaviour. Fatigue crack growth in polycrystalline metals is governed by a number of interacting mechanical effects at the crack tip, such as the deformation inside a plastic zone and contact between the crack faces over part of the loading cycle. Typically, results tend to be interpreted in terms of an empirical fatigue law such as the Paris equation, which in itself fails to generalise to different load ratios or multiaxial load cases. While extensions to this equation have been used, these are mostly empirical and do little to enhance understanding of the fatigue growth mechanisms. Recently, the use of diffraction to characterise crack tip stress effects has become increasingly popular. In this paper, we consider the opportunities and the difficulties associated with making such measurements by neutron and synchrotron diffraction. In particular we examine grain size effects, plane stress/plane strain issues, optimisation of the gauge geometry, measurement of the plastic zone and crack closure effects.


AbstractA two-period (0 and T) Arrow-Debreu economy is set up with a general model of uncertainty. We suppose that an equilibrium exists for this economy. The Arrow-Debreu economy is placed in a Radner (dynamic) setting; agents may trade claims at any time during [0, T]. Under appropriate conditions it is possible to implement the original Arrow-Debreu equilibrium, which may have an infinite-dimensional commodity space, in a Radner equilibrium with only a finite number of securities. This is done by opening the "right" set of security markets, a set which effectively completes markets for the Radner economy.


The experience of the Environmental Protection Agency of Tuscany in the determination of background values start from 2009 with various substances such as metals, non-metals and inorganic, dioxins and various matrices such as soil, groundwater, inland surface waters and coastal marine sediments. The methodologies supplied in literature have been interpreted and integrated to meet the requirements of current legislation and needs for remediation, diffuse pollution and excavated earth in specific areas. The method for diffuse pollution described here focuses on the use of statistical and geostatistical tools and what we present in this paper are some early results of interest obtained from two case studies in the Florence and in the Prato area. The study has been carried out on concentrations of tetrachlorethylene in the two groundwater bodies by identifying a number of frequency classes in the distribution. Each class has been hypothesized as corresponding to a distinct process. The occurrence both in space and time of the classes has been analysed and discussed critically concluding for a background value that has been found similar between the two zones. The investigation conducted on two monitoring stations representing hot-spots, with values in excess on background value has enabled to map spatial distribution of concentrations and to separate plumes from diffuse pollution area. The two areas show some peculiarities: Florence area shows advanced dehalogenation and a clear spatial continuity, whereas in Prato area it is limited with poor spatial continuity suggesting a spreading with vertical motions from still active primary or secondary sources. Observing how the methodological structure would require, to be fully predictive, a greater number of samples, however, the present work want to constitute a first contribution for management of areas subject to diffuse pollution.


Purpose
Design teams have difficulties in assessing building carbon emissions at an early stage, as most building energy simulation tools require a detailed input of building design for estimation. The purpose of this paper is to develop a user-friendly regression model to estimate carbon emissions of the preliminary design of office buildings in the subtropics by way of example. Five sets of building design parameters, including building configuration, building envelope, design space conditions, building system configuration and occupant behaviour, are considered in this study.

Design/methodology/approach
Both EnergyPlus and Monte Carlo simulation were used to predict carbon emissions for different combinations of the design parameters. A total of 100,000 simulations were conducted to ensure a full range of simulation results. Based on the simulation results, a regression model was developed to estimate carbon emissions of office buildings based on preliminary design information.

Findings
The results show that occupant density, annual mean occupancy rate, equipment load, lighting load and chiller coefficient of performance are the top five influential parameters affecting building carbon emissions under the subtropics. Besides, the design parameters of ten office buildings were input into this user-friendly regression model for validation. The results show that the ranking of its simulated carbon emissions for these ten buildings is consistent with the original carbon emissions ranking.

Practical implications
With the use of this developed regression model, design teams can not only have a simple and quick estimation of carbon emissions based on the building design information at the conceptual stage but also explore design options by understanding the level of reduction in carbon emissions if a certain building design parameter is changed. The study also provides recommendations on building design to reduce carbon emissions of office buildings.

