Upper gastrointestinal cancers originating in the oesophagus and stomach often present late and have a very poor prognosis. Treatment options include surgery for localised disease but, increasingly, neoadjuvant chemotherapy and radiotherapy are being employed to improve outcome. There is often a variable response to neoadjuvant treatment between individual patients and side effects are relatively common. There is an urgent need for novel biomarkers of upper gastrointestinal cancer, not only to improve screening and early diagnosis of the oesophageal and gastric cancers when treatment options are potentially more effective, but also to accurately guide therapy in more advanced disease. The development of predictive biomarkers will also help to more effectively identify those patients that will benefit from targeted therapies. Although many promising results have been derived from these studies there remains a lack of validated clinically applicable biomarkers available for translation into routine clinical use. This review will provide an overview of the recent proteomic research on upper gastrointestinal cancer protein biomarker identification and validation. The challenges faced in the development of validated, clinically acceptable and accurate protein biomarkers will also be discussed, along with possible areas of future progress.


In this book, leading scholars in the field examine the available research on the use of evidence in education and provide suggestions for strengthening the research-to-practice pipeline. Critics within and outside the field of education often point out the absence of a strong reciprocal connection between research and practice. The emergence of standards-based reform and the passage of NCLB have generated increasing pressure for evidence-based decision making at all levels. Yet there is little clarity about how research results are actually used in education, or what kinds of evidence are most useful to practitioners and policymakers.


Conventionally, P31 out‐gassing of floating gate by succeeding thermal processes happens in NAND FLASH that use floating gate structure, and this P31 out gassing causes degradation of PDR and cell characteristics in sub‐30 nm device. Usually, there is a method to keep PDR of in‐situ doped poly‐Si by increasing the concentration of P31, but this method also causes cell characteristics degradation by trap charge of tunnel oxide.So, we used another method of ion implantation to control P31 out‐gassing concentration of floating gate by declining effective channel length. If we use methods of low energy and zero tilt implantation, P31 Trap by dopant channeling occurs in tunnel oxide. So, we evaluated methods of low energy and tilted implantation. But in this case, there were poly loss and bending, due to the physical collision damage of implantation.Therefore, we evaluated the effects of tilt change, direction and temperature control of ion implantation to minimize poly loss of floating gate.


Mestia Municipality is a high mountain district of north-west Georgia , is located in the Greater Caucasus Mountain range. On the one hand, tourism is relatively new and rapidly growing economic activity in Mestia, but on the other, traditional economic activity of the population is agriculture. Analyzing linkages between tourism and agriculture is a vital part of sustainable development process of the municipality. The purpose of this paper is exploring and analyzing links between of tourism and changed/diversified agricultural market in Mestia municipality. The paper applies a triangulation method – qualitative in-depth interviews and desk research. MAXQDA is used for data processing. In-depth interviews were conducted with two targeted group: 1) Representatives of local community-driven economic activities; 2) Representatives of the tourism industry who operate in Mestia municipality. In total, 59 interviews were collected. The fieldwork revealed three main tendencies: 1) Tourism has impact on agricultural product's market in Mestia municipality. Agricultural products were sold mainly outside municipality before developing tourism.  Now , tourism has created a great chance to realize productions inside region.2) With the development of tourism , agricultural cultivated lands are decreasing in Mestia. 3) Rural tourism is emerging in the villages of Mestia Municipality.


Although classifications of the Earth's climates date back to the ancient Greeks, the climatic regions shaping the distribution of animals remain poorly resolved. Here we present a classification of global climates based on regularities in realised niches of 3657 amphibians, 7204 reptiles, 10684 birds and 4574 mammals. We found 16 main climatic regions that are mostly consistent across groups and previous plant expert-based classifications, confirming the existence of major climatic restrictions for life. The results also suggest that differences among groups likely relate to their particular adaptations and dispersal capabilities. We further show how the integration of species niche classifications with geographical information provides valuable information on potential mechanisms shaping the climatic regions. Our climate classification has applications in several disciplines, including conservation planning and ecological and evolutionary studies.


In the last decade, constitutional identity review mechanisms have emerged in several Member States. The proliferation of these mechanisms increases the risk of jurisdictional conflicts and is a permanent threat to the primacy of EU law. As it is highly unlikely that the conflict over the "last word" will be settled soon, solutions for stabilizing the delicate modus vivendi between the ECJ and national constitutional courts are needed. This requires the identification of a common problem. The article seeks to establish a new framework for the comparison and systematization of identity review mechanisms in the Member States. First, it develops a typology of identity reviews in the EU judicial space, thereby making it possible to distinguish identity reviews that are particularly prone to conflict. The article then identifies essential features of national settings that might determine and foster the emergence of such conflict-prone identity reviews. These features serve as a basis for the development of tailor-made solutions to manage jurisdictional conflicts and stabilize the modus vivendi between the ECJ and national constitutional courts.


Fourteen patients (age limits: 18-30) chronically infected with Trypanosoma cruzi and presenting positive blood PCR reactions, were submitted to etiological treatment with benznidazole, in Nagapattinam district rural an area. A control group of five patients of the same age and positive by PCR did not receive treatment. Post-treatment follow-up was performed with PCR and conventional serology. PCR became negative in 12/14 of the treated patients after six months follow up, compared to 1/5 in the control group (p = 0.01). All patients remained serologically positive after treatment. The reduction of PCR signals of infection after treatment may become an early evidence of cure in chronically infected young adult patients.


In Stewards of Life, Sondra Ely Wheeler presents a compact, basic introduction to the language and principles of contemporary bioethics. Perhaps more importantly, by providing a theological explanation and critique of the language and principles of bioethics as applied in medical contexts, she positions bioethical issues firmly within the context of the biblical narrative that forms the church and shapes Christian understanding of human life. Wheeler uses sample cases to illustrate the ways in which bioethical principles, appropriately understood, inform Christian moral reflection. She further gives specific attention to pastors and chaplains roles in helping patients and their families confront medical crises as members of the community of faith."


Stochastic simulation was conducted to analyse the fuel consumption of a shovel-truck system. An example shovel-truck system, comprising a single shovel and four trucks was considered. At 95% confidence interval, the monthly simulated fuel consumption by the shovel-truck system was found to be about 198 127 litres against the actual fuel consumption of 203 772 litres, registering a variance of -2.70%. About 22 000 litres of fuel was consumed per month due to truck waiting. Optimising the fuel consumption and truck waiting time can result in significant fuel savings. The paper demonstrates that stochastic simulation is an effective tool for optimising the utilisation of fossil-based fuels in mining and related industries.  Keywords: Stochastic, Simulation Modelling, Mining, Optimisation, Shovel-Truck Material Handling


Background Romiplostim (AMG531) is a Thrombopoietin (TPO) receptor agonist with no homology with the endogenous TPO that has been used to treat patients affected by immune thrombocytopenia (ITP). Despite the use of TPO mimetics in the clinical practice, the mechanisms underlying their impact on megakaryocyte function is still unknown. Methodology/Principal Findings In this project we took advantage of an in vitro human model, that we have established in our laboratory for long time to study megakaryocyte development from human cord blood-derived progenitor cells, and we demonstrated that increasing doses of AMG531 (100 to 2000 ng/mL) determine a progressive increase of megakaryocyte proliferation with a parallel decrease in megakaryocyte ploidy and capacity of extending proplatelets. Most importantly, these differences in megakaryocyte function seemed to be correlated to modulation of AKT phosphorylation. Conclusions/Significance Overall our results shed new light on the mechanisms and on the relevance of dosage related to AMG531 impact on megakaryocyte function.


High-throughput and rapid serology assays to detect the antibody response specific to severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) in human blood samples are urgently required to improve our understanding of the effects of COVID-19 across the world. Short-term applications include rapid case identification and contact tracing to limit viral spread, while population screening to determine the extent of viral infection across communities is a longer-term need. Assays developed to address these needs should match the ASSURED criteria. We have identified agglutination tests based on the commonly employed blood typing methods as a viable option. These blood typing tests are employed in hospitals worldwide, are high-throughput, fast (10–30 min), and automated in most cases. Herein, we describe the application of agglutination assays to SARS-CoV-2 serology testing by combining column agglutination testing with peptide–antibody bioconjugates, which facilitate red cell cross-linking only in the presence of plasma containing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. This simple, rapid, and easily scalable approach has immediate application in SARS-CoV-2 serological testing and is a useful platform for assay development beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.


