Polyurethane foam disk passive air sampling was carried out to investigate the levels, vertical distributions, and potential sources of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) in the atmospheric boundary layer of an urban site in Asia. Sampling was performed at nine heights (15, 47, 80, 120, 160, 200, 240, 280, 320 m) of the 325-m meteorological tower in Beijing, China over three 2-month periods between December 2006 and August 2007. This is the first study to report vertical variations of PBDEs in the ABL and one of only a few studies to investigate vertical distributions of persistent organic pollutants. The levels of sigma19PCBs and sigma8PBDEs were relatively low, ranging from 22 to 65 and from 2.3 to 18 pg m(-3), respectively. Air concentrations of gamma-HCH were high, with values in the range of 39-103 pg m(-3) in winter, 100-180 pg m(-3) in spring, and 115-242 pg m(-3) in summer, respectively. alpha-HCH concentrations ranged from 20 to 86 pg m(-3), p,p'-DDT between 7.3 and 78 pg m(-3), and HCB between 15 and 160 pg m(-3). The seasonal variations of PCBs, PBDEs, and OCPs may reflect different sources for these chemicals, such as those related with regional use (gamma-HCH), volatilization/re-emission (PBDEs, PCBs, alpha-HCH), and pesticide impurities (HCB). Although the performance reference compounds (PRCs) were spiked before deployment, the sampling rates showed strong dependency on wind speeds, resulting in large variations in uptake rates in the ABL, ranging from approximately 7.0 m3 day(-1) at ground level to 11 m3 day(-1) at 320 m. Levels of PCBs, PBDEs, and OCPs decreased with increasing ABL height indicating the potential of Beijing as the local sources.


When a cigarette company lowered its price per pack, its sales exploded. Even after competitors retaliated by cutting prices, the market shares stayed the same. After a pharmaceutical company set its prices above the government-established reimbursement amount, it lost ten market share points. Three weeks later, management cut the price to the reimbursement level. The company never regained market share, despite the lowered price. The marketing effect in both these cases, says Simon, is hysteresis, a phenomenon in which a temporary change in one factor causes a permanent change in another. It can work positively, so that sales remain at a higher level despite competitors' responses. Or it can work negatively, so that the lost sales position is never recovered.

From five case studies and a survey of executives, Simon determined that hysteresis not only occurs in marketing but has managerial implications. In each case ? West Cigarette, Sigma Pharmaceutical, Ehrmann Dessert, Southwest Airlines, and Wodka Gorbatschow ? he found evidence of permanent change in sales or market share that resulted from a temporary change in marketing stimuli. Factors such as public attention, press coverage, and, most importantly, price changes combined to create the hysteresis phenomenon.

Simon reaches several conclusions: a strong shock in marketing stimuli or an unusual situation produces hysteresis; changes in several marketing instruments combine to cause hysteresis; price drives the phenomenon, while advertising alone is unlikely to generate it; an innovative use of a marketing variable may lead to hysteresis; and a delayed reaction by competitors may raise the probability that hysteresis will occur.

Can managers control hysteresis in marketing? According to Simon, while companies cannot fully plan for it, they must be aware of the conditions that foster it. They can spot favorable conditions early and take an unusual innovative action to surprise the competition. Managers can also prevent a company from being a victim of hysteresis by monitoring the market so they can react quickly. The pharmaceutical company waited too long to lower its prices; after one month, negative hysteresis had already occurred.


The role of the Nile river in the formation of the ancient Egyptian cultureThe aim of this paper is to describe the main points of the multifaceted relations between Nile and the culture and civilization of ancient Egypt. Both economic and cultural matters are indicated. The Nile fed, drank, irrigated the fields, served as a communication route, but besides, it went into the beliefs and cultural world of the Egyptians. The regulation of the rhythm of people's lives, their social organization, cult behaviours, ritual hunting, ways of spending free time, or numerous works of art were connected with Nile. In fact, it is difficult to find anything in Egypt during the pharaonic era that was not connected with it. It has been a key factor in the lives of people in Egypt for thousands of years.


Most of the presently available data regarding the structure and the properties of the Universe are well described within the standard LCDM cosmological scenario. However, the underlying assumptions on which the standard framework is based on have been tested only over a restricted range of cosmic scales and cosmic epochs, and extremely severe fine-tuning problems still affect the rather peculiar choice of its parameters. Therefore, a wide range of extended cosmological models have been proposed in the literature to overcome these obstacles. Given the expected excellent high-precision data that will be available in the Precision Cosmology era, it will be possible to test such extensions of the standard cosmological model systematically, to constrain them or rule them out. This will require the theoretical predictions of observable quantities to achieve the same outstanding quality for many competing non-standard cosmologies. In order to obtain such accuracy over a wide range of scales and epochs, the use of large and complex numerical simulations will represent an essential tool. In this thesis, we present the research activity carried out during three years of Ph.D., focused on the implementation and application of alternative cosmological models beyond-LCDM in the cosmological hydrodynamical code P-Gadget3. In particular, our work concerned the development of refined numerical routines to perform and improve simulations of two classes of strongly and non-linearly interacting dark matter scenarios: Fuzzy Dark Matter and Growing Neutrino Quintessence models.


Microorganisms with cellulolytic activity are considered as potential candidates in the processing of cellulosic biomass for biotechnological applications. This study was conducted to isolate and characterize cellulosedegrading bacteria collected from the saliva of 'Jaffrabadi' breed of buffalo by morphological and biochemical analysis. The cellulolytic bacteria were isolated and purified on CMC (Carboxy methyl cellulose) agar. Bacterial isolate produced a clear transparent zone when stained with Congo red, confirming cellulase activity. Morphological examination revealed Grampositive, rod or bacillishaped, non-motile, and spore forming nature of bacterial isolate. Different biochemical tests suggested that bacterial isolate was Bacillus subtilis. The cellulase enzyme was partially purified by (NH4)2SO4 and studied using CMCase assay. The activity of partially purified cellulose was higher (8μg/ml/min) as compared to that of crude supernatant (5.5μg/ml/min). The optimum pH and optimum temperature range were found to be 6.5 7.5 and 40 – 50 °C. Protein profiling using 10% SDS-PAGE further confirmed the purity of the partially purified sample.


ABSTRACT
The most effective treatment for orbital fractures is still under debate and different strategies are proposed in the literature. All such strategies focus on reconstruction of the orbital structure, neglecting the main function of the medial and inferior walls, these latter being constructed so as to break during high energy trauma. The aim of the authors is to highlight the difference between different reconstructive techniques in an orbital fracture restoration, being inclined to favor repair over reconstruction of the orbital floor, assuming that a second trauma could happen and reconstructive material left in the orbit may damage the visual apparatus in such a scenario. Following this theme, the authors propose a reconstruction strategy using a custom made stereolithographic model and resorbable plate made of polylactic acid mesh molded onto it. The mesh is used alone or in combination with bone graft, to obtain a better reparative result. At present, this approach is best suited to sports people and the young. Even if a deeper evaluation of the method would be useful, the series of case studies presented could be of stimulus for future discussion.


Abstract The paper sets out to attempt identification of all known plates used to print maps included in the Atlas Silesiae and of all identified states of these maps. While the early states of the Atlas maps are relatively well studied (though far not in every detail), printings pulled from the same though deeply reworked plates, published in Nurnberg in the first two decades of the 19th c., are not always recognised as the late states of the same maps. For each of twenty maps from Atlas Silesiae listed are all identified states together with the most distinctive differences between them. Eleven copies of Atlas Silesiae were also examined in search for possible regularities of their composition in terms of states of the included maps. Public collections with exemplary copies of the Atlas maps in each state identified in the paper are listed in the Appendix.


Few situations are more anxiety provoking than that of a small child being attacked by a dog. On occasion dogs have been known to save human lives. Conversely, dogs have actually been known to kill (references 1 and 2; Chicago Sun-Times, March 31, 1980). Unfortunately, the incidence of dog bites has increased in recent years, and more than 1 million Americans are bitten by dogs every year.3-5 In addition, children are the most frequent victims.1,4-8 With the rising crime rate, more citizens are buying or even renting large and sometimes vicious dogs to protect their family or property. (Chicago Sun-Times, March 31, 1980, and reference 5).


The "world" of the Church Fathers. Between Occident and Orient – the same Spirit but a different Sensibility The word Father is used in the New Testament to mean a teacher of spiritual things: "For if you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, by the Gospel, I have begotten you. Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ" (1 Corinthians 4:15, 16). The first teachers of Christianity seem to be collectively spoken of as "the Fathers" (2 Peter 3:4). The Fathers have learnt from other Fathers, and in the last resort from the Apostles, who are sometimes called Fathers in this sense: "They are your Fathers", says St. Leo, of the Princes of the Apostles, speaking to the Romans. The Fathers of the whole Church are especially the earlier teachers, who instructed it in the teaching of the Apostles, during its earliest stage. It is difficult to define the boundaries of the first age of the Church, or the age of the Fathers. It is commonly held that the Council of Chalcedon in 451 has to be considered the final limit of the period of the early Church. Nevertheless, "The Fathers" must undoubtedly include, in the West, St. Isidore of Seville (d. 636), and in the East, St. John Damascene (d. about 754).