Originality/value
Limited research has been conducted to date to investigate how the change of building design affects carbon emissions in the subtropics where four distinct seasons lead to significant variations of outdoor temperature and relative humidity. Previous research also did not emphasise on the impact of high-rise office building designs (e.g. small building footprint, high window-to-wall ratio) on carbon emissions. This paper adds value by identifying the influential parameters affecting carbon emissions for a high-rise office building design and allows a handy estimate of building carbon emissions under the subtropical conditions. The same approach may be used for other meteorological conditions.


It is widely accepted that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) serve as the engines of economies around world. Thus, governments increase their financial aid to develop and sustain them in the effort to stimulate the economy as a whole. Nonetheless, SMEs remain deficient in many resources, financial and otherwise. It is thus important for SME policy makers, advocates and researchers to study how SMEs around the world manage to overcome operational problems due to, and in spite of, their size. Employing the content analysis technique in analysing all current and peerreviewed papers from an extensive collection of journal databases, this study found that across all literature, market forces, organisational factors and external change agents are the key drivers in the adoption of technology by Asia-Pacific SMEs. Other studies in the literature focus on the factors that lead to their successful implementation of technology, and these are: small size and young age of the firm, user training, business and government ties, previous technological experience, length of use of the technology, user satisfaction, and location of the facilities and mentoring. Further, the benefits of improved performance should encourage any SME to invest in new technologies combined with user training. Meanwhile, technology developers as well as managers implementing technology-based projects concerning SMEs should plan or design their projects with the user in mind.


During the design of a floating bridge, extreme structural responses are required to be properly evaluated for ultimate limit state (ULS) design check. This study addresses the estimation of extreme structural responses for an end-anchored curved floating bridge. The floating bridge, about 4600 m, consists of a cable-stayed high bridge part and a pontoon-supported low bridge part. The long-term extreme responses are approximated by using a engineering approach, i.e., the environmental contour method. The sea state with 100-year environmental conditions is considered, and a 90% fractile is used to calculate the short-term extreme responses by using the Gumbel method and the mean up-crossing rate (MUR) method based on 100 1-hour simulations with different seeds.
 The extreme responses are expressed as μ + κσ, where μ and σ are the ensemble mean and standard deviation, and κ is a multiplying factor. Numerical results show that structural responses are close to Gaussian distributed. κ of axial force and strong axis bending moment along the bridge girder estimated by both the Gumbel and MUR methods vary in the vicinity of 4. κ estimated by the two method deviates, especially for axial force. Moreover, for both methods the estimated κ deviates more significantly if fewer ensembles are used.


BACKGROUND
People living with HIV infection are confronted with physical and psychological symptoms that impact their quality of life. This study explored the symptom experience of people living with HIV infection in Puerto Rico and its correlation with quality of life.

METHODS
A cross-sectional descriptive design was used to survey 44 men, women, and transgender people living with HIV infection. Measures included a demographic questionnaire, sign and symptom checklist, and a quality of life instrument.

RESULTS
The sample was 50% male with a mean age of 42.1 years; the participants had been living with HIV infection an average for 9.8 years. The top five symptoms reported by the sample included: muscle aches (81.8%), depression (77.2%), weakness (70.5%), fear/worries (70.5), and difficulty concentrating (65.9%). Symptom frequency was significantly related to four dimensions of quality of life: overall function (r = -0.58), life satisfaction (r = -0.59), health worries (r = 0.32) and HIV medication worries (r = 0.59). The symptom experience was not related to financial worries, disclosure worries, or sexual functioning. Individuals who reported taking HIV medications reported significantly fewer symptoms than those not taking HIV medications (t = 3.061, df=42, p < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest that people living with HIV infection in Puerto Rico experience a wide array of physical and psychological symptoms and that these symptoms have a correlation with their perceived quality of life. Better management of symptoms may have an impact on perceived quality of life for people living with HIV infection.