Tungsten inert gas welding process is a multi-input and output process in which the resultant joint strength is governed by both individual and combination of process parameters. The identification of suitable combination parameter is crucial to get desired quality of welded joint and hence, there is need for optimization of tungsten inert gas welding process to achieve a sound weldment. The present work is based on the TIG welding process parameters on welding of AZ61 magnesium alloy. The design of experiment is done by Response surface methodology techniques to find the desired welding conditions for joining similar AZ61 magnesium alloy material. Analysis of variance methods were applied to understand the TIG welding process parameter. The considered parameters are welding current, welding speed, arc voltage, electrode stick out, while the desired output responses are tensile strength and percentage elongation of the welding joints. From the results of the experiments, mathematical models have been developed to study the effect of process parameters on tensile strength and percentage elongation. Optimization is done to find optimum welding conditions to maximize tensile strength and percentage elongation of welded specimen.


The vast amount of data available over the distributed infrastructure of the Web has initiated the development of techniques for their representation, storage and usage. One of these techniques is the Linked Data paradigm, which aims to provide unified practices for publishing and contextually interlinking data on the Web, by using the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards and the Semantic Web technologies. This approach enables the transformation of the Web from a web of documents, to a web of data. With it, the Web transforms into a distributed network of data which can be used by software agents and machines. The interlinked nature of the distributed datasets enables the creation of advanced use-case scenarios for the end users and their applications, scenarios previously unavailable over isolated data silos. This creates opportunities for generating new business values in the industry. The adoption of the Linked Data principles by data publishers from the research community and the industry has led to the creation of the Linked Open Data (LOD) Cloud, a vast collection of interlinked data published on and accessible via the existing infrastructure of the Web. The experience in creating these Linked Data datasets has led to the development of a few methodologies for transforming and publishing Linked Data. However, even though these methodologies cover the process of modeling, transforming / generating and publishing Linked Data, they do not consider reuse of the steps from the life-cycle. This results in separate and independent efforts to generate Linked Data within a given domain, which always go through the entire set of life-cycle steps. In this PhD thesis, based on our experience with generating Linked Data in various domains and based on the existing Linked Data methodologies, we define a new Linked Data methodology with a focus on reuse. It consists of five steps which encompass the tasks of studying the domain, modeling the data, transforming the data, publishing it and exploiting it. In each of the steps, the methodology provides guidance to data publishers on defining reusable components in the form of tools, schemas and services, for the given domain. With this, future Linked Data publishers in the domain would be able to reuse these components to go through the life-cycle steps in a more efficient and productive manner. With the reuse of schemas from the domain, the resulting Linked Data dataset will be compatible and aligned with other datasets generated by reusing the same components, which additionally leverages the value of the datasets. This approach aims to encourage data publishers to generate high-quality, aligned Linked Data datasets from various domains, leading to further growth of the number of datasets on the LOD Cloud, their quality and the exploitation scenarios. With the emergence of data-driven scientific fields, such as Data Science, creating and publishing high-quality Linked Data datasets on the Web is becoming even more important, as it provides an open dataspace built on existing Web standards. Such a dataspace enables data scientists to make data analytics over the cleaned, structured and aligned data in it, in order to produce new knowledge and introduce new value in a given domain. As the Linked Data principles are also applicable within closed environments over proprietary data, the same methods and approaches are applicable in the enterprise domain as well.


Objective To describe the development and implementation of a pediatric critical care nurse practitioner role in a tertiary academic pediatric intensive care unit. Data Sources Selected relevant articles from the literature. Data Extraction/Synthesis Over the past two decades, the role of critical care nurse practitioners in neonatal and adult settings has developed. More recently, the role has emerged in the setting of pediatric critical care. Literature to date focuses on implementation of the nurse practitioner role in neonatal and adult critical care units, with limited publications on the role in the pediatric critical care arena. In addition, information on the practice of critical care nurse practitioners in tertiary care centers is lacking. We therefore, sought to describe the design, implementation, scope of practice, and outcomes to date of a pediatric nurse practitioner program in our pediatric critical care unit. Conclusions A pediatric critical care nurse practitioner role can be implemented successfully in a tertiary center's pediatric intensive care unit. However, before integration of the pediatric critical care nurse practitioner into the health care team, definition of entry level requirements and the overall role with respect to scope of practice, daily operations, and professional practice is essential. Future endeavors should include evaluation of the impact of the pediatric critical care nurse practitioner on patient outcomes in the tertiary care center.


Echinochloa species are among the most troublesome weeds in rice cultivation, and grow in a broad habitat range in Korea. Although various ecotypes of Echinochloa have been collected as germplasm for future studies, it has been difficult to classify them due to their high level of morphological similarity. This study was thus conducted to develop and investigate the phylogenetic relationships between 77 Echinochloa accessions with the use of 23 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers and 24 morphological traits. Of 77 Echinochloa accessions, including 57 accessions from Korea and 5 reference species, late watergrass was clearly clustered as a distinctive group from barnyardgrass and other Echinochloa species. In this analysis, we also identified core genetic and morphological markers that can be used for the future identification and classification of Echinochloa species. Five out of 23 SSR makers produced distinctive bands that discriminate late watergrass from barnyardgrass and other Echinochloa species. Four morphological traits of the reproductive organs were the most influential contributors for classifying Echinochloa species. Although there was no clear consensus generated in this study between SSR markers and morphological trait analyses, our results support the potential use of the selected SSR markers and morphological traits in future studies of Echinochloa. Nomenclature: Barnyardgrass, Echinochloa crus-galli (L.) Beauv.; junglerice, Echinochloa colona (L.) Link; late watergrass, Echinochloa oryzicola Vasing; gulf cockspur, Echinochloa crus-pavonis (H. B. K.) Schultes; early watergrass, Echinochloa oryzoides (Ard.) Fritsch.; Echinochloa hispidula (Retz.) Nees ex Royle; Echinochloa muricata (P. Beauv.) Fernald.


Flow volumes are the volumetric equivalent of stream lines. They provide more information about the vector field being visualized than do stream lines or ribbons. Presented is an efficient method for producing flow volumes, composed of transparently rendered tetrahedra, for use in an interactive system. The problems of rendering, subdivision, sorting, composing artifacts, and user interaction are dealt with. Efficiency comes from rendering only the volume of the smoke, and using hardware texturing and compositing.<<ETX>>


Background The ongoing changes in population demographics increase the relevance of dignified aging across Europe. Community-based health care (CBHC) organizations are necessary to provide sustainable strategies for organizing care for older persons in need of support. To support the digitalization of these organizations, new business models and suitable web platforms are necessary. Objective This study, which is part of the European Active and Assisted Living (AAL) project called "ICareCoops", aimed to explore concepts, approaches, and workflows of CBHC organizations to achieve a comprehensive understanding of extant services offered and relevant requirements to support these services with information and computer technology (ICT) solutions. Methods A qualitative study with six focus groups (FGs) with 40 participants was conducted in Switzerland and Slovenia to identify potential stakeholders' needs and requirements for the user-centered development of a web platform. Data were collected from three different stakeholder groups: (1) older persons in need of support as care receivers, (2) significant others of older persons in need of support, and (3) managers or care providers of CBHC organizations. A semistructured interview guide with open questions was used for data collection. FG sessions were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Thematic content analysis was used to analyze the content of the FG sessions. To assist with further web platform development, the responses of the FG participants were translated into user stories to describe technical requirements. Results By analyzing the transcripts, five main categories were identified: (1) ICT usage behavior of users, (2) challenges of web platform usage, (3) content and technical requirements for the web platform, (4) form and services of CBHC organizations, and (5) rationales of CBHC organizations. The main issues identified were the need for seniors to have individual contact with the CBHC organization and the possibility to coordinate routine services via the web platform, such as ordering meals-on-wheels or booking a caregiver to accompany an older person to the doctor. Conclusions The majority of participants showed a lack of familiarity with the usage of ICT. Nevertheless, they were open-minded regarding web platform usage to facilitate workflows and to benefit CBHC organizations. Cooperatives as an organizational model demonstrate a high potential to address users' needs. Therefore, the web platform offers an essential tool for innovative health care models in the future. Searching for care services, contacting care providers, and communicating with care providers was preferred via personal contact and seemed to be the key element for user acceptance and for the successful implementation of a web platform like "ICareCoops" to support CBHC organizations.


Proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) protein is one of the central molecules responsible for decisions of life and death of the cell. The PCNA gene is induced by p53, while PCNA protein interacts with p53-controlled proteins Gadd45, MyD118, CR6 and, most importantly, p21, in the process of deciding cell fate. If PCNA protein is present in abundance in the cell in the absence of p53, DNA replication occurs. On the other hand, if PCNA protein levels are high in the cell in the presence of p53, DNA repair takes place. If PCNA is rendered non-functional or is absent or present in low quantities in the cell, apoptosis occurs. The evolution from prokaryotes to eukaryotes involved a change of function of PCNA from a 'simple' sliding clamp protein of the DNA polymerase complex to an executive molecule controlling critical cellular decision pathways. The evolution of multicellular organisms led to the development of multicellular processes such as differentiation, senescence and apoptosis. PCNA, already an essential molecule in the life of single cellular organisms, then became a protein critical for the survival of multicellular organisms.


executed for attempting to relieve the pain of childbirth. The author claims that his work " is intended as a scientific and factual counterblast to the many romantic and largely fictional ' histories ' of anaesthesia." This claim is for other historians to dispute. The average reader, however, will find the author at his best when he tells a story rather than when he relates history. One reaches the end wishing he had gone on, not only with more chapters, but with many more appendices. There is no claim that this book is complete; for each subject the author has included many others have been omitted. What there is, however, will remain as an enjoyable addition to the many books on the history of anaesthesia. W. W. MUSHIN.


A democratic society is often regarded as a prerequisite for economic growth and development. Yet, most empirical studies are not able to identify a positive link between GDP-growth and democracy indexes. In addition, it is an empirical stylized fact that (i) most developing countries are dictatorships and (ii) many poor dictatorships experienced high growth performances and emerged from poverty such as South Korea, China, Egypt, etc. Against this background, it is of interest to ask under which conditions a poor dictatorship will induce a higher economic growth rate than a democratic economy. To answer this question, we compare the endogenous growth paths of two economies that exclusively differ in their political regimes in the context of an overlapping-generations model. More specifically, the key features of the model are (i) a positive bequest motive in the form of investments in education or productive public capital (infrastructure), (ii) a higher marginal (inter-temporal) utility of consumption today versus consumption tomorrow in low-income countries (e.g. subsistence level of consumption) and (iii) a dictator that cares about her income or the income of her dynasty tomorrow (compare McGuire and Olson (1996)). In this framework, we demonstrate that poor democracies exhibit a lower equilibrium growth rate than equally poor dictatorships. Moreover, there exists a particular threshold value in income such that the growth-reducing impact of dictatorial consumption (corruption) outweighs the higher (initial) infrastructure investment. Thereafter, the growth rate under democracy strictly dominates the one in dictatorship.


Primates live in very diverse environments and, as a consequence, show an equally diverse locomotor behaviour. During locomotion, the primate hand interacts with the superstrate and/or substrate and will therefore probably show adaptive signals linked with this locomotor behaviour. Whereas the morphology of the forearm and hand bones have been studied extensively, the functional adaptations in the hand musculature have been documented only scarcely. To evaluate whether there are potential adaptations in forelimb musculature to locomotor behaviour, we investigated the forearm and hand musculature of the highly arboreal gibbons (including Hylobates lar, Hylobates pileatus, Nomascus leucogenys, Nomascus concolor, Symphalangus syndactylus) and compared this with the musculature of the semi‐terrestrial rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) by performing complete and detailed dissections on a sample of 15 unembalmed specimens. We found that the overall configuration of the upper arm and hand musculature is highly comparable between arboreal gibbons and semi‐terrestrial macaques, and follows the general primate condition. Most of the identified differences in muscle configuration are located in the forearm. In macaques, a prominent m. epitrochleoanconeus is present, which potentially helps to extend the forearm and/or stabilize the elbow joint during quadrupedal walking. The m. flexor carpi radialis shows a more radial insertion in gibbons, which might be advantageous during brachiation, as it can aid radial deviation. The fingers of macaques are controlled in pairs by the m. extensor digiti secondi et tertii proprius and the m. extensor digiti quarti et quinti proprius—a similar organization can also be found in their flexors—which might aid in efficient positioning of the hand and fingers on uneven substrates during quadrupedal walking. In contrast, extension of the little finger in gibbons is controlled by a separate m. extensor digiti minimi, whereas digits 2 to 4 are extended by the m. extensor digitorum brevis, suggesting that simultaneous extension of digits 2–4 in gibbons might be important when reaching or grasping an overhead support during brachiation. In conclusion, the overall configuration of the forelimb and hand musculature is very similar in gibbons and macaques, with some peculiarities which can be linked to differences in forelimb function and which might be related to the specific locomotor behaviour of each group.


We contribute to the debate on the future of business schools by investigating the nature of knowledge being produced and taught within them. We identify how a preference for abstract causal explanation over practical knowledge, and for reason and truth over what works, has led to a privileging of detached contemplation over involved action. Despite repeated calls to make management research and education more "relevant" to practice, many business schools continue to privilege rigor and precision as the arbiters of authoritative knowledge using representational devices such as conceptual models, case studies, and other formal classifications. We argue that risks of ignorance and detachment emerge from this singular attachment to knowledge-by-representation in business schools. We identify the need for an alternative, accompanying form of knowledge associated with the art of management that can only be transmitted through exemplary behaviour within the business education process. We call this knowledge-by-exemplification: one that is demonstrative, creative and unreflectively performative, transmitted directly through the demeanor, style, and mannerism of management educators rather than through the content of lectures. For us, it is this relatively unnoticed aspect of the education process that provides one possible answer to the predicament of relevance facing business schools.


The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-d (PPARd) regulates a multitude of physiological processes associated with glucose and lipid metabolism, inflammation, and proliferation. One or more of these processes are potential risk factors for the ability of PPARd agonists to promote tumorigenesis in themammary gland. In this study, we describe a new transgenic mouse model in which activation of PPARd in the mammary epithelium by endogenous or synthetic ligands resulted in progressive histopathologic changes that culminated in the appearance of estrogen receptorand progesterone receptor-positive and ErbB2-negative infiltrating ductal carcinomas. Multiparous mice presented with mammary carcinomas after a latency of 12 months, and administration of the PPARd ligand GW501516 reduced tumor latency to 5 months. Histopathologic changes occurred concurrently with an increase in an inflammatory, invasive, metabolic, and proliferative gene signature, including expression of the trophoblast gene, Plac1, beginning 1 week after GW501516 treatment, and remained elevated throughout tumorigenesis. The appearance ofmalignant changes correlatedwith a pronounced increase in phosphatidylcholine and lysophosphatidic acid metabolites, which coincided with activation of Akt andmTor signaling thatwere attenuated by treatmentwith themTor inhibitor everolimus. Ourfindings are thefirst to show a direct role of PPARd in the pathogenesis of mammary tumorigenesis, and suggest a rationale for therapeutic approaches to prevent and treat this disease. Cancer Res; 73(14); 1–13. 2013 AACR.


We study the problem of decision-theoretic online learning (DTOL). Motivated by practical applications, we focus on DTOL when the number of actions is very large. Previous algorithms for learning in this framework have a tunable learning rate parameter, and a barrier to using online-learning in practical applications is that it is not understood how to set this parameter optimally, particularly when the number of actions is large.

In this paper, we offer a clean solution by proposing a novel and completely parameter-free algorithm for DTOL. We introduce a new notion of regret, which is more natural for applications with a large number of actions. We show that our algorithm achieves good performance with respect to this new notion of regret; in addition, it also achieves performance close to that of the best bounds achieved by previous algorithms with optimally-tuned parameters, according to previous notions of regret.


Lead iodide is a layered structure that experiences polytypism. The 2H polytype contains high rates of iodine vacancies but retains its stoichiometry. This characteristic feature makes it potentially useful for many practical applications. The hopping of iodine ions among vacancies is the dominant motion in the 2H polytype. We present a preliminary I and Pb solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and spin-lattice relaxation study of the 2H polytype below 400 K. We present reasonable models for the solid-state NMR results in terms of the effects of iodine hopping and lattice vibrations.