Objectives: To evaluate the outcome of expectant ('wait and see') management in women with retained products of conception (RPOC) after delivery. Methods: This is an ongoing prospective observational study conducted at the Acute Gynaecology Unit (AGU). All women who presented with ongoing vaginal bleeding post delivery and underwent a transvaginal scan (TVS) were included in the analysis. The criteria for the ultrasound diagnosis of RPOC were the presence of a focal echogenic material within the endometrial cavity. All clinically stable patients with a suspect of RPOC were offered expectant management with weekly ultrasound follow-up. Follow-up continued until ultrasound resolution of RPOC. Results: 27 post natal women presented to AGU with a history of possible RPOC. Median interval from delivery to consultation was 25 days (IR 12–63). Median age was 25.5 years (IR 21–29). The commonest presenting complaint was vaginal bleeding (78%). 11/27 (41%) women were diagnosed with RPOC on TVS. Median thickness of RPOC at sonography was 18 mm (IR 11–40). 10 women were managed expectantly and one woman chose surgical evacuation. 9/10 (90%) had spontaneous resolution of the RPOC within 25 days. One woman underwent D&C because she developed fever during follow-up. Conclusions: In selected women with RPOC post natally, expectant management is a feasible option. Ultrasound is an essential part of the follow-up for these women.


Background: Tranexamic acid (TXA) reduces bleeding and the need for transfusion after total knee arthroplasty. Most literature has focused on intravenous (IV) administration of TXA, with less data available on the efficacy of topically administered TXA. This multicenter randomized clinical trial specifically assessed the efficacy of topical TXA compared with IV TXA as measured by calculated blood loss, drain output, and transfusion rates. Complications, including venous thromboembolism (VTE), were reported. Methods: A total of 640 patients who underwent primary unilateral total knee arthroplasty for osteoarthritis at 2 large academic centers were randomized to receive 1 g of IV TXA prior to tourniquet inflation and 1 g at closure, or 3 g of TXA diluted in 45 mL of normal saline solution (total volume of 75 mL) and topically applied after cementation. Age, sex, body mass index, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score, and preoperative hemoglobin level were similar between the groups. Univariate, multiple linear regression, and multiple logistic regression analyses were performed. Results: Patients who received topical TXA had significantly greater calculated blood loss compared with those who received IV TXA (mean of 324 compared with 271 mL; p = 0.005). Drain output was significantly higher in the topical TXA group compared with the IV TXA group (mean of 560 compared with 456 mL; p < 0.0001). The rate of transfusion was low in the topical and IV groups, with no significant difference on univariate analysis (1.6% compared with 0.6%, respectively; p = 0.45); however, on multiple logistic regression analysis, patients who received topical TXA were 2.2-fold more likely to receive a transfusion (p < 0.0001). The topical and IV TXA groups did not differ significantly with respect to the rate of thrombotic events (0.6% compared with 1.6%, respectively; p = 0.45). Conclusions: In this large, randomized clinical trial involving patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty, both IV and topical TXA were associated with a low rate of transfusion. While IV TXA was associated with less calculated blood loss, lower drain output, and fewer transfusions, the small differences between the groups may not be clinically important. Given the low prevalence of thrombotic complications, the relative safety of one formulation of TXA over the other cannot be definitely established. Level of Evidence: Therapeutic Level I. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.


Background Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a neoplasm of the epithelial lining of the nasopharynx. Despite various reports linking genomic variants to NPC predisposition, very few reports were done on copy number variations (CNV). CNV is an inherent structural variation that has been found to be involved in cancer predisposition. Methods A discovery cohort of Malaysian Chinese descent (NPC patients, n = 140; Healthy controls, n = 256) were genotyped using Illumina® HumanOmniExpress BeadChip. PennCNV and cnvPartition calling algorithms were applied for CNV calling. Taqman CNV assays and digital PCR were used to validate CNV calls and replicate candidate copy number variant region (CNVR) associations in a follow-up Malaysian Chinese (NPC cases, n = 465; and Healthy controls, n = 677) and Malay cohort (NPC cases, n = 114; Healthy controls, n = 124). Results Six putative CNVRs overlapping GRM5, MICA/HCP5/HCG26, LILRB3/LILRA6, DPY19L2, RNase3/RNase2 and GOLPH3 genes were jointly identified by PennCNV and cnvPartition. CNVs overlapping GRM5 and MICA/HCP5/HCG26 were subjected to further validation by Taqman CNV assays and digital PCR. Combined analysis in Malaysian Chinese cohort revealed a strong association at CNVR on chromosome 11q14.3 (Pcombined = 1.54x10-5; odds ratio (OR) = 7.27; 95% CI = 2.96–17.88) overlapping GRM5 and a suggestive association at CNVR on chromosome 6p21.3 (Pcombined = 1.29x10-3; OR = 4.21; 95% CI = 1.75–10.11) overlapping MICA/HCP5/HCG26 genes. Conclusion Our results demonstrated the association of CNVs towards NPC susceptibility, implicating a possible role of CNVs in NPC development.


The Article first presents a brief history or survey of the some of the earlier problems that associate with China's banking and financial institutions. The Article then addresses specific problems, in the context of the rules, procedures, and practices of the banking and finance sector, which widely range from non-performing loans, to China's money market and interbank lending business. These problems also directly associate with the liberalization of the banking and finance sector of the economy, and the requirements of both the WTO rules and China's WTO Protocol on accession. The Article also briefly explores the US sub-prime mortgage crisis and its contagion effect throughout the world, including the Asian region. In the context of China and the subprime crisis, the Article summarizes some of the problems that associate with China banking and financial institutions, by focusing on the policy implications of the history of banking and finance in China, and what this means in terms of both WTO compliance and greater liberalization of banking and financial institutions, especially pursuant to the WTO GATS, as service industries. All of this, eventually, allows for the presentation of certain conclusions concerning China banking and finance in the new era of a global subprime crisis.


In this thesis I present a framework for intelligent software agents to manage risk in electronic marketplaces using Option Derivatives. To compare the performance of agents that trade Option Derivatives with agents not using them, I create a simulation of a financial marketplace in which software agents are vested with decision rules for buying and selling assets and Options. The motivation of my work is the need of risk management mechanisms for those Multi–Agent Systems where resources are allocated according to a market mechanism. Autonomous agents participating in such markets need to consider the risks to which they are exposed when trading in them, and to take actions to manage those risks. This thesis considers the hypothesis that software agents can benefit from trading Option Derivatives, using them as a tool to manage their exposure to uncertainty in the market. The main contributions of this thesis are: First, an abstract framework of an Option trading market is developed. This framework serves as a foundation for the implementation of computational Option trading mechanisms in systems using Market–Based resource allocation. The framework can be incorporated into existing Market–Based systems using the traded resources as the underlying assets for the Option market. Within the framework, four basic Option trading strategies are introduced, some of which reason about the risks exposed by their actions. These strategies are provided as a foundation for the development of more complex strategies that maximise the utility of the trading agents by the use of Options. The second contribution of this thesis is the analysis of the results from simulation experiments performed with the implementation of a software Multi–Agent System based on the developed Option trading framework. The system was developed in Java using the Repast simulation platform. The experiments were used to test the performance of the developed trading strategies. This research shows that agents which traded Options by choosing actions aiming to minimize their risk performed significantly better than agents using other trading strategies, in the majority of the experiments. Agents using this risk–minimizing strategy also observed a lower correlation between the asset price and their returns, for the majority of the experimented scenarios. Agents which traded Options aiming to maximize their returns performed better than their peers in the scenarios where the asset price volatility was high. Finally, it was also observed that the performance differential of the strategies increased as the uncertainty about the future price of the asset was increased.


Violence is an integral part of the sovereignist milieu involving the "Reichsbürger" and other groups. Shootouts between sovereignists and police officers in 2016 left several people injured and one police officer dead. Since then, their violence has been a subject of nationwide investigation and media reporting in Germany. The visibility of the sovereignist milieu increased significantly due to recent protests against the government's COVID-19 pandemic measures and a subsequent centralization of protest communications on the social media platform Telegram. This article examines how the use of violence is being justified within the German sovereignist milieu. Drawing from primary sources on the milieu's main planned and executed acts of violence in 2016, this article reveals a conspira-cy-ideological Manichaeism that serves both as a driving force and justification for the use of violence. In addition, evidence indicates that violence is not solely directed against government and state officials, but against groups perceived as part of an alleged conspiracy against their in-group, especially Jews and migrants. At its core, the sov-ereignist milieu spreads a thin ideology that is particularly amenable to right-wing extremism and antisemitism


ABSTRACT Uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC)-associated epididymitis is commonly diagnosed in outpatient settings. Although the infection can be successfully cleared using antimicrobial medications, 40% of patients unexplainably show persistent impaired semen parameters even after treatment. Our aim was to investigate whether pathogenic UPEC and its associated virulence factor hemolysin (hlyA) perturb the structural and functional integrity of both the epididymis and sperm, actions that may be responsible for the observed impairment and possibly a reduction of fertilization capabilities. Semen collected from patients diagnosed with E. coli-only related epididymitis showed that sperm counts were low 14 days postantimicrobial treatment regardless of hlyA status. At Day 84 following treatment, hlyA production correlated with approximately 4-fold lower sperm concentrations than in men with hlyA-negative strains. In vivo experiments with the hlyA-producing UPEC CFT073 strain in a murine epididymitis model showed that just 3 days postinfection, structural damage to the epididymis (epithelial damage, leukocyte infiltration, and edema formation) was present. This was more severe in UPEC CFT073 compared to nonpathogenic E. coli (NPEC 470) infection. Moreover, pathogenic UPEC strains prematurely activated the acrosome in vivo and in vitro. Raman microspectroscopy revealed that UPEC CFT073 undermined sperm integrity by inducing nuclear DNA damage. Consistent with these observations, the in vitro fertilization capability of hlyA-treated mouse sperm was completely abolished, although sperm were motile. These findings provide new insights into understanding the possible processes underlying clinical manifestations of acute epididymitis.


Background:
 Natural killer (NK) cells are lymphocytes involved in innate immune defence against viral infections whose function is controlled by a balance of inhibitory and activating NK receptors (NKR), shared by some T cell subsets. Healthy individuals infected with human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), a pathogen related to the development of atherosclerosis, display variable increased proportions of NK cells expressing the CD94/NKG2C activating receptor specific for HLA-E. On the other hand, some infections including HCMV may also increase the numbers of NK and T cells bearing LILRB1, an inhibitory receptor specific for HLA class I molecules expressed at late differentiation stages. LILRB1+ NK and T cells have been recently associated to acute myocardial infarction and carotid intima-media thickness, supporting the infectious burden hypothesis in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis.