A chemical marker from the rhizomes of Zingiber zerumbet was extracted, isolated and purified using methanol extraction and Vacuum Liquid Chromatography (VLC) method. The sample was extracted with methanol and concentrated followed by fractionation with ethyl acetate and methanol. Ethyl acetate soluble fraction and methanol soluble fraction was subjected to silica gel column chromatography to afford nine fractions. Gradient elutions were carried out using n-hexane-ethyl acetate (8:2, 7:3, 6:4, 5:5, and 3:7 vol./vol.), ethyl acetate 100%, ethyl acetate-methanol (5:5 vol./vol.) and finally methanol 100%. The isolated and purified chemical marker crystals were subjected to High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) to confirm the purity. Purification of the chemical marker gave a white crystal with 97.96% purity and allegedly as 5-hydroxyzerumbone.


The use of natural products as medicines has been growing in the entire world. There are concerns that these products may contain potentially toxic ingredients and contaminants such as heavy metals. The labeling of blood constituents with technetium-99m has been influenced by the presence of natural extracts. We evaluated the influence of a chayotte (Sechium edule) extract (100% v/v macerated) on the labeling of blood elements with 99mTc. The animals were treated with the extract during 15 days. Samples of blood were carried out with specific blood biochemistry kits. The present study analyzed the influence ofchayotte in the survival of the strain of Escherichia coli AB1157 submitted to reactive oxygen species induced by stannous chloride. There was a reduction of the lethal effect induced by stannous chloride on the survival of the E. coli culture in the presence of chayotte. The results indicated a decrease in the level of glucose and globulin The effect of the extract could be explained by its metabolic transformation inducing the generation of oxidant metabolites. The culture of bacteria when was treated with stannous chloride and chayotte simultaneously, the extract could be reacting with stannous chloride ions, protecting them against the oxidation avoiding the generation of reactive oxygen species.


Organizational theatre interventions have become established as a pervasive and influential arts-based method of dialogic organizational development, yet their effects are controversial and contested. While they have been praised for their potential as a tool of empowerment, they have also been criticized for their possible use as a more or less insidious form of control. This article explores and evaluates such claims and counterclaims, supported by an in-depth longitudinal quasi-experimental field study of customer service staff in a regional Australian bank. The results of the field study not only indicate that organizational theatre interventions may increase both empowerment and control but also suggest that the outcomes may be more lightweight than supporters have hoped and critics have feared. The article outlines the implications of these findings for future research and practice.


Features of the behavior of exact frequency‐angular dependencies of the reflection coefficients V(fd,tet) (f—frequency, d—thickness of a sediment layer, tet—angle of slid) from a structure and the acoustic properties of various types of the marine bottom are investigated. Angular and frequency resonances of reflection coefficients and change of position of resonance depending on a ratio of acoustic parameters of sediment layers and half‐space are revealed. For exact calculations of a reflection coefficients, a matrix propagator was used. Resonant formalism was expanded on the layered elastic bottom case, in terms of the Breit–Wigner variables. The comparisons of resonance and exact calculations of reflection coefficients for two types of resonances show good agreement of the results. Calculations of exact and resonant reflection coefficients for real parameters of the shallow sea bottom was carried out. The relation between resonance position and width and parameters of environment was ascertained. [Work ...


ABSTRACT Little is known about the economic sources that may generate the abnormal returns observed in put index options. We show that the learning process followed by investors may be one such source. We develop an equilibrium model under partial information in which a rational Bayesian learner prices put option contracts. Our model generates put option returns similar to the empirical returns of S&P 500 put index options. This result is not obtained when we analyze alternative setups of the model in which no learning process exists.