The alarm is a core function of security monitoring information systems. With the characteristics of high information density, strong timeliness, and visual environment interference, the effectiveness of alarm information design is a significant key affecting system performance. The purpose of this paper is to study the design method of alarm information to improve the capture efficiency of users' visual attention in complex information interfaces. By sorting out related design standards and research literature, this paper identifies 7 current alarm information coding methods. The four most used visual coding methods are chosen for combination. By selecting any two or three of the four coding methods for combination, 10 combinations are finally obtained, and 10 visual solutions are designed for experimental comparison. The experiment took the mine safety monitoring system interface as the carrier and tested 10 visual solutions as stimuli. By recording the subject's time to first fixation to the stimulus, we compared the differences in the efficiency of guiding user's attention under different coding combinations, then sought a better coding method for alarm information. Experimental results demonstrate that different coding combinations have impacts on the efficiency of visual attention. Compared with other solutions, the solution with the combination of three coding methods of color, flashing, and shape(size) is more efficient and takes less time to notice the alarm information. Whilst the attention level is less affected by the number of coding methods and is more affected by the types of coding methods included in the solution. For example, when the coding method includes color or flashing coding, the subjects noticed the alarm information faster and more efficiently, and no experimental failure cases occurred during the experiment when using color and flash coding at the same time. The conclusion effectively provides a solution for the design of alarm information in monitoring systems.Keywords: Alarm Information, Visual Attention, Eye Movement Measurement, Multi-dimensional Coding


We find that liquidity is priced in corporate yield spreads. Using a battery of liquidity measures covering over 4,000 corporate bonds and spanning both investment grade and speculative categories, we find that more illiquid bonds earn higher yield spreads, and an improvement in liquidity causes a significant reduction in yield spreads. These results hold after controlling for common bond‐specific, firm‐specific, and macroeconomic variables, and are robust to issuers' fixed effect and potential endogeneity bias. Our findings justify the concern in the default risk literature that neither the level nor the dynamic of yield spreads can be fully explained by default risk determinants.


Significance The trade in agricultural commodities is a mainstay of the globalized economy, though the complex nature of commodity supply chains makes it difficult to identify the origin of and impact embedded in products. We brought together detailed data on trade, agriculture, and logistics to produce a subnational map of the origin of Brazil's exports of beef, offal, and live cattle. Brazil is the world's largest beef exporter, exporting one-fifth of its total production, and the sector is a major driver of deforestation. We traced cattle from 2,800 municipalities through to 152 importing countries, via thousands of companies handling their export and import. Our work gives an unprecedented insight into the origin of food and impacts embedded in global supply chains. Though the international trade in agricultural commodities is worth more than $1.6 trillion/year, we still have a poor understanding of the supply chains connecting places of production and consumption and the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of this trade. In this study, we provide a wall-to-wall subnational map of the origin and supply chain of Brazilian meat, offal, and live cattle exports from 2015 to 2017, a trade worth more than $5.4 billion/year. Brazil is the world's largest beef exporter, exporting approximately one-fifth of its production, and the sector has a notable environmental footprint, linked to one-fifth of all commodity-driven deforestation across the tropics. By combining official per-shipment trade records, slaughterhouse export licenses, subnational agricultural statistics, and data on the origin of cattle per slaughterhouse, we mapped the flow of cattle from more than 2,800 municipalities where cattle were raised to 152 exporting slaughterhouses where they were slaughtered, via the 204 exporting and 3,383 importing companies handling that trade, and finally to 152 importing countries. We find stark differences in the subnational origin of the sourcing of different actors and link this supply chain mapping to spatially explicit data on cattle-associated deforestation, to estimate the "deforestation risk" (in hectares/year) of each supply chain actor over time. Our results provide an unprecedented insight into the global trade of a deforestation-risk commodity and demonstrate the potential for improved supply chain transparency based on currently available data.


The present investigation has been carried on the population fluctuation of aphids on the different wheat varieties i-e TD-1, Benazir, Tj-83, QS-4, NIAamber from larkana district. Triticium astivum (wheat) is considered very important food crop in Pakistan including Sindh. This crop is attacked by numbers of insect including aphids, which is responsible for reduction of its yield. The occurrence of aphid has been started in the month of January and its peak infestation was observed during mid March when wheat crop was fully grown. During the present study significant large numbers of specimens were collected from the different varieties of wheat. The collected material was sorted out in to two species viz: Rhopalosiphum padi (L.), Schizaphis graminum (Rondani). During this study it was noted that TD-1 was significantly affected by R.padi and S.gramium as compare to other tested varieties. It was observed that aphid reached peak point in mid February on leaves then in the end of February aphids started shifting from leaves to ears and their population start to decline in month of April.


We introduce Spatio-Temporal Vector of Locally Max Pooled Features (ST-VLMPF), a super vector-based encoding method specifically designed for local deep features encoding. The proposed method addresses an important problem of video understanding: how to build a video representation that incorporates the CNN features over the entire video. Feature assignment is carried out at two levels, by using the similarity and spatio-temporal information. For each assignment we build a specific encoding, focused on the nature of deep features, with the goal to capture the highest feature responses from the highest neuron activation of the network. Our ST-VLMPF clearly provides a more reliable video representation than some of the most widely used and powerful encoding approaches (Improved Fisher Vectors and Vector of Locally Aggregated Descriptors), while maintaining a low computational complexity. We conduct experiments on three action recognition datasets: HMDB51, UCF50 and UCF101. Our pipeline obtains state-of-the-art results.


Can post-truth thinking be rational? In order to answer that question I develop, in the first part of this article, a non-pejorative understanding of post-truth thinking, namely as the systematic underestimation of the epistemic value of the expert discourse as compared to one's individual deliberation in relation to politicized factual issues in an environment without secure epistemic rules. Everyone significantly underestimates how more reliable academic discourse, say, is compared to individual epistemic means. In post-truth thinking this underestimation concerns questions the answers to which allow for predictions about political affiliation. In answering such questions—about the truth of the theory of evolution, say—almost everyone has to draw on the testimony of others one regards as being trustworthy. Oftentimes one finds these trustworthy people in his or her social media filter bubbles. Post-truth thinking happens when one has to inform oneself in social or alternative media for which we currently lack safe epistemic rules of thumb or heuristics. "Post-truth thinking" seems to imply indifference about truth or rationality. Against this assumption I argue, in the second part, that post-truth thinking can be regarded as being rational, at least in the sense of "bounded rationality". After all, everyone has to rely on the testimony of others in almost all fields of knowledge. In non-ideal circumstances, which are characteristic for post-truth thinking, it is rational, in navigating social and alternative media, to follow epistemic rules well-established in other domains. These rules often speak for believing what emerges in one's filter bubble.


Plant tissues, particularly roots, can be subjected to periods of hypoxia due to environmental circumstances. Plants have developed various adaptations in response to hypoxic stress and these have been extensively described. Less well-appreciated is the body of evidence demonstrating that scavenging of nitric oxide (NO) and the reduction of nitrate/nitrite regulate important mechanisms that contribute to tolerance to hypoxia. Whilst ethylene controls hyponasty and aerenchyma formation, NO production apparently regulates hypoxic ethylene biosynthesis. In the hypoxic mitochondrion, cytochrome c oxidase, which is a major source of NO, is also inhibited by NO, thereby reducing the respiratory rate and enhancing local oxygen concentrations. Nitrite can maintain ATP generation under hypoxia by coupling its reduction to the translocation of protons from the inner side of mitochondria and generating an electrochemical gradient. This reaction can be further coupled to a reaction whereby non-symbiotic haemoglobin oxidizes NO to nitrate. In addition to these functions, nitrite has been reported to influence mitochondrial structure and supercomplex formation, as well as playing a role in oxygen sensing via the N-end rule pathway. These studies establish that nitrite and NO perform multiple functions during plant hypoxia and suggest that further research into the underlying mechanisms is warranted. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


At Jiangnan area, the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the water towns in where people live with a cultured life super abounded with resources and products, the traditional vernacular dwelling has made a reputation by their unique characteristics. The paper studies on the dwelling in the water towns, and presents to readers the changes the dwelling have gone through from the Hemudu culture in the New Stone Age to today. Through the research and analysis on the type and components in the local dwelling, this author brings about the characteristics of the dwelling and comes up with ideas of dwelling protection in the water towns.


We study the decay of a prepared state into non-flat continuum. We find that the survival probability P (t) might exhibit either stretched-exponential or power-law decay, depending on nonuniversal features of the model. Still there is a universal characteristic time t0 that does not depend on the functional form. It is only for a flat continuum that we get a robust exponential decay that is insensitive to the nature of the intra-continuum couplings. The analysis highlights the co-existence of perturbative and non-perturbative features in the local density of states, and the non-linear dependence of 1/t0 on the strength of the coupling.


The strongly localized interaction process of ultrashort laser pulses with tissue makes femtosecond lasers a powerful tool for eye surgery. These lasers are now routinely used in refractive surgery and other forms of surgery of the anterior segment of the eye. Several clinical laser systems also offer options for corneal grafting and the potential use of ultrashort pulse lasers in glaucoma surgery has been the object of several recent studies which have shown promising results. While devices aimed for interventions in clear tissue may be based on available solid state or fibre laser technology, the development of tools for surgery in more strongly scattering tissue has to account for the compromised tissular transparency and requires the development of optimized laser sources. The present paper focuses on surgery of clear and pathological cornea as well as sclera. It aims to give an overview over typical medical indications for ultrashort pulse laser surgery, the optics of the tissues involved, the available laser technology, the laser–tissue interaction process, and possible future developments.