 Objective:
 To evaluate NKR expression (NKG2C, NKG2A, LILRB1 and KIRs) in patients with carotid atherosclerosis according to their clinical expressivity seeking for a potential marker of high-risk carotid plaques.

 Patients and methods:
 Peripheral blood was drawn from 30 patients with carotid stenosis higher than 50% classified as asymptomatic (n=11) and symptomatic (transient ischemic attack, n=10; acute ischemic stroke, n=9). HCMV serology and plasma levels of CRP were analysed in all patients. NKR expression by NK cells and CD8+ T lymphocytes were evaluated by immunofluorescence staining and flow cytometry analysis.

 Results:
 Twenty-nine patients with carotid atherosclerosis were HCMV+. NKG2C expression by NK cells was similar in asymptomatic and symptomatic patients (17.6% ± 18.0 vs. 20 ± 19.2, p 0.7); moreover, both groups displayed as well a comparable distribution of other NKR, including LILRB1, by NK cells and CD8+ T lymphocytes. Yet, a positive correlation between the proportions of NKG2C+ NK cells and CRP plasma levels (Spearman correlation coefficient 0.5, p<0.05) was observed in symptomatic patients. In addition, LILRB1 expression by CD8+ T lymphocytes was directly related with age in the group of symptomatic patients (r 0.7, p<0.001) but not in asymptomatic patients (r 0.1, p=0.8).

 Conclusion:
 Patients at increased risk of developing an acute stroke secondary to carotid atherosclerosis display an NKR expression pattern that might be linked to chronic inflammation; its putative relationship with the infectious burden hypothesis deserves further attention.


Activity recognition which aims to accurately distinguish human actions in complex environments plays a key role in human-robot/computer interaction. However, long-lasting and similar actions will cause poor feature sequence extraction and thus lead to a reduction of the recognition accuracy. We propose a novel discriminative deep model (D3D-LSTM) based on 3D-CNN and LSTM for both single-target and interaction action recognition to improve the spatiotemporal processing performance. Our models have several notable properties: 1) A real-time feature fusion method is used to obtain a more representative feature sequence through composition of local mixtures for enhancing the performance of discriminating similar actions; 2) We introduce an improved attention mechanism that focuses on each frame individually by assigning different weights in real-time; 3) An alternating optimization strategy is proposed for our model to obtain parameters with the best performance. Because the proposed D3D-LSTM model is efficient enough to be used as a detector that recognizes various activities, a Real-set database is collected to evaluate action recognition in complex real-world scenarios. For long-term relations, we update the present memory state via the weight-controlled attention module that enables the memory cell to store better long-term features. The densely connected bimodal modal makes local perceptrons of 3D-Conv motion-aware and stores better short-term features. The proposed D3D-LSTM model has been evaluated through a series of experiments on the Real-set and open-source datasets, i.e. SBU-Kinect and MSR-action-3D. Experimental results show that the proposed D3D-LSTM model achieves new state-of-the-art results, including pushing the average rate of the SBU-Kinect to 92.40% and the average rate of the MSR-action-3D to 95.40%.


In this paper, in order to eliminate the adverse effects of blue-stain on the wood surface appearance and improve wood mechanical properties, wood compression process and wood thermal treatment process were applied into the physical modification of blue-stain Masson Pine (Pinus massoniana). The test results showed that when the specimens are hot-pressed with the compression rate of 50%, and then were heat-treated at 220°C for 2h, the wood surface color and dimension stability could be improved significantly. Moreover, the surface hardness and the compression strength of the compressed-thermal treated wood could be increased significantly compared to the untreated blue-stain wood. Based on this study, the biological properties of the specimens after compression and thermal treatments will be investigated in the future.


Purpose
Firms increasingly diversify their technological competencies to achieve different strategic objectives. This study aims to explore the impacts of technological knowledge characteristics on patenting choices for inventions created by subsidiaries in an uncertain and fast changing environment.

Design/methodology/approach
The data used in this study are patents granted to the world largest firms by the USPTO for inventions attributable to their subsidiaries in China between 1996 and 2005. In addition, the patent data from State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) of China are used for the matching in terms of filing patent applications in both USA and China for a same piece of technology. A discrete Logit model is used to examine the effects of technological distance and categories on Chinese patent application and international priority.

Findings
The findings suggest that firms have priority to seek international patent protection, instead of host country protection, for valuable subsidiary inventions in their background and marginal technological fields. In addition, a firm may seek host country legal protection simultaneously for inventions built upon knowledge from technologically distant fields.

Research limitations/implications
As we are more interested in protecting technological knowledge, the protection of other types of knowledge, such as organizational knowledge, deserves further research attentions. Moreover, future research may expand current study by including small and medium firms, as well as firms in other developing economies.

Practical implications
While the economic and legal environment in China may have evolved since studied period, the results have practical implications for firms in other developing countries that are at an early stage of catching-up or those in a host location featuring a similar uncertain and fast changing environment. In particular, the study suggests that foreign firm managers would have more strategic choices of patenting than local firms in the host country. For strategically important inventions bridging complex knowledge from different technological areas, firms could seek protection in multiple countries simultaneously, including both home country and other major markets. Furthermore, managers could choose whether or not to protect a particular category of technologies in host country depending on value of the technology to the firm and the IPR protection of host country. Finally, the approach of looking at knowledge-level characteristics, which can be easily measured through readily available intra-firm information, provides managers with a practical and useful tool to make these strategic decisions.

Originality/value
This study represents an effort to extend the understanding on how foreign MNCs could generate and appropriate valuable technologies in an uncertain and fast-changing environment. In particular, the authors focus on how MNCs could use different international patenting patterns to benefit from subsidiary inventions. Whereas previous literature mainly focuses on country-level and firm-level determinants, this study approaches the topic through the lens of knowledge-level factors. By studying how knowledge characteristics determine firm strategic behaviors, the authors offer additional justifications of the knowledge-based view of the firm. Meanwhile, the findings enrich our understanding of an important component of MNC's global strategies in managing their technologies through selectively patenting in different locations. Firms pursue diversified technologies for different strategic objectives. As subsidiary inventions become a very important source of firm competitiveness, MNCs have to face the trade-off between higher patenting costs and the appropriability of subsidiary generated knowledge. The findings suggest that it is not necessary for MNCs to protect all subsidiary inventions in host countries.


Developments in sensor technology, artificial intelligence, and network technologies like 5G has made remote operation a valuable method of controlling various types of machinery. The benefits of remote operations come with an opportunity to access hazardous environments. The major limitation of remote operation is the lack of proper sensory feedback from the machine, which in turn negatively affects situational awareness and, consequently, may risk remote operations. This article explores how to improve situational awareness via multimodal feedback (visual, auditory, and haptic) and studies how it can be utilized to communicate warnings to remote operators. To reach our goals, we conducted a controlled, within-subjects experiment in eight conditions with twenty-four participants on a simulated remote driving system. Additionally, we gathered further insights with a UX questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. Gathered data showed that the use of multimodal feedback positively affected situational awareness when driving remotely. Our findings indicate that the combination of added haptic and visual feedback was considered the best feedback combination to communicate the slipperiness of the road. We also found that the feeling of presence is an important aspect of remote driving tasks, and a requested one, especially by those with more experience in operating real heavy machinery.


The East Kaibab monocline, a compound flexure downthrown 2000 to 5000 feet on the east side, extends from the San Francisco Peaks volcanic field, Arizona, north 150 miles to Bryce Canyon, Utah. South of the Grand Canyon the monocline has several branches which make abrupt changes of strike. The main flexure west of Cameron trends east, while other segments strike northwest, north, and northeast. With many small grabens, single faults, and rows of cinder cones the flexures form a structural pattern of three intersecting trends.

The main monocline, paralleled by the Butte fault, runs north across the eastern end of the Grand Canyon. A minor branch, paralleled by the Cremation fault, runs northwest into the Grand Canyon from Grandview Point. The Colorado River follows the strike of these major structures and may have had a subsequent origin in a belt of weak Triassic strata swinging south around the plunging Kaibab arch. The Little Colorado may have developed later in a similar belt at the foot of the East Kaibab monocline.

North of the Grand Canyon the monocline forms the eastern Kaibab Plateau margin and for part of this distance is a double or triple flexure. In Utah the monocline is a single great fold in Jurassic and Cretaceous strata. At Canaan Peak the Eocene Wasatch formation unconformably overlies beveled Upper Cretaceous strata in the monocline, indicating Laramide flexing.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to describe the oral properties of Sjögren's syndrome (SS), including the determination of palatal saliva (PS) flow rate.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS
Forty-nine SS patients and 43 healthy controls participated. Subjective symptoms were recorded and clinical assessments of the oral mucosal, dental and periodontal status were made. Unstimulated whole saliva (WS) and PS flow rates, the number of decayed, missing and filled teeth (DMF-T number), the gingival bleeding index (GBI) and the periodontal probing depth (PPD) were determined.

RESULTS
Despite the decrease in the flow rate of WS in SS patients, PS was not different from those of the controls (1.57 +/- 1.02 and 1.35 +/- 2.5 microl cm(-2) min(-1), respectively). GBI (20.0% vs. 10.5%, respectively), DMF-T (27.1 +/- 6.12 vs. 23.0 +/- 6.99, respectively) and PPD (2.28 +/- 1.09 mm vs. 1.82 +/- 0.73 mm, respectively) were higher in SS compared with the controls (P < 0.05). DMF-T and PPD showed a positive correlation with anti-SSA and/or anti-SSB antibody positivity in the serum (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
Data of the present study suggest that the subjective feeling of xerostomia in SS patients is the result of a decrease in the volume of the whole saliva, and not of the viscous PS. Correlation of DMF-T and PPD with autoantibody positivity reveals that the oral health status of SS patients may be associated with the general autoimmune process.