The survival and production of aflatoxin by Aspergillus flavus introduced into pasteurized (85°C;15 min) and unpasteurized orange juice treated with Aframomum danielli (local preservative) extracts at 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6% concentrations were investigated at 3 and 7 days of storage on shelf (28±2°C). There was slight increase in pH on day 3 which was more prevalent on day 7(4.77-6.85 and 6.07-7.37) for the pasteurized and unpasteurized orange juice respectively. There was no significant difference (p≥0.05) in growth and aflatoxin levels on day 3, however, luxuriant growth of A. flavus (0.63-1.42 g and 0.52-0.68 g) and aflatoxin production (29-156 ng/ml and 5.40-63.00 ng/ml) were recorded on day 7 respectively. The pasteurized sample (0%; control) of A. danielli had the highest growth and aflatoxin level followed by the sample with 6% extract with the same trend in unpasteurized juice. A. danielli at very low concentration showed effective inhibition of A. flavus growth and produced low levels of aflatoxin. 1% showed effective inhibition of A. flavus growth in both while 2 and 3% produced low levels of aflatoxin for pasteurized and unpasteurized products respectively.

 Key words: Aframomum danielli, Aspergillus flavus,  aflatoxin, orange juice, pasteurised.


OBJECTIVE
To compare predeath and postdeath levels of depression and anxiety reported by a sample of children who lost a parent to cancer ("study children") with the levels reported by children in a community sample who did not experience such a loss.

METHOD
T scores for depressive symptomatology (Children's Depression Inventory) and state and trait anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) were compared. Both samples were weighted to control for multiple participants from the same family. Weights for children in the community sample were further adjusted to match the distribution of the two samples with regard to gender, age, and number of children in the household. Comparisons were made using t tests and chi 2 tests.

RESULTS
Whereas study children reported significantly higher levels of depression and anxiety in the predeath period, levels of symptomatology reported for both measures postdeath were similar in both samples.

DISCUSSION
The data suggest that while many children experiencing the loss of a parent to cancer report elevated levels of depression and anxiety predeath, by 7 to 12 months postdeath their reports of depression and anxiety are comparable with those of similarly situated children in the community who did not experience such a loss.


Information Technology (IT) has become one of the critical components that facilitates any banking institutions' ability to meet regulatory requirements, in an efficient and a cost-effective way. In many instances, dedicated regulatory IT systems have been established, and comparable to most implementations, they are often considered a significant investment. Viewed from the longstanding debate on the value of IT investments to organisations, empirical research within the IS domain seems to have placed less emphasis on the possible business contribution of regulatory IT implementations. This paper has attempted to fill this gap by investigating the implementation of anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing (AML/CFT) systems within banking institutions. Arising from this study, important new insights into the variety of business benefits, that might arise from the implementation of a regulatory system, has been identified.


Abstract A quantitative analysis of fault seal properties has been used in reservoir simulation modelling in the Heidrun Field. The inclusion of microstructural and petrophysical data from core analysis has resulted in a better prediction of reservoir communication and drainage patterns during production. Three main fault rock types were observed in the Heidrun cores, namely; cataclasites developed from clean sandstones, phyllosilicate framework fault rocks, created from impure sandstones and clay smears. The clay content of the host sediment is the controlling factor in determining which fault rock type dominates in the fault zones. Fault plane geometries were assessed from seismic-based juxtaposition analysis for input into the reservoir simulation model. The fault planes were divided into areas following the reservoir zonation, and transmissibility multipliers were assigned to each subarea of the fault planes in the model. The transmissibility multipliers are a function of fault rock permeability and fault rock width, as well as the matrix (host rock) permeability and the dimensions of the grid blocks used in the simulation model. Introducing a quantitative description of the faults has had a significant effect on the results of the reservoir simulation runs and has played an important role in the successful modelling and prediction of the observed gas breakthrough and pressure evolution. After actively using the transmissibilities during history matching of the simulation model, a remarkably good match to the observed well rates and pressures (flowing and shut-in) for the Jurassic Fangst and Upper Tilje reservoir units was achieved.