In this paper we present a way to annotate music collections by exploiting audio similarity. Similarity is used to propose labels (tags) to yet unlabeled songs, based on the content‐based distance between them. The main goal of our work is to ease the process of annotating huge music collections, by using content-based similarity distances as a way to propagate labels among songs. We present two different experiments. The first one propagateslabelsthatarerelatedwiththestyleofthepiece, whereas the second experiment deals with mood labels. On the one hand, our approach shows that using a music collection annotated at 40% with styles, the collection can be automatically annotated up to 78% (that is, 40% already annotated and the rest, 38%, only using propagation), with a recall greater than 0.4. On the other hand, for a smaller music collection annotated at 30% with moods, the collection can be automatically annotated up to 65% (e.g. 30% plus 35% using propagation).


The Black-capped Petrel Pterodroma hasitata is a pelagic seabird with a dangerously small population size. Remaining breeding sites are threatened by habitat loss, introduced predators, and direct harvesting. The species likely also faces several threats at sea, but because knowledge of its distribution range and ecology is meagre at best, it is challenging to take concerted action to improve its conservation status. The species is currently known to breed only on Hispaniola (in the northern Caribbean Sea), but most at-sea observations are from the Florida Current and the Gulf Stream off the southeastern coast of the USA. Within the Caribbean Sea, observations are scarce. We compiled a database of at-sea sightings of Black-capped Petrels in the Caribbean Sea from 1953 to 2018 by thoroughly reviewing published and unpublished records (Appendix 1); here, we add to the literature 12 new records from a research cruise conducted in February 2018 across the Caribbean Sea. Our database was augmented with recently published information from three birds that were fitted with tracking devices. Based on the collected information, we argue that the existing distribution maps of Black-capped Petrels need adjustments. We show that Black-capped Petrels have been recorded throughout the central parts of the Caribbean, from the known breeding sites in the north down to coastal waters off Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela. However, the birds probably forage only in small parts of the Caribbean Sea (i.e., the coastal upwelling zones off Hispaniola and Cuba in the north and off the South American mainland in the south). The waters in between (i.e., in the central Caribbean Sea) appear to be mainly used as a corridor, while the eastern and western parts are unimportant. This indicates that certain hotspots within the Caribbean Sea may be more important to this endangered species than previously thought.


Acute Myeloid leukemia (AML) has a poor prognosis in part due to lack of elimination of leukemic cells and acquisition of drug resistance. In particular mutations in the activation loop of KIT and internal tandem duplication (ITD) in Flt3 receptor are associated with poor prognosis in AML. Interestingly, more than 90% patients with aggressive systemic mastocytosis (ASM) carry the KITD816V mutation which is highly resistant to conventional therapeutics and invariably associated with poor survival. Since the efforts to target the kinase activity of FLT3 and KIT have met with little success; the focus has shifted to targeting critical downstream signaling regulators. We have elucidated the role of a novel downstream regulator of FLT3-ITD and KITD816V mediated leukemic transformation - LIM kinase and evaluated the efficacy of a novel inhibitor of LIM kinase (LIMK), Liminib. LIMK, a serine/threonine kinase has 2 isoforms; LIMK1 and LIMK2. They are substrates of the Rho associated kinase (ROCK) which we have shown to play a critical role in leukemic transformation (Cancer Cell, 2011). They in turn act on cofilin and phosphorylation by LIMK inactivates cofilin and thereby modulates F-actin reorganization. Western blot analysis showed marked increase in phospho cofilin levels in cells expressing FLT3-ITD or KITD814V oncogenes as compared to their WT counterparts. Dependence of cofilin phosphorylation on activation of ROCK and LIMK was confirmed by treating the cells with an inhibitor of ROCK, H1152 and Liminib, inhibitor of LIMK. Both the inhibitors effectively reduced oncogene-induced phospho-cofilin levels. Liminib, the LIMK inhibitor also inhibited cytokine independent proliferation driven by FLT3-ITD or KITD814V (>90% at 100 nM). It also showed concentration dependent inhibition of proliferation in mutant oncogene bearing patient derived human cell lines such as MV411, Kasumi and HMC. FLT3-ITD expressing leukemic cells become resistant to Flt3 kinase inhibitor AC220 by acquiring additional point mutations. Interestingly, the cells expressing AC220 resistant FLT3-ITDD835F or FLT3-ITDF691L mutation showed similar sensitivity to Liminib as cells with FLT3-ITD. The growth inhibitory effect of Liminib was also validated in primary blasts from AML and SM patients. To further elucidate the mechanism of growth inhibition by Liminib in leukemic cells, we assayed for apoptosis induction in the treated cells. Cells expressing FLT3-ITD were significantly more susceptible (~ 73%) to induction of apoptosis as compared the WT-FLT3 cells (~33%) on treatment with Liminib. The extent of apoptosis induction by Liminib was similar in FLT3-ITD and AC220 resistant FLT3-ITDD835F or FLT3-ITDF691L mutation bearing cells. In addition to the effects of Liminib on F-actin polymerization; experimental evidence indicates involvement of mitochondrial pathway in the induction of apoptosis by Liminib. There was increase in accumulation of cofilin in the mitochondrial fraction in Liminib treated oncogene expressing cells as compared to the untreated cells. Phosphorylation of cofilin on Ser3 suppresses its mitochondrial translocation and treatment with LIMK inhibitor would inhibit cofilin phosphorylation leading to increased mitochondrial transport. Mitochondrial transport of cofilin has been observed with other inducers of apoptosis such as staurosporine and it possibly contributes to mitochondrial dysfunction during induction of apoptosis. To validate our pharmacologic findings using Liminib genetically and to assess which of the 2 isoforms of LIMK contributes to leukemogenesis, we generated LIMK1 and LIMK2 single and double knockout mice. 3 H-thymidine incorporation assay showed that deletion of either of the LIMK significantly reduced KIT D814V induced growth factor independent proliferation by approximately 50%. The extent of inhibition was more pronounced in Limk1-/- Limk2+/- or Limk1+/- Limk2-/- bone marrow cells (~80%) as compared to cells with deletion of a single isoforms of LIMK. Thus, there is some functional redundancy between the 2 isoforms and inhibition of both is likely to have better therapeutic value. Taken together we have identified a novel signaling pathway involving LIMK and cofilin that appear to be selectively activated in regulating oncogenic signaling in AML and MPN but not in normal hematopoiesis. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


The number of internet users and the scale of electronic on-line trading are on the increase due to the development of information technology and the internet. The aim of this study was to monitor the accuracy of country-of-origin labels and the indicated contents of meat available by electronic on-line trading by using a structural interview sheet for 100 on-line meat product markets. The result of this investigation showed a 100% level of accuracy for business name and telephone number whereas the company address, meat manufacturer and supplier, and business registration were less reliable. We also investigated the accuracy of site policy, e-mail address, and fax number. The results showed that the accuracy of fax numbers was the lowest. The product name and the kind of meat actually in the product showed a 100% level of conformity, while the price (96.3%), place of origin (93.6%), capacity (90.4%), meat parts (80.9%) and contents of the product (73.4%) showed a relatively low level of conformity. Serious safety issues were exposed by the disturbingly low 20.2% accuracy of indicated expiration dates and 5.3% accuracy of indicated manufacturing dates. To ensure food safety, it is essential to improve consumer understanding and trust regarding food safety through continuous public relations. More education and information are needed to raise consumer awareness of the facts versus myths regarding food safety.


Intra-ply shear is an important mechanism in thermoforming processes
of UD fibre reinforced thermoplastic laminates. Various methods have been developed to characterise this shear mechanism, but measured properties differ for several orders of magnitude. The potential of another technique is shown in this paper. This approach considers a strip with a rectangular cross section, subjected to torsion. Several analyses have been carried out to determine the significant material properties for this loading mechanism. For clarity, isotropic and orthotropic elastic material behaviour was considered first. The response torque mainly depends on the in-plane shear modulus G12. An extension was made to the analysis of anisotropic viscous material behaviour.
Closed form solutions and FE simulations were compared, using a fibre reinforced
viscous fluid model. The torsional response of a partially clamped strip was highly
influenced by the fibre stiffnesses. Nevertheless, it is possible to relate the longitudinal
viscosity to a closed form solution directly, if bulging is not suppressed and constant
through the length of the strip. A smart clamping design is therefore required.