In this expository paper, we present several open problems in number theory that have arisen while doing research in group theory. These problems are on arithmetical functions or partitions. Solving some of these problems would allow to solve some open problem in group theory.


The relationship between the low-frequency (annually averaged) salinity and oxygen concentrations in the last 30 yr in the Baltic Sea and the large-scale atmospheric circulation was statis- tically analyzed. It was found that at these time scales the evolution of salinity and oxygen is quite homogeneous in depth, i.e. deviations from the long-term mean tend to be of the same sign in the upper and deeper layers simultaneously. Moreover, the evolution of the salinity and oxygen concentrations are negatively correlated within each layer: lower than normal salinities tend to be observed simulta- neously with higher than normal oxygen concentrations, and vice versa. The statistical analysis seems to indicate that the forcing by the atmospheric circulation may be responsible for this anticorrelation between salinity and oxygen. A stronger meridional sea-level-pressure (SLP) gradient over the North Atlantic, and therefore stronger westerly winds, causes positive rainfall anomalies in the Baltic Sea catchment area and increase run-off giving rise to decreased salinities at all depths. The mechanisms by which a stronger zonal atmospheric circulation enhances the oxygen concentrations may be related either to a weakened stratification through the reduced salinity (at long time scales), or by stronger or more frequent inflows of North Sea waters (at short time scales). The influence of the atmospheric cir- culation can explain at these time scales of the order of 60 and 40% of the variability of these hydro- graphic variables, respectively. The question of how salinity and oxygen in the Baltic Sea may respond to changes of the atmospheric circulation in a global climate change scenario is also addressed. For this purpose the intensities of the relevant atmospheric circulation patterns in a transient experiment with a coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model forced with increasing anthropogenic green- house gas concentrations between the years 1860 and 2099 were estimated. In this integration the change of the atmospheric circulation most relevant for salinity and oxygen in the Baltic Sea seems to be an enhancement of the meridional SLP gradient in the North Atlantic. Thus, under the assumption that the statistical relationship between SLP and the hydrographic variables also holds in the future, this trend in the atmospheric circulation would lead to decreased salinity and improved oxygen condi- tions in the Baltic Sea.


A new design technique employing CMOS Current Feedback Operational Amplifier (CFOA) is presented. This design approach applies CFA OTA as input stage cascaded with class AB cross-coupled buffer stage. The performance parameters of CMOS CFOA such as bandwidth, slew rate, settling time are extensively improved compared with conventional CFOA. These parameters are very important in high frequency applications that use CMOS CFOA as an active building block such as A/D converters, and active filters. Also the DC input offset voltage and harmonic distortion (HD) are very low values compared with the conventional CMOS CFOA are obtained. P-Spice simulation results using 0.35 μm MI-ETEC CMOS process parameters shows considerable improvement over existing CMOS CFOA simulated model. Some of the performance parameters for example are DC gain of 67.2 dB, open-loop gain bandwidth product of 104 MHz, slew rate (SR+) of +91.3 V/μS, THD of -67 dB and DC input offset voltage of -0.2 mV.


Functional constipation is a common bowel disorder leading to activity restrictions and reduced health-related quality of life. Typically, this condition is initially managed with prescription of laxatives or fiber supplementation, or both. However, these interventions are often ineffective and fail to address the underlying pathophysiology and impairments contributing to this condition. Physical therapists possess the knowledge and skills to diagnose and manage a wide range of musculoskeletal and motor coordination impairments that may contribute to functional constipation. Relevant anatomic, physiologic, and behavioral contributors to functional constipation are discussed with regard to specific constipation diagnoses. A framework for physical therapist examination of impairments that can affect gastrointestinal function, including postural, respiratory, musculoskeletal, neuromuscular, and behavioral impairments, is offered. Within the context of diagnosis-specific patient cases, multifaceted interventions are described as they relate to impairments underlying functional constipation type. The current state of evidence to support these interventions and patient recommendations is summarized. This perspective article aims not only to heighten physical therapists' awareness and management of this condition, but also to stimulate clinical questioning that will open avenues for future research to improve patient care.


A multitude of fatwa services sprung up on the Internet during the last few years and has grown since. One finds askimam.org, islamicity.com, islamonline.net, and islamqa.com among them. Yet it is not only these private Muslim jurisconsults who maintain websites, but also government-affiliated muftis and agencies have increasingly established an online presence. At the same time the private online muftis are not a monolithic group themselves. Therefore this paper sheds some light on the different actors and their competition. Who are they? And, more importantly still, which norms do they set? This paper argues that there is a competition between these fatwa services for the conclusive authority of Islamic legal interpretations and their creators over the minds of Muslims situated in non-Muslim political discourse spheres. Within the context of the norm-setting processes these online fatwas have the potential to influence and shape Muslims' opinions especially in predominantly non-Muslim societies. So how do the norms presented relate to existing norms there? Examples of where the Muslim authorities position themselves when it comes to contested or topical issues like migration and integration into the states of Western Europe will be provided. The research is initially based on a quantitative content analysis regarding these questions. None-theless it shall be supported by a theoretical framework including the notion of Peter Mandaville's (2001) "modes of translocality".


Background: Chronic periodontitis is a multifactorial disease which has several promoting effect on general health and when the lactating mothers are affected the cytokines associated with it is secreted in milk that had a severe effect on the health of the infant. Interleukin-6 is an anti-inflammatory and pro-inflammatory cytokine with extensive range as a biological mediator in chronic inflammation of periodontal disease; its elevation had an effect on infant growth. The purpose of the present study was to assess the effect of interleukin-6 in human milk on infant's growth. Materials and methods: A comparative study includes lactating mothers with age range 30-40 years and their infants with age range 3-12 months. The study group includes mothers with chronic periodontitis and the control group includes 45 mothers with healthy periodontium. Milk interleukin-6 is measured in lactating mothers by using the enzyme-linked immune sorbent assay (ELISA). Infant growth was recorded according to CDC growth charts and National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys in 2007. Results: The results show mothers with chronic periodontitis have a higher level of milk IL6 than mothers with healthy periodontium; the result was statistically highly significant, even though the result of the effect of milk IL6 on infant's growth wasn't significant statistically. Conclusion: Mothers with chronic periodontitis have a higher level of milk IL6 than mothers with healthy periodontium. High level of proinflammatory milk IL6 will effect infant growth and result in retardation of normal infant growth like underweight, overweight and short stature infants. High level of milk interleukin 6 in mothers with chronic periodontitis could influence negatively on their infant's growth.


Abstract RNA interference (RNAi) is a powerful strategy for gene function analysis, and it is also widely studied in view of a promising use in pest control. The red palm weevil, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Oliver) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), is one of the most devastating pests of palm in the world. Conventional pest management practices are not adequate to control this insect, thus the development of efficient approaches with minimal environmental impact are needed. In this work, the potential of RNAi in R. ferrugineus has been investigated through the silencing of three different genes (α-amylase, V-ATPase, Ecdysone receptor). For each gene we tested two different doses (1,500 and 5,500 ng) and two delivery techniques (injection and ingestion), evaluating both gene knockdown and mortality on insects. Results show that RNAi mediated gene silencing in R. ferrugineus varies from gene to gene, and that the response is dose-dependent, with stronger effects when dsRNA was administered by injection. In parallel, the same study was carried out with the model organism Tribolium castaneum Herbst (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae), with results showing a different pattern of response, although the two insects belong to the same order.


Chinese people are often portrayed in media and films as a closed, mysterious community, master-minded behind the scenes by cruel gangsters and drug barons. This book confounds these stereotypes and exposes the systematic nature of racist ideology through a critical analysis of the myth of the "Yellow Peril", epitomized by the character of Fu Manchu, the stereotypical Oriental master-villain popularized in fiction and film of the 1920s. The myth is contrasted with the real lives of the Chinese communities in Britain and the contextualized historical relations between Britain and China. The persistence of the underlying themes and images in popular culture has implications for the present-day Chinese in Britain.


Geometric alignment appears in a variety of applications, ranging from domain adaptation, optimal transport, and normalizing flows in machine learning; optical flow and learned augmentation in computer vision and deformable registration within biomedical imaging. A recurring challenge is the alignment of domains whose topology is not the same; a problem that is routinely ignored, potentially introducing bias in downstream analysis. As a first step towards solving such alignment problems, we propose an unsupervised algorithm for the detection of changes in image topology. The model is based on a conditional variational autoencoder and detects topological changes between two images during the registration step. We account for both topological changes in the image under spatial variation and unexpected transformations. Our approach is validated on two tasks and datasets: detection of topological changes in microscopy images of cells, and unsupervised anomaly detection brain imaging.


BACKGROUND: In the lower airways an association has been found between early phase reaction (EPR), late phase reaction (LPR), and bronchial hyperreactivity. However, this association has not been shown for the upper airways in nasal pollen challenge studies. A study was undertaken to determine whether the EPR, LPR, and nasal hyperreactivity are related in perennial allergic rhinitis. METHODS: Twenty four patients with rhinitis who were allergic to house dust mite (HDM) were challenged with HDM extract. The nasal response was monitored by symptom scores and nasal lavages for up to 9.5 hours after challenge and concentrations of albumin, tryptase, and eosinophil cationic protein (ECP) in the lavage fluid were measured. Thirteen patients (defined as dual responders) had increased symptom scores between 3.5 and 9.5 hours compared with the baseline score. The other 11 patients (defined as early responders) showed an isolated EPR only. Nasal hyperreactivity was determined by nasal histamine challenge 24 hours later. RESULTS: Dual responders showed a significantly higher symptom score, albumin influx, and tryptase release during the EPR. During the late phase (3.5-9.5 hours) albumin influx was significantly increased at most time points and ECP release was significantly higher at 9.5 hours in the dual responder group. Dual responders showed a significantly stronger response to all doses of histamine. The area under the curve (AUC) of symptom scores during EPR and LPR and the AUC of the histamine dose response were significantly correlated (EPR-LPR: r = 0.49, p < 0.01; EPR-histamine: r = 0.75, p < 0.001; LPR-histamine: r = 0.66, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: In patients with perennial allergic rhinitis the nasal responses to allergen and histamine are associated. Dual responders have an increased EPR, increased levels of mediators, and increased allergen-induced hyperreactivity.