Customers primarily perceive the safety of drinking water on aesthetic qualities. Chlorine, geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol (2-MIB) are common causes of taste and odour complaints in Australia. Variance in customer preference, perception, cultural differences and individual experiences make regulation of these, in the form of guidelines, challenging to establish. Here, analysis of historical water quality and customer complaint data showed the use of customer complaints as an indicator of deteriorating water quality is not robust. The use of a modified Flavour Ratings Assessment showed a statistical decrease in customer acceptance from control samples when chlorine concentration in drinking water increased above 0.2 mg/L and when geosmin or 2-MIB concentration was greater than 10 ng/L. However, geosmin was only rated 'unacceptable' at 30 ng/L while chlorine and 2-MIB were not rated 'unacceptable' for the range tested. For all samples, including 'blanks', customers indicated a greater tendency to complain in a social setting rather than formally to their water provider.


By reviewing the syndromic manifestation, transsexualism in characterized as a psychiatric entity, apart from homossexualism and transvestism. The two main feasible etiologic causes of transsexualism are discussed: the psychoanalytical hypothesis based upon psycossexual regression with imprinting of maternal figure and the neuroendocrine model which assumes alterations of the gender role identity centers in the hypothalamus. On the grounds of the latter explanation and after the scheme that seems to occur in the Morris syndrome whose cells (XY) do not respond to the masculinizing effect of plasma testosterone, it is proposed that transsexuals should possess detectable or cryptic sex-chromosome mosaicism affecting hypothalamic centers of gender role identity which do not respond to the androgenic secretion produced by primitive gonad. This possibility explains the excessive prevalence of the syndrome among men, its typical features in the male as well as its sporadic occurrence. Cytogenetic investigation reveals that the frequency (32%) of sex-chromosome mosaicism among 25 transsexuals and 40 normal control people, both groups presenting the proportion of the mosaicism practically null. The karyotypic criterion as a valuable aid in the syndrome diagnosis is considered.


Objective: To analyze the clinical effect of perioperative high-quality nursing intervention on children with cleft lip and palate.
Methods: From January 2016 to January 2017, sixty-two children with cleft lips and palate who received surgical treatment in Children's Hospital of Nanjing Medical University were selected as the objects. These patients were divided into two groups, termed as routine treatment group and top-quality group. The patients in the routine treatment group received routine nursing whereas the top-quality group received perioperative high-quality nursing intervention. The post-nursing effects of the two groups were analyzed and compared.
Results: The average post-nursing hospitalization days and hospitalization cost of the top-quality group were less than those of the routine treatment group, and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05); The incidence of complications of the top-quality group was 6.45%, lower than 19.35% of the routine treatment group (P<0.05). The family satisfaction degree of the top-quality group was 90.32%, higher than 70.97% of the routine treatment group (P<0.05).
Conclusion: Perioperative high-quality nursing intervention for children with cleft lip and palate may effectively promote patients' rehabilitation, improve the doctor-patient relations and thus can be further popularized and applied.


Flower and seed production of plants can be greatly influenced by both natural climatic oscillations and local weather extremes. However, owing to the rarity of long‐term monitoring studies conducted at a sufficient temporal scale to capture climatic oscillations and the unpredictability of extreme weather events, evidence that demonstrates how these two external forcings act in concert to drive plant reproduction remains scarce. In addition, considerable variation in species' phenological responses to the external climatic forcings was often observed. Phylogenetic relationships may mediate this interspecific variation, but previous studies yielded inconsistent results when testing this hypothesis. We monitored the flower and seed production in a subtropical rain forest, Fushan, Taiwan (24°45′N, 121°35′E), for over 10 years (since September 2002). In March 2005, a record low temperature (−1.3 °C) occurred at Fushan and caused great frost damage to plants. We used weekly phenological records and long‐term meteorological data to assess the effects of climatic fluctuations and extreme weather event on plant reproductive output. We show that the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) indices, which integrated local climatic variables at Fushan over several months, were strongly associated with flower and seed production. The 2005 spring frost also had long‐lasting effects on the flower and seed production of several species. In particular, we detected phylogenetic signals in the relationships between phenological responses of flowering production and several climatic variables (maximum temperature, irradiance and ENSO34 index). By contrast, the relationships between seed production and climatic variables, as well as phenological responses to the frost event, did not exhibit a phylogenetic signal. Synthesis. Our findings add to the growing evidence that together the natural climatic oscillation (ENSO) and the extreme weather event (frost) determined the temporal variation in flower and seed production. In addition, phylogenetically closely related species resembled each other in their flowering responses to abiotic variation in this subtropical rain forest. Improved understanding of these abiotic and biotic interactions may help predicting population‐ and community‐level phenological responses under future climate changes.


: The relationship of three variants of hairlessness, or hypotrichosis, in laboratory rats were examined morphologically, genetically and histologically. The results indicated that the recessive gene causing the fuzzy characteristic in Wistar Furth rats and genes responsible for two other hypotrichotic coat variants in albino rats were the same gene or closely linked genes. The genes were in Linkage Group I of the Norway rat and were closely associated with the albino gene (c), with a recombination percentage of approximately 18%. The hypotrichotic animals had fewer and smaller hair follicles, smaller hair shafts, and a reduction of medullated hair shafts.


In this paper, an analytical model and its new numerical solution using the homogenization method are developed to determine the effective electromagnetic characteristics of honeycombs. Based on the proposed solution method, the electromagnetic properties are obtained by employing the multi-scale homogenization theory and periodical electric (magnetic) potential boundary conditions. Further, the effect of geometry of honeycomb's unit cell on effective electromagnetic properties is investigated with the use of the proposed method. The numerical results are compared with analytic results using the Smith-Scarpa's semi-empirical formula.


Analysis of the terrain using three-dimensional models offers a deep insight view of ground surface topography and terrain representation. The Chinara anticline is one of the main structures of NW-SE trends for the highly folded zone in northeastern Iraq. The objective of this study is to understand the interrelationship between topography and morphotectonic features using three-dimensional models. This research employed fourth generates principal raster derivative products from the DEM using ArcGIS. To understand the undulating of this anticline with the morphotectonic style, the adaptive equation has been suggested to determine the direction and amount of the main tectonic forces, which can be applied to other undulated anticlines. The values of northeastern and southwestern limbs undulating index UI are 11.7 and 7.8 respectively that indicates the strong tectonic force towards the northeast. Two listric faults have been conducted via the field survey that confirmed by remotely sensed interpretation and DEM products. These listric faults had an intensive impact in comparison with concluded strike-slip faults, and then the Chinara anticline would be less structural undulating in a region of vicinity syncline to Perat undulation. The morphotectonic landscapes reveal that the listric fault has branched into two parts, the first one extending to form the anticline and the other comprises the structural dilemma.


Metabolic reprogramming is a hallmark of cancer. In cancer cells, transcription factors (TFs) govern metabolic reprogramming through abnormally increasing or decreasing the transcription rate of metabolic enzymes, which provides cancer cells growth advantages and concurrently leads to the altered metabolic phenotypes observed in many cancers. Consequently, targeting TFs that govern metabolic reprogramming can be highly effective for novel cancer therapeutics. In this paper, we present TFmeta, a machine learning approach to uncover TFs that govern reprogramming of cancer metabolism. Our approach achieves the state-of-the-art performance in reconstructing relations between TFs and their target genes on public benchmark datasets. Leveraging TF binding profiles inferred from genome-wide ChIP-seq experiments and 150 RNA-seq samples from 75 paired cancerous and non-cancerous human lung tissues, our approach predicted 19 key TFs that may be the major regulators of the gene expression changes of metabolic enzymes of the central metabolic pathway glycolysis, which may underlie the dysregulation of glycolysis in non-small-cell lung cancer patients.


We suggest that low optical depth in the Lyman continuum (LyC) may relate the Lyα emission, C ii and Si ii absorption, and C ii* and Si ii* emission seen in high-redshift galaxies. We base this analysis on Hubble Space Telescope Cosmic Origins Spectrograph spectra of four Green Pea (GP) galaxies, which may be analogs of z > 2 Lyα emitters (LAEs). In the two GPs with the strongest Lyα emission, the Lyα line profiles show reduced signs of resonant scattering. Instead, the Lyα profiles resemble the Hα line profiles of evolved star ejecta, suggesting that the Lyα emission originates from a low column density and similar outflow geometry. The weak C ii absorption and presence of non-resonant C ii* emission in these GPs support this interpretation and imply a low LyC optical depth along the line of sight. In two additional GPs, weak Lyα emission and strong C ii absorption suggest a higher optical depth. These two GPs differ in their Lyα profile shapes and C ii* emission strengths, however, indicating different inclinations of the outflows to our line of sight. With these four GPs as examples, we explain the observed trends linking Lyα, C ii, and C ii* in stacked LAE spectra, in the context of optical depth and geometric effects. Specifically, in some galaxies with strong Lyα emission, a low LyC optical depth may allow Lyα to escape with reduced scattering. Furthermore, C ii absorption, C ii* emission, and Lyα profile shape can reveal the optical depth, constrain the orientation of neutral outflows in LAEs, and identify candidate LyC emitters.