Medieval patience discussions provide an illuminating context for understanding the type of heroism Sir Gawain manifests in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Because of the influence of classical authors on the tradition of virtues and vices, a genre that evolved to guide medieval confession, such discussions circulated widely during the Middle Ages, and the virtue was commonly associated with fortitude, which was divided into aggressive and enduring types and negotiated emotions such as anger and fear. While critics often regard Sir Gawain's heroism as passive, the nature of his quest, his final self-assessment, and, especially, the emotions that the poet foregrounds all suggest the tradition of patience. The necessity that Gawain face death without the possibility of retaliation, and of thereby fortifying himself with anger, naturally threatens his heroic, and particularly martial, identity.


Information about trafficability, or the condition of a roadway section with regard to its being traveled over by vehicles, is one of the most critical factors for roadway operation in winter. Specifically, when traveling on snowy or icy surfaces, the traction varies per vehicle types, tire types, geometric characteristics of the roadway, and conditions of the roadway surfaces. In general, front-wheel drive or four-wheel drive vehicles have better traction performance on snowy or icy surface than rear-wheel drive vehicles, and the latter type vehicle causes more serious traffic congestion when there is unexpected snowfall. Thus, traffic information regarding trafficability with respect to vehicle types, geometric characteristics of roadway sections, and roadway surface conditions can provide a foundation to make a decision whether to use the associated roadway sections for roadway operators as well as users. Based on the preceding premise, the objective of this study is to present a methodology for developing a trafficability index with respect to vehicle types, geometric characteristics of roadway sections, and roadway surface conditions.


Diadenosine tetraphosphate (AP4A) has a considerable vasodilating effect. Its dose was adjusted to decrease mean arterial pressure (MAP) by 20%, 40%, 50%, 60%, and 80% of the pretreatment value, and the effects on hemodynamics and gas exchange were evaluated. AP4A produced a dose–dependent decrease in MAP within the range of doses which decreased blood pressure by up to 60%. Heart rate remained constant at hypotension levels of 40% or less, but decreased significantly at hypotension levels of 50% or more. Cardiac output increased significantly at hypotension levels of 40% or less. Systemic vascular resistance (SVR) showed a significant decrease at that time. No significant changes were observed in central venous pressure and pulmonary capillary wedge pressure at any level of hypotension. Arterial oxygen tension and calculated pulmonary shunt ratio showed no change. Base excess and pH were decreased significantly with a 60% or 80% fall of blood pressure. In conclusion, APtA seems to act on the resistance vessels and cause a decrease in SVR.


In our recent study, we have demonstrated that short carbon chain n-alcohols (up to octanol) stimulated while long carbon chain n-alcohols inhibited the conductance of connexin (Cx) 36 (Cx36) gap junction (GJ) channels. In contrast, GJ channels composed of other types of Cxs all were inhibited by n-alcohols independent of their carbon chain length. To identify the putative structural domains of Cx36, responsible for the dual effect of n-alcohols, we performed structural modeling of Cx36 protein docking with hexanol and isoflurane that stimulated as well as nonanol and carbenoxolone that inhibited the conductance of Cx36 GJs and revealed their multiple common docking sites and a single pocket accessible only to hexanol and isoflurane. The pocket is located in the vicinity of three unique cysteine residues, namely C264 in the fourth, and C92 and C87 in the second transmembrane domain of the neighboring Cx36 subunits. To examine the hypothesis that disulphide bonding might be involved in the stimulatory effect of hexanol and isoflurane, we generated cysteine substitutions in Cx36 and demonstrated by a dual whole-cell patch-clamp technique that in HeLa (human cervix carcinoma cell line) and N2A (mouse neuroblastoma cell line) cells these mutations reversed the stimulatory effect of hexanol and isoflurane to inhibitory one, typical of other Cxs that lack respective cysteines and a specific docking pocket for these compounds. Our findings suggest that the stimulatory effect of hexanol and isoflurane on Cx36 GJ conductance could be achieved by re-shuffling of the inter-subunit disulphide bond between C264 and C92 to the intra-subunit one between C264 and C87.


Myriad research establishes that Easterners think more
holistically (i.e., attend to the "big picture" of how the world
fits together and rely more on intuition) than Westerners do. Yet
little is known about how Easterners integrate, structure, and make
sense the information gleaned through holistic thinking. This paper
proposes that, compared to Westerners, Easterners may rely more on
analogical reasoning to integrate information and gain a sense of
understanding their worlds. Four studies provide evidence that
Easterners rely more on analogical reasoning that Westerners do.
Compared to Westerners, Easterners found it easier to generate
analogical explanations for understanding an outcome, preferred
analogical to non-analogical explanations, showed some evidence of
being more likely to spontaneously apply analogical solutions to
the Duncker ray tumor problem, and tended to use more individual
analogies in cultural products like children's stories. Easterners,
however, did not show evidence of being better at highly structured
analogical reasoning (e.g., the Raven's matrices) than Westerners.
These findings suggest that Easterners and Westerners may both be
able to reason analogically when required, but Easterners may
spontaneously rely more on analogical reasoning to gain a sense of
understanding of the world.


OBJECTIVES
To determine the normative distribution of time elapsed for blood bank personnel to fill nonscheduled operating room (OR) blood component orders in hospital communities throughout the United States, and to examine hospital blood bank practices associated with faster blood component delivery times.

DESIGN
Participants in the College of American Pathologists Q-Probes laboratory quality improvement program collected data prospectively on the times elapsed for blood bank personnel to fill nonscheduled emergent orders from hospital ORs for red blood cell (RBC) products, fresh frozen plasma (FFP), and platelets (PLTs). Participants also completed questionnaires describing their hospitals' and blood banks' laboratory and transfusion practices.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS
Four hundred sixty-six public and private institutions located in 48 states in the United States (n = 444), Canada (n = 9), Australia (n = 8), the United Kingdom (n = 4), and Spain (n = 1).

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
The median time elapsed between requests for blood components by OR personnel and the retrieval of those components by blood component transport personnel, and the median time elapsed between requests for blood components by OR personnel and the arrival of those components in ORs.

RESULTS
Participants submitted data on 12 647 units of RBCs, FFP, and PLTs. The median aggregate request-to-retrieval turnaround times (TATs) for RBCs, FFP, and PLTs ranged from 30 to 35 minutes, and the median aggregate request-to-arrival TATs for RBCs, FFP, and PLTs ranged from 33 to 39 minutes. Most of the TAT was consumed by events occurring prior to, rather than after release of components from blood banks. Shorter prerelease TATs were associated with having surgical schedules that listed patients' names and procedures available to blood bank personnel prior to surgeries, and having adequate clotted specimens in the blood bank and completed type-and-screen procedures performed before requests for blood components were submitted to blood banks. Among the fastest-performing 10% of participants (90th percentile and above), request-to-retrieval TATs ranged from 12 to 24 minutes for the 3 blood components, whereas among the slowest-performing 10% of participants (10th percentile and below), request-to-retrieval TATs ranged from 63 to 115 minutes for the 3 components. Median TATs ranged from 33 to 37 minutes for the 3 components. Institutions with TATs in the fastest-performing 25th percentile more frequently stored cross-matched RBCs in the OR daily, stocked PLTs for unexpected surgical use, stored PLTs in or near the OR, and had laboratory rather than nonlaboratory personnel deliver components to the OR than did those institutions with TATs in the slowest-performing 25th percentile.

CONCLUSIONS
Hospital blood bank personnel can deliver blood components to the OR in slightly longer than 30 minutes, measured from the time that those units are requested by OR personnel. Practices aimed at saving time before components are released from blood banks will be more efficient in reducing overall TAT than those practices aimed at saving time after components are released from blood banks. Specific practices associated with shorter blood delivery TATs included providing blood bank personnel with access to the names of surgical patients potentially requiring blood components, having pretransfusion testing completed on those patients prior to surgery, having ample blood products on hand, and having laboratory personnel control blood product delivery.


In this work, Hertz indentation method was proposed to investigate the hardness, local strength and cyclic contact fatigue of brittle ceramic coating at high temperatures. The testing fixture for high temperature tests is designed, which is made of SiC. A Si3N4 ball with a diameter of 5 mm is used as the indenter and the CVD SiC/SiC composite is used as testing samples. The applied loads are ranged from 300 N to 700 N and the temperatures are among of room temperature to 1100 oC. The critical load and indent size are used to calculate the Brinell hardness and local strength of CVD SiC coating at room temperature and high temperatures. The contact damage under different loading number and period are analyzed. The mechanisms for the improved local strength and contact fatigue lifetime are discussed.


Winnie the Witch is an accident waiting to happen! In 'Winnie and the Cog' you'll find her creating a most unusual pet; in 'Winnie's School Dinner' she has some new interpretations of canteen favourites, in 'Winnie Fixes It' she takes on some home improvements with dramatic results; and in 'Winnie the Twit' Winnie fancies herself as a bit of a naturalist. Four crazily funny stories featuring everyone's favourite witch, her big black cat, Wilbur, and a zany supporting cast of new characters. Korky Paul's exuberant black line illustrations complement the humour, slapstick, and moments of real drama that run through each story. Pure magic!