Change is the need of time and automation in the system are the change which are the needs of this of this 21 st century.There may be load surges or popping out some times in the industries. In this paper we suggest the priority driven the load management using automation techniques. According to the tendencies, parameters and significance, loads are prioritized. We use this priority for supplying power to the maximum demanding load .This automation purpose is satisfied by and for setting priority we have one relay driving circuit connected with controller. We predefine the priority of the system and according to that priority we assign the energy to the load. This paper proposes the plan of a self-ruling control system utilizing Artificial Neural Network (ANN).The ANN is utilized to produce the energy effective load designs. The control system interfaces sensors and control loads with controller. The server can control every one of the loads rely on upon the continuous information from the applicable sensors which are associated with controller .The information of the procedure is sent to the client through IOT .To avoid the shortage of power on the required load the ANN Algorithm is executed in this system . Keywords— Electricity, Energy management, Real time monitoring, ANN, IOT.


Chronic hyperglycemia causes insulin resistance, termed glucose toxicity. Herein we studied chronic glucose-dependent regulation of the glucose transport system in adipocytes. 3T3-L1 adipocytes were incubated for up to 24 h with low (1 mM) or high (25 mM) glucose, and glucose transport was subsequently analyzed. 100 nM insulin was present throughout the experiments. 24 h incubation with 1 mM glucose caused a 2.3±0.4 fold increase in glucose transport activity, compared to the values obtained with 25 mM glucose. This difference was not observed when 24 h incubation was carried out without insulin. Glucose transport activity was not increased at 3 or 6 h incubation with 1 mM glucose, but was increased at 12 h, which closely paralleled increased expression of GLUT1. In addition to increased GLUT1 expression, more efficient translocation of GLUT1 to the plasma membrane was observed when incubated with 1 mM glucose compared to 25 mM glucose. The addition of azaserin or deprivation of glutamine at 25 mM glucose did not increase the glucose transport activity to the level obtained with 1 mM glucose. PD98059 did not affect glucose transport activity when incubated with 1 mM or 25 mM glucose. In conclusion, the present study is the first to show that, in 3T3-L1 adipocytes, chronic exposure to low (1 mM) and high (25 mM) glucose leads to different insulin-stimulated glucose transport activities. These differences result from the difference in the expression and plasma membrane distribution of GLUT1, but not of GLUT4, and the hexosamine biosynthesis pathway or extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase is not involved.


Eliciting student enjoyment and positive disposition are critical components to effective instruction and high academic achievement in any elementary classroom. Many educators struggle with connecting students to their learning, especially in mathematics. This study focused on integrating art into the classroom, specifically in the core content area of mathematics. The study sought to examine the effects of art integration on students' dispositions, students' enjoyment of mathematics, and students' academic achievement. Sixteen students in a K5 Kindergarten classroom with one primary classroom teacher participated in this study. Throughout the 6-week research period, students participated in art and non-art activities correlated to a mathematics objective during the "Apply" portion of the "Launch, Explore, Summarize, Apply" instructional model. To measure academic achievement and student enjoyment, students participated in daily exit assessments and daily enjoyment surveys on the art or non-art activity. Parents and guardians also participated in a preand post-test survey about their students' dispositions towards mathematics, art, and school. The results of this study show that students' exit assessment scores increased when connected to an art activity, and students' dispositions positively increased over the intervention period as observed by their parents and guardians. Results also consistently indicate that students enjoyed mathematics on a high level throughout the intervention period. Implications for future research include lengthening the study over the academic year to determine art integration's lasting effect, balancing the number of art and non-art activities to give a true and equalized sense of which activities were influential, and to create improved student surveys that better reflect students' enjoyment.


Previous studies of pupils' learning of algebra have been inclined to study errors in given answers. The present study attempts to investigate pupils' thinking processes in the early stages of learning algebra by examining and comparing responses made by English and Thai pupils to the researcher's algebra test. The research was conducted among pupils during their "normal" lessons in secondary school algebra. Pupil participants were in the first two years of secondary education. Data collection included lesson observations, interviews, and the researcher's algebra test. The thinking processes were first categorised from the interview data to provide a framework for analysing pupils' written responses to the researcher's test. Later, a codebook was kept in which pupils' responses to the researcher's test were coded. The study goes on to analyse the outcomes from this coding procedure. The research indicates that the differences in the way pupils think appear to be closely related to the teaching and curriculum provided. In both countries, success in algebra is dependent on having good arithmetic skills. Also the reluctance of pupils to use algebra to solve easy problems results in algebraic skills being inadequately developed to solve more difficult problems. An implication for practice is that the Thai school should consider the bearing which the understanding of simplification of like terms has upon a pupil's ability to solve linear equations. Both schools could consider ways of making effective use of patterns and sequences to develop algebraic thinking. The codebook developed in this research could serve as a tool for mathematics teachers in helping them to understand the complexity of their pupils thinking processes in solving algebraic problems. An investigation involving more schools in other settings could follow this.


This study centered around the experience of thirteen 12th grade students who participated in a mathematics class designed to engage them in the study of real-world issues through mathematics. That is, students learned mathematical concepts through their application to issues relevant to them and their communities. The class used mathematics as a lens to study four main thematic units: Voter Disenfranchisement, Displacement Forces (Deportation and Gentrification), AIDS, and Criminalization of Youth. In short, the youth that participated in the "Math for Social Justice" class (herein referred to as M4SJ) explored social issues plaguing their lives, their families, and their communities through the study of mathematics. As 12th grade students, this experience of using mathematics to learn about social issues was not an isolated incident. This class took place in a small school born out of a community struggle whose thematic focus as a school was social justice. This school is a neighborhood, non-selective enrollment high school located in Little Village, a low-income, mostly Mexican and immigrant community that also draws students from North Lawndale, the neighboring, low-income African-American community.
This study focused on how students made sense of their experiences learning mathematics in order to understand social phenomena. For this study, 13 of the 21 students who participated in the M4SJ class were interviewed. Interviews served as a primary data source but the author drew on other sources student journals, and teacher and researcher field notes to explore the meaning students made from their involvement in the class.
Student data revealed several themes. Students reported to have engaged learning rigorous mathematics in interdependent ways relying heavily on each other as intellectual resources to unpack the class material. The data revealed that students engaged with the material more readily because of the socio-political relevance it held for themselves, their families, and their communities in addition to building on their ever-evolving sense of justice and social agency. Students came to see a common struggle in their respective Black and Brown communities contributing to students' racial and ethnic solidarity. Three students' stories are told narratively as well to further illustrate the impact of the class on their mathematical and social justice trajectories.


This research is concern with a novel architecture to control via the Internet multiple autonomous robotic devices that must complete a series of tasks collaboratively. Remote users need real time feedback on system operation and this should be platform independent and consume minimal bandwidth and processing power. This paper presents an online virtual feedback generator that deliver a generic user interface suitable for wide range of applications of pervasive computing technologies.


Several group key protocols have been presented in the literature to enable secrecy of communication among dynamic groups of participants. However, there is a lack of consistency in the literature in terms of operations supported and performance metrics of the various protocols. This makes it difficult for designers to choose the best protocol for their specific applications. To alleviate this problem we introduce a generic model of group key exchange protocols which we use to prove security properties of the protocols. In addition, we introduce new performance metrics to be used to assist in uniformly comparing these protocols and then improve the performance of five protocols based on these operations and metrics.


The GPML toolbox provides a wide range of functionality for Gaussian process (GP) inference and prediction. GPs are specified by mean and covariance functions; we offer a library of simple mean and covariance functions and mechanisms to compose more complex ones. Several likelihood functions are supported including Gaussian and heavy-tailed for regression as well as others suitable for classification. Finally, a range of inference methods is provided, including exact and variational inference, Expectation Propagation, and Laplace's method dealing with non-Gaussian likelihoods and FITC for dealing with large regression tasks.