Nearly 30% of the input energy to a diesel engine is wasted through the exhaust gas; thus, considerable attention has been directed toward developing efficient heat recovery systems for these engines. Given the demonstrated ability of nanofluids to boost the heat transfer rate of heat exchangers, these heat transfer fluids merit consideration for use in diesel exhaust heat recovery systems. In this study, the effects of employing nanofluids on the optimum design of these systems are investigated. An existing heat diesel engine exhaust heat recovery system is modeled to work with Al2O3/water and a modified imperialist competitive algorithm is employed for the optimization. Seven variables consisting of five heat exchanger geometric characteristics together with nanoparticle volume fraction and coolant mass flow rate are considered as design variables. The heat exchanger cost and charging rate of the storage tank are optimization objectives, while the greenhouse gas savings of the heat recovery system are assessed for measuring the environmental impact of the energy recovery. The results indicate that the proposed approach can overcome the challenge of finding the near-optimal design of this complex system and using nanofluids enhances the performance of the heat recovery heat exchanger.


This study was conducted to determine the penetration of 5% trisodium phosphate solution at various depths within punctures and calyces of apples spot inoculated with Escherichia coli O157:H7 and the effect of solution agitation on destruction of the pathogen. Sanitizer solutions containing radiolabeled disodium phosphate (DSP32) were able to penetrate apple tissues through punctures and calyx cavities. However, agitation of the solutions did not result in significantly greater penetration in these areas (P > 0.05). Overall, there were 1.57- and 1.1-log reductions of pathogen cells within 4-h-old punctures treated with and without trisodium phosphate solution agitation, respectively. Sanitizer solutions were effective in destroying pathogen cells residing within the upper 4.2-mm region of the punctures. Destruction of pathogen cells within open and closed calyces occurred mainly within the basin and the upper 3 mm of the calyx cavity. Treatment with agitated sanitizer solution resulted in a 0.67-log reduction in pathogen concentration within open calyces. In contrast, treatment of closed calyces resulted in a 1.37-log reduction, mainly within the basin. Washing with water alone appeared to result in further penetration of the cells within calyces without significantly reducing the number of pathogen cells (P > 0.05). To develop more effective methods for reducing contamination on produce, it is important to know the extent of sanitizer penetration and its effect on destruction of pathogens.


We investigate the full doping and strain-dependent phase diagram of the normal state of magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (TBG). Using comprehensive Hartree-Fock calculations, we show that at temperatures where superconductivity is absent the global phase structure can be understood based on the competition and coexistence between three types of intertwined orders: a fully symmetric phase, spatially uniform flavor-symmetry-breaking states, and an incommensurate Kekulé spiral (IKS) order. For small strain, the IKS phase, recently proposed as a candidate order at all nonzero integer fillings of the moiré unit cell, is found to be ubiquitous for noninteger doping as well. We demonstrate that the corresponding electronic compressibility and Fermi surface structure are consistent with the "cascade" physics and Landau fans observed experimentally. This suggests a unified picture of the phase diagram of TBG in terms of IKS order.


The problem of delay-probability-distribution-dependent stability analysis for a class of discrete-time stochastic delayed neural networks (DSNNs) with mixed time delays is investigated. Here the mixed time delays are assumed to be discrete and distributed time delays and the uncertainties are assumed to be time varying norm bounded parameter uncertainties. The information of the probability distribution of the time-varying delay is considered and transformed into parameter matrices of the transferred DSNN model, in which the time-varying delay is characterized by introducing a Bernoulli stochastic variable. By constructing a new augmented Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional and introducing some new analysis techniques, a novel delay-probability-distribution-dependent stable criterion for the DSNN to be stable in the mean square sense are derived. These criteria are formulated in the forms of linear matrix inequalities.


A 28-year-old woman was admitted to the ENT Department of the Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University because of left otitis externa, chronic mastoiditis and facial nerve palsy (lower motor neurone). Left radical mastoidectomy with wide debridement of granulation and necrotic tissue at ear canal, dura, sigmoid sinus, ossicle and facial nerve were done two weeks after admission. Multiple pus culture from the lesion revealed different types of organisms e.g. proteus mirabilis, beta strep non group A, and enterococci beta type. Several aminoglycosides were alternately given for two months without improvement of ear infection. She developed carpopedal spasm with hypocalcemia after three weeks of such treatment. Hypomagnesemia was recognized. Calcium and milk supplement gave temporary relief, but permanent relief was obtained after aminoglycoside was discontinued. Serum electrolyte had reversed to normal on follow-up.


In recent decades, large margin methods such as Support Vector Machines (SVMs) are supposed to be the state-of-the-art of supervised learning methods for classification of hyperspectral data. However, the results of these algorithms mainly depend on the quality and quantity of available training data. To tackle down the problems associated with the training data, the researcher put effort into extending the capability of large margin algorithms for unsupervised learning. One of the recent proposed algorithms is Maximum Margin Clustering (MMC). The MMC is an unsupervised SVMs algorithm that simultaneously estimates both the labels and the hyperplane parameters. Nevertheless, the optimization of the MMC algorithm is a non-convex problem. Most of the existing MMC methods rely on the reformulating and the relaxing of the non-convex optimization problem as semi-definite programs (SDP), which are computationally very expensive and only can handle small data sets. Moreover, most of these algorithms are two-class classification, which cannot be used for classification of remotely sensed data. In this paper, a new MMC algorithm is used that solve the original non-convex problem using Alternative Optimization method. This algorithm is also extended for multi-class classification and its performance is evaluated. The results of the proposed algorithm show that the algorithm has acceptable results for hyperspectral data clustering.


Snags (dead‐standing trees) are biological legacies that remain after disturbances in forests. We enhanced the ecological underpinnings of snag management within the context of mixed‐pine forest restoration in the northern Lake States by quantifying characteristics of live trees and snags within eighty-five 500‐m2 plots at Seney National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) in eastern Upper Michigan. Study plots represented reference conditions (i.e. no past harvesting, relatively unaltered fire regime) and altered (i.e. harvested, altered fire regime) conditions. We also compared three treatments for creating snags from live trees. Snags were found in 87% of the reference plots and 85% of the altered plots. The only snag variables that differed between plot types were mean snag basal area, which was greater in altered plots (Student's t‐test, p = 0.04), and mean percent total basal area of snags (greater in reference plots, p = 0.06). The composition of snags differed only in the 10‐ and 25‐cm diameter classes (Multi‐Response Permutation Procedure, p < 0.10). The percentage of snags that developed into the most advanced decay class (DC) differed among treatments after 4 years (χ2 = 16.49, p < 0.01), with 26% of girdled trees, 3% of prescribed fire trees, and zero topped trees reaching DC5. Logistic regression illustrated that the influence of predictor variables on DC development varied by species and treatment. The findings from this study, past studies, and ongoing projects at Seney NWR are directly applicable to innovative management of snags in mixed‐pine forests.


In the 2007 report of World Health Organization (WHO) it was reported that in 2005 a great proportion of 1.8 million people died because of food and drinking water contamination (Velusamy et al., 2010). Fresh food product such as, fruits and vegetables carry a natural non-pathogenic epiphytic micro-flora, but during the food chain: harvest, transportation and further processing and handling the produce can be contaminated with pathogens from human or animal sources (Anon, 2002).
While conventional methods used to evaluate pasteurization efficiency are based on cultivation in vitro, it has been ascertained that, under environmental stress conditions (e.g. nutrient limitation, pressure, temperature), a number of pathogens enter in a so-called Viable But Not Cultivable (VBNC) state, becoming eventually more resistant to stress and thus escaping to detection by cultivation methods. Improving health risk assessment associated with the increasing consumption of minimally processed fresh food products is a crucial need. To reach this objective, in the first part of my PhD project I set up and validated cultivation-independent bacterial viability assays, propidium monoazide quantitative PCR (PMA-qPCR) and flow cytometry (FCM), to monitor bacterial populations in food after Supercritical Carbon Dioxide (SC-CO2) treatment, that is one of the most promising non-thermal pasteurization technology in the age of the increasing demand for "ready-to-eat" and minimally-processed food products. The efficiency of SC-CO2 treatment was evaluated on bacterial liquid cultures, on bacteria spiked both on a synthetic solid substrate (LB agar) and on some fresh food products, including carrots, coconut and dry cured ham. The results indicated that the treatment is more efficient on bacteria spiked on LB agar, and that bacterial inactivation is accompanied by a reduction of their biovolume. Total bacterial inactivation on food products was reached for both Escherichia coli and Listeria monocytogenes, satisfying both the US and European requirements (CFSAN/FSIS, 2003; European Commission, 2005). Salmonella enterica was instead more resistant to treatment, suggesting future experiments consisting in the application of a combination between SC-CO2 and other techniques alternative to heat pasteurization, such as ultrasounds or Pulsed Electrical Field.
FCM and PMA-qPCR data showed that a fraction of bacterial cells not detectable by plate counts maintained the integrity of their membrane (at least 102 cells/g for each bacterial species) suggested that the cells entered in a VBNC state. Comprehensively, the FCM assay showed the best performance as a bacterial viability test method, permitting to evaluate with high sensitivity the efficiency of treatment, to discriminate subpopulations of cells with different level of membrane permeabilization, and to identify variations in biovolume and alterations of the cellular surface. The method could be applied, with some adjustments, to any field where determining microbial viability status is of importance, including food, environment or in the clinic.
Permeabilization of the cell membrane has been proposed to be the first event leading to cell inactivation or death after SC-CO2 treatment (Garcia-Gonzalez et al., 2007; Spilimbergo et al., 2009).The Permeabilization of membrane induced by SC-CO2 was also observed in Salmonella enterica (Kim et al., 2009a; Tamburini et al., 2013) and in Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Spilimbergo et al., 2010). Whether SC-CO2 has a direct effect on the bacterial membrane or permeabilization is a consequence of cell death remains an open question. In the second part of the Thesis to increase knowledge on the mechanism of bacterial inactivation mediated by SC-CO2 lipidomic profiles (HPLC-IT-ESI-MS), bacterial depolarization/permeabilization analysis (FCM) and gene expression studies of enzymes involved in phospholipids biosynthesis were performed on E. coli K12 MG1665. The data indicated that after 15 min of SC-CO2 treatment most of bacterial cells lost their membrane potential (95%) and membrane integrity (81% of permeabilized and 18% of partially-permeabilized cells). Bacterial permeabilization was associated to a 20% decrease of cellular biovolume and to a strong reduction (more than 50%) of all Phosphatidylglycerol (PG) membrane species, but without altering their average unsaturation index (1.30 ±0.02) and the average acyl chain on the glycerol backbone (33.30 ±0.03). The process acts more efficiently on PG than on PE (Phosphatidylethanolamine) head group phospholipids. Bacteria responded to treatment up-regulating the expression level of PssA gene, involved in PEs synthesis, since PssA activity is regulated by mole fraction of PGs and Cardiolin in the membrane. However still remains to understand why only PG species have been found to strongly decrease during the treatments. Further studies would be necessary, including phospholipid biosynthesis mutant analysis.


Polyacrylonitrile-metal-O-montmorillonite nanocomposites were prepared by means of in situ polymerization. The Na-montmorillonite was modified by quaternary ammonium salt after the exchange of its interlayer cations with Ni2+. Infrared spectra and X-ray powder diffraction were employed to characterize the obtained polyacrylonitrile-metal-O-montmorillonite. The results of FTIR show that metal-O-montmorillonite has been concerned with the polymerization of PAN. The result of X-ray powder diffraction shows that the inserting of the acrylonitrile monomer can enlarge the interlayer space of montmorillonite. It is also shown that the polyacrylonitrile-metal-O- montmorillonite nanocomposites have been synthesized. The thermal stability of PAN /MMT is better than that of pure PAN.


The Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF) CoMMpass trial (NCT145429) is a longitudinal study of 1000 patients with newly-diagnosed multiple myeloma from clinical sites in the United States, Canada, Spain, and Italy. Each patient receives a treatment regimen containing a proteasome inhibitor, immunumodulatory agent, or both. Clinical parameters are collected at study enrollment and every three months through the five-year observation period. To identify molecular determinants of clinical outcome each baseline and progression tumor specimen is characterized using Whole Genome Sequencing, Exome Sequencing, and RNA sequencing. This will be the first public presentation of the interim analysis seven cohort with 760 enrolled patients of whom 565 are molecularly characterized. This cohort of patients includes 14 patients with baseline and secondary samples along with 7 patients with characterized tumor samples from the bone marrow and peripheral blood.

Although the median follow-up time for the cohort is only 260 days the patients on proteasome and IMiD based combinations are currently showing a PFS and OS benefit compared to those receiving combinations with each agent alone. From the raw mutational analysis we identified 24 significant genes that are recurrently mutated and the mutated allele is detectably expressed in all but one, DNAH5. Suggesting these mutations are likely contributing to myelomagenesis through an unconventional mechanism. Interestingly, DIS3 mutations are independent of KRAS, NRAS, and BRAF indicating a potential mechanistic link while PRKD2 mutations are associated with t(4;14). To identify events driving the initiation of myeloma we performed a detailed clonality analysis using a bayesian clustering method that corrects for copy number abnormalities and tumor purity to assign mutations into distinct clonal branches versus the initiating trunk mutations. On average 63.8% of mutations are trunk mutations and in 86.7% of patients at least one trunk mutation is associated with somatic hypermutation of an immunoglobulin gene as expected in a late stage B-cell malignancy. This identified many expressed trunk mutations that did not come out in the classic significance analysis like ATM, EGR1, and CCND1. To identify molecular subtypes we performed unsupervised clustering using a consensus clustering approach on independent discovery and validation cohorts, which identified 12 distinct subtypes, using a combination of silhouette score and cumulative distribution of consensus scores. This analysis identified two distinct groups associated with t(4;14) with mutations in FGFR3 and DIS3 being exclusive to one subgroup. In addition, this analysis separates patients with cyclin D translocations into three different groups, with one group having the second lowest PFS proportion. Three patients without CCND1 or CCND3 translocations were found to have IgH translocations targeting CCND2. The MAF subgroup was associated with the lowest OS and PFS proportion, and the three MAF/MAFB translocation negative patients in the subgroup all had MAFA translocations. The remaining 6 subgroups are associated with hyperdiploid copy number profiles and harbor the majority of the IgH-MYC translocation events. Two of the hyperdiploid groups are associated with a low level of NFKB activation compared to the remaining four, one of these is defined by the highest proliferation index but paradoxically the other has the second worst OS proportion. Another group is enriched with FAM46C and NRAS mutations. The genomic profiles of the paired tumors isolated from the peripheral blood and bone marrow are highly similar indicating these are not genetically distinct tumor compartments, at least in this subset of seven patients. Applying our bayesian clustering method to the serial samples resolved additional clonal clusters as mutations with similar cancer cell fractions at diagnosis clearly diverged at later timepoints. These analyses have identified tumor initiating mutations and new subtypes of myeloma, which are associated with distinct molecular events and clinical outcomes.

Disclosures Jagannath: Novartis: Honoraria; Bristol Myers Squibb: Honoraria; Celgene: Honoraria; Merck: Honoraria; Janssen: Honoraria. Siegel: Celgene Corporation: Consultancy, Speakers Bureau; Amgen: Speakers Bureau; Takeda: Speakers Bureau; Novartis: Speakers Bureau; Merck: Speakers Bureau. Vij: Takeda, Onyx: Research Funding; Celgene, Onyx, Takeda, Novartis, BMS, Sanofi, Janssen, Merck: Consultancy. Zimmerman: Amgen: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Celgene: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Millennium: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Onyx: Honoraria. Niesvizky: Celgene: Consultancy, Speakers Bureau. Rifkin: Onyx Pharmaceuticals: Consultancy, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Celgene: Consultancy, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Cambridge, MA, USA, a wholly owned subsidiary of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited: Consultancy, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees. Lonial: Millennium: Consultancy, Research Funding; Onyx: Consultancy, Research Funding; Novartis: Consultancy, Research Funding; Bristol-Myers Squibb: Consultancy, Research Funding; Janssen: Consultancy, Research Funding; Celgene: Consultancy, Research Funding.


Hemophiliacs often have mild anemia, and hemolysis has been suggested as the likely mechanism on the basis of the reduced serum haptoglobin values frequently observed in these patients. It has been suggested that hypohaptoglobinemia results from isohemagglutinins or other contaminating proteins in the infused factor concentrates. The advent and increased utilization of Factor VIII concentrates that are highly purified by use of monoclonal antibodies have provided the opportunity to study whether proteins other than Factor VIII contained in the concentrate induce hemolysis. Of 49 consecutively studied Factor VIII‐deficient hemophiliacs, 19 (39%) had a reduced serum haptoglobin level (< 27 mg/dl). In particular, 16 of 35 (46%) of patients receiving only monoclonally purified Factor VIII products (Monoclate or Hemofil‐M) had a reduced serum haptoglobin value. Haptoglobin measurements were variable on repeat measurement in 8 patients. Haptoglobin levels did not correlate with type or severity of hemophilia, hemoglobin value, or alterations in liver function. Low serum haptoglobin values were also observed in children with leukemia, without apparent hemolysis, who had extensive cutaneous hemorrhage associated with thrombocytopenia. We propose that reduced serum haptoglobin values in hemophiliacs do not result from immune‐mediated hemolysis due to contaminating proteins in the concentrate. Moreover, hypohaptoglobinemia may not be due to hemolysis at all but may instead result from dissolution of hematomas and other foci of internal hemorrhage.


In view of the problems that Security personnel who faced with an emergency response can not be timely in the process of duty, we propose and establish a monitoring system based on active RFID technology. The system uses active RFID Reader and the communication protocol between Reader and the host computer to monitor the status of security personnel. Tag's configuration allows more flexible application of the tag and we can use the configuration to change the parameters of the tag. The tag's size is small and it has flexible applicability and strong adaptability. Test results showed that the tag's test frequency can be controlled to 10HZ and 400HZ, and monitoring can also set their own threshold. The rate of Reader is 100%, and the tag can launch to about 100 meter. The system not only solves security system faced with an emergency problem, but also for long distance transmission of RFID provides a theoretical basis.


Precise destination prediction from partial trajectories have a huge potential impact on intelligent location-based approaches. Traditional prediction approaches, which treat trajectories as one-dimensional sequences and process them in a single scale, fail to capture diverse and rich two-dimensional patterns of trajectories in different spatial scales. Meanwhile, most models treat each portion of a trajectory equally in terms of contributing to final destination prediction. This is in conflict with our observation that there exists some albeit small local areas playing much more important roles for destination prediction than the others. To address these problems, we propose a novel prediction algorithm T-CONV, which models trajectories as two-dimensional images, and then feed them into a convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture to extract multi-scale patterns for precise destination prediction. Furthermore, we propose a method to extract regions with different relevance for final output of T-CONV, and further explore the local patterns of important regions by integrating multi-scope local-enhancement areas based on attention mechanism. The comprehensive experiments based on two large-scale real taxi trajectory datasets show that T-CONV can achieve higher accuracy than the state-of-the-art methods, demonstrating the strength of the multi-scale and multi-scope feature extraction mechanisms in trajectory mining.


Since the beginning of the 20th century, modernism introduced to the world an architectural composite that consists of concrete, steel and glass. Heading into the 21st century, the use of these three materials has only expanded as it continues to be the most economically efficient means of construction. While digital technology in design and construction continues to evolve, the materials at which we construct architecture has remained the same. Given the rapid growth of the human population, new and more sustainable approaches to construction methodologies and materials need to be explored and utilised. This research will demonstrate the potential of freeform 3D printing as a sustainable and efficient alternative building method. It outlines contemporary digital design techniques including computation and simulation tools as a means to define and test this proposed building method including structural optimisation tools to create the most structurally efficient form from additive manufacturing. The computational methods described are then applied to a manufacturing process that includes a 6-axis robotic arm. The final result is a building methodology that supports a computational workflow from design conception to manufacture.


China has shifted from a centrally planned to a market based economy in 1978. Since then, the country has experienced rapid economic growth and social development. With a more liberal economic environment, the voice of civil society becomes stronger, which incentives the emergence of philanthropy and charitable giving. As a result, the government has begun to encourage private donation and development of foundations, while watching carefully and constraining its activities. By analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data, this paper explores and evaluates the effectiveness of this emerging sector. The paper further advocates for improving current charity law and developing a sustainable giving model. Policy recommendations will be given to address issues in shaping a better future of the philanthropic sector.


In-memory computing using memristive devices is a promising non-von Neumann approach for making energy- efficient deep learning inference hardware. Synaptic units comprising one or more memristive devices organized in a crossbar configuration are capable of performing the matrix-vector multiply operations in place by exploiting the Kirchhoff's circuits laws. In this paper, we propose a weight mapping algorithm to efficiently program such a synaptic unit comprising multiple phase change memory (PCM) devices to target conductance values. To evaluate the programming scheme, a simulator based on the measured programming characteristics of 10,000 PCM devices is developed. It is shown that the synaptic unit can be programmed reliably without significant overhead in programming time or energy compared to a unit comprising a single PCM device, while gaining resilience to device-level non-idealities and yield. The algorithm is experimentally verified on a prototype PCM unit cell fabricated in the 90nm CMOS technology node.


Abstract This paper considers the design of wavelet tight frames based on iterated oversampled filter banks. The greater design freedom available makes possible the construction of wavelets with a high degree of smoothness, in comparison with orthonormal wavelet bases. In particular, this paper takes up the design of systems that are analogous to Daubechies orthonormal wavelets—that is, the design of minimal length wavelet filters satisfying certain polynomial properties, but now in the oversampled case. Grobner bases are used to obtain the solutions to the nonlinear design equations. Following the dual-tree DWT of Kingsbury, one goal is to achieve near shift invariance while keeping the redundancy factor bounded by 2, instead of allowing it to grow as it does for the undecimated DWT (which is exactly shift invariant). Like the dual tree, the overcomplete DWT described in this paper is less shift-sensitive than an orthonormal wavelet basis. Like the examples of Chui and He, and Ron and Shen, the wavelets are much smoother than what is possible in the orthonormal case.


The Anthropocene has led to global-scale contamination of the biosphere through diffuse atmospheric dispersal of arsenic. This review considers the sources arsenic to soils and its subsequent fate, identifying key knowledge gaps. There is a particular focus on soil classification and stratigraphy, as this is central to the topic under consideration. For Europe and North America, peat core chrono-sequences record massive enhancement of arsenic depositional flux from the onset of the Industrial Revolution to the late 20th century, while modern mitigation efforts have led to a sharp decline in emissions. Recent arsenic wet and dry depositional flux measurements and modern ice core records suggest that it is South America and East Asia that are now primary global-scale polluters. Natural sources of arsenic to the atmosphere are primarily from volcanic emissions, aeolian soil dust entrainment, and microbial biomethylation. However, quantifying these natural inputs to the atmosphere, and subsequent redeposition to soils, is only starting to become better defined. The pedosphere acts as both a sink and source of deposited arsenic. Soil is highly heterogeneous in the natural arsenic already present, in the chemical and biological regulation of its mobility within soil horizons, and in interaction with climatic and geomorphological settings. Mineral soils tend to be an arsenic sink, while organic soils act as both a sink and a source. It is identified here that peatlands hold a considerable amount of Anthropocene released arsenic, and that this store can be potentially remobilized under climate change scenarios. Also, increased ambient temperature seems to cause enhanced arsine release from soils, and potentially also from the oceans, leading to enhanced rates of arsenic biogeochemical cycling through the atmosphere. With respect to agriculture, rice cultivation was identified as a particular concern in Southeast Asia due to the current high arsenic deposition rates to soil, the efficiency of arsenic assimilation by rice grain, and grain yield reduction through toxicity.


The paper entitled "Reality through the lens of print media in Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go" aims to explore the literary perspective and mainly engages with the themes of the novel. It also examines various kinds of medical issues related to cloning and organ transplants, in which human clones are forced to donate their organs in an alternate reality, set in 1990s England. The storyline does not evolve around any legal proceedings, nor is there any direct reference to the law. Instead, Ishiguro actually confronts the reader with a state of lawlessness. He depicts a world characterized by an uncertain distance separating the characters and the law. By reading Ishiguro from law and literature perspective, a new understanding of the various nuances is formed. Those nuances interconnect to form the complex socio-legal configuration. This paper focuses on the concept of existential anguish in the context of the novel's story. It also encourages the readers to study the real meaning and purpose of human life.


This thesis studies the rhetoric of U.S. immigration policy, specifically as related to Mexican immigration to the United States. Using Kent Ono and John Sloop's theory of discourse, it examines the rhetoric employed in the Secure Fence Act (SFA) of 2006 and its turns towards wartime rhetoric, immigrant dehumanization, and immigrant deviance. It then contradicts these turns to those seen in the rhetoric of Hometown Associations (HTAs), "outlaw" discourses that operate by systems of logic different from the dominant logic of the SFA. HTAs emphasize family/cultural connections, unique financial considerations, and the liminal existence of the immigrant. More importantly, they directly counter the dominant logic that the border needs to be solidified to curb immigration, suggesting instead that the answer is to make the border more fluid and encourage investment in hometowns to alleviate the need for immigration. In this discussion, this thesis employs the theory of alloiostrophe as examined by Mari Lee Mifsud and Jane Sutton, the theory of parataxis as studied by Paul Feyerabend, and the theory of lines as explored by Giles Deleuze. Ultimately, it advocates for direct confrontation between the two types of discourse to facilitate what Deleuze calls a "line of flight" out of the current system.


Sepsis is a systemic infection that enhances host vulnerability to secondary infections normally controlled by T cells. Using CLP sepsis model, we observed that sepsis induces apoptosis of circulating memory CD8 T-cells (TCIRCM) and diminishes their effector functions, leading to impaired CD8 T-cell mediated protection to systemic pathogen re-infection. In the context of localized re-infections, tissue resident memory CD8 T-cells (TRM) provide robust protection in a variety of infectious models. TRM rapidly 'sense' infection in non-lymphoid tissues and 'alarm' the host by enhancing immune cell recruitment to the site of the infection to accelerate pathogen clearance. Here, we show that compared to pathogen-specific TCIRCM, sepsis does not invoke significant numerical decline of Vaccinia virus induced skin-TRM keeping their effector functions (e.g., Ag-dependent IFN-γ production) intact. IFN-γ-mediated recruitment of immune cells to the site of localized infection was, however, reduced in CLP hosts despite TRM maintaining their 'sensing and alarming' functions. The capacity of memory CD8 T-cells in the septic environment to respond to inflammatory cues and arrive to the site of secondary infection/antigen exposure remained normal suggesting T-cell-extrinsic factors contributed to the observed lesion. Mechanistically, we showed that IFN-γ produced rapidly during sepsis-induced cytokine storm leads to reduced IFN-γR1 expression on vascular endothelium. As a consequence, decreased expression of adhesion molecules and/or chemokines (VCAM1 and CXCL9) on skin endothelial cells in response to TRM-derived IFN-γ was observed, leading to sub-optimal bystander-recruitment of effector cells and increased susceptibility to pathogen re-encounter. Importantly, as visualized by intravital 2-photon microscopy, exogenous administration of CXCL9/10 was sufficient to correct sepsis-induced impairments in recruitment of effector cells at the localized site of TRM antigen recognition. Thus, sepsis has the capacity to alter skin TRM anamnestic responses without directly impacting TRM number and/or function, an observation that helps to further define the immunoparalysis phase in sepsis survivors.


In the work reported here, we set out to study the neural systems that detect predictable temporal patterns and departures from them. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to locate activity in the brains of subjects when they viewed temporally regular and irregular patterns produced by letters, numbers, colors and luminance. Activity induced by irregular sequences was located within dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, including an area that was responsive to irregular patterns regardless of the type of visual stimuli producing them. Conversely, temporally regular arrangements resulted in activity in the right frontal lobe (medial frontal gyrus), in the left orbito-frontal cortex and in the left pallidum. The results show that there is an abstractive system in the brain for detecting temporal irregularity, regardless of the source producing it.


Four Venda indigenous scavenging (VIS) chickens (one young male and one young female of 10–16 weeks of age, a mature cockerel and a mature hen) were randomly purchased from each of six adjacent rural villages during three different seasons (autumn, winter and spring) to determine the meat yield and carcass chemical composition. A total of 72 chickens were slaughtered and feathers, head, neck, viscera, feet and lungs were removed. The live body weight, dressed carcass weight and also the mass of the breast without wings, thighs and drumsticks were recorded with bones and skin. The muscle tissues of the breast and both legs without tendons and fat were sampled for chemical analysis and were analysed for dry matter, ether extract, crude protein and ash. The carcass weight, dressing %, mass of the breast, mass of the thighs, mass of the drumsticks, breast yield, thighs yield and drumsticks yield of both grower and adult VIS chickens were not influenced by season. The crude protein of the grower chickens breast muscles and fat content of the adult chicken leg muscles differed with season. The meat from VIS chickens provided a constant nutrient (crude protein) supply throughout the year to the rural communities.