ELI is a succinct interactive programming language system organized around a few simple principles. Its main data structures include arrays, lists, dictionaries and tables. In addition, it has an integrated database management component which is capable of processing a basic set of SQL statements. ELI, with a compiler, covering the array portion of the language, is also an excellent tool for coding scientific and engineering solutions. Moreover, it is productive in writing complex applications as well, such as compilers and trading systems.


ABSTRACT Lerman and Yitzhaki (1985) developed a decomposition of the Gini coefficient by income source that has been extensively used in the literature. This method has strong limitations in the presence of negative incomes, which were not discussed by the original authors and have been widely overlooked in successive studies. Through theoretical argumentation and practical examples, this article shows that, when using negative incomes, (1) the original decomposition formulae become inappropriate, (2) the marginal effects analysis may yield erroneous results and (3) the Pigou–Dalton 'principle of transfers' is not always met. This has critical implications for policy development, given that strategies based upon incorrect analyses could actually result in undesired greater income inequalities. The Gini source decomposition should be carefully applied by researchers and policymakers, especially in rural developing areas, where negative incomes are common due to financial losses from agricultural activities.


Recently the truck industry has experienced a large push to overcome the increasing demands of higher performance, lower weight, and longer life of components, all this at a reasonable cost and in a short period of time. Conducting experimental test in the early stage of design is time consuming and expensive. In order to reduce the cost, it is important to conduct simulation using numerical methods by software to find the optimum design. In practice, many of the finite element objects are very large so it makes a difficulty in meshing and also in analysis of the model. It very takes time and need a lot of memory of computer. Submodeling technique offer the solution about that problem. This paper presents the submodeling technique that applied on the corroded truck chassis.


Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a rare neuromuscular disorder characterized by early proximal muscle weakness and progressive loss of muscle function that primarily affects males. Although there is currently no cure for the disease, there is ongoing research into treatments to slow the disease progression, which could impact overall quality of life (QoL) for boys and men with DMD. Many early studies on QoL in DMD were conducted using parent-proxy reports but more recent research has suggested that boys with DMD might perceive their QoL differently than their caregivers. The purpose of this study was to determine if parents of adolescents with DMD perceive their child's QoL the same as the boys perceive their own QoL and to determine if specific aspects of DMD (glucocorticoid use, loss of ambulation, noninvasive respiratory support, and inability to self-feed) affect these perceptions. This study analyzed data from PedsQLTM 4.0 Generic Core Scale surveys and the PedsQLTM 3.0 Neuromuscular Module administered to participants ages 11-17 years old and their caregivers through the Cooperative International Neuromuscular Research Group (CINRG) Duchenne Natural History Study (DNHS). Overall, parents reported lower physical QoL scores (p<0.003) and higher emotional (p=0.049), social (p<0.001), and school-functioning (p<0.022) QoL scores compared to their sons. Older participants and their caregivers both reported higher physical QoL scores than younger participant/parent-proxy reports (p=0.017, p=0.035). Participants taking glucocorticoids reported lower physical QoL than participants not taking glucocorticoids (p<0.001). There was no difference in participant reported total QoL before and after both loss of ambulation and starting non-invasive respiratory support. The results suggest that adolescents with DMD have more positive perceptions regarding their physical QoL and more negative perceptions regarding their psychosocial QoL when compared to their parents, indicating a difference between adolescent experiences and parent perceptions. The results also suggest that the PedsQLTM 4.0 survey may not appropriately capture physical QoL in adolescents with DMD. Improving population health and QoL is an important public health goal, and the results of this study provides information that may help guide interventions to improve the QoL for adolescents with DMD.


This paper, which will be published in the Oxford Handbook on Comparative Constitutional Law (M. Rosenfeld & A. Sajo, eds., forthcoming 2012), explores the borrowing and migration of constitutional ideas and institutions across jurisdictions. Despite the fact that comparative constitutional law is a form of comparative law, comparative constitutionalism has thus far largely ignored the rich debates in comparative law on the topic of legal transplants. I argue that those debates can illuminate our understanding of how constitutional doctrines and ideas travel. After noting the missing legacy of comparative legal thought in the constitutional realm, the paper studies the anatomy of constitutional transplants (object, timing, motivations and patterns) and provides a framework for their normative justifications. The paper concludes with remarks on constitutional convergence.


Regulators and antitrust analysts have often used the presence of price discrimination as an indicator of market power. They are often motivated to regulate price-discriminating industries by political pressure from buyers facing the higher of the discriminatory prices. Their justification for doing so is provided by economic models that equate deviation from marginal cost with market power. Where costs are separable, this position may have validity. But most commonly, real-world goods and services are produced under conditions where costs, whether sunk costs like R&D or advertising or production or distribution costs like common facilities, are shared with other products. Under these usual conditions, firms constrained by competition from earning monopoly rents will adopt price discrimination as the optimum strategy to allocate common costs among buyers. Not only is this welfare enhancing (as Ramsey pricing suggests it is for monopolists), it is not evidence of the unilateral or collusive power to affect industry output, which is at the heart of the "monopoly power" or "market power" concepts. While some price discriminating sellers can earn monopoly rents, price discrimination alone is not evidence of market power and should not be used to justify regulatory intervention.


ABSTRACT The education sector is fast digitalising all of its operations. A large part is driven by proprietary digital products and services developed and offered by for-profit companies that form the education technology industry. This article aims to introduce a theoretical focus of rentiership and assetization into the study of the political economy of education technology. It discusses five potential transformations that the education sector is undergoing as a consequence of digital rentiership. These transformation address new rentee and potential rentier roles of education institutions, nestedness of digital platforms and their terms of use, a rise of contractual governance within the education sector, re-institutionalising the sector, and tensions between competition and monopoly in digital education markets. These trends are not exhaustive and represent only the start of the analysis on rentiership in education. The paper concludes with an invitation for future research.


Abstract The history of the endemic rodents of the Galápagos Islands began with the discovery of the first Galápagos rice rat species by Charles Darwin in 1835 and the last species was described as recently as 1980. Unfortunately, of the seven described species known to occur in the islands during the past 150 years, only two were known to be extant to 1995. Since then, two expeditions to the Galápagos Islands have been conducted to survey endemic rodent populations. The first confirmed the existence of a small endemic rice rat, Nesoryzomys fernandinae, on Fernandina, known previously only from owl pellet remains found in 1979. In 1997, an expedition to Santiago revealed a population of the larger rice rat N. swarthi, a species collected alive only once in 1906 and considered extinct in all recent literature on the Galápagos Islands. Survey efforts on Santa Cruz resulted only in the collection of introduced rodent species (Rattus rattus, R. norvegicus and Mus musculus). The extant species of native rodents in the Galápagos Islands now number four: N. narboroughi and N. fernandinae on Fernandina; N. swarthi on Santiago; and Oryzomys bauri on Santa Fe. Three species are found on islands where no introduced rodents or cats occur, whereas only one (N. swarthi) co-exists with R. rattusand M. musculus. Nesoryzomys darwini and N. indefessus on Santa Cruz and O. galapagoensis on San Cristóbal are still considered extinct. Strategies for conservation should include monitoring islands for introduced rodents and cats, development of emergency plans in the event of introductions, and captive management.


Previous studies have demonstrated that at day 7 following treatment, administration of 3 or 7 mg/kg trimethyltin (TMT) to male Long-Evans rats caused decreases in the concentrations of DA in nucleus accumbens, and perturbed serotonergic function in regions of brain that receive serotonergic innervation from the raphe nuclei. The present series of experiments extended these observations by examining the time course of these events from 14 to 28 days after treatment. Following a dose of 7 mg/kg, changes in serotonergic function, as evidenced by increased turnover and decreased concentrations of 5-HT, were present in striatum, olfactory tubercle, septum and frontal cortex. In nucleus accumbens, concentrations of DA were decreased up to 21 days, while in frontal cortex concentrations of DOPAC and HVA were elevated only at 14 days. In concert with our previous studies, these data indicate that administration of TMT continues to affect serotonergic systems up to 28 days, and dopaminergic systems up to 21 days after exposure, with striatum, nucleus accumbens, olfactory tubercle and septum exhibiting persistent effects due to administration of this neurotoxicant. These prolonged alterations in serotonergic function suggest that this system may play an important role in the response to intoxication with TMT.


The mean lead levels in the maternal blood, cord blood, breast milk and placental tissue, were 0.63 mumol/L (13.2 micrograms/dL), 0.33 mumol/L (6.90 micrograms/dL), 4.74 micrograms/L and 0.86 mumol/kg (17.85 micrograms/100 g) respectively for 165 parturient women occupationally non-exposed to lead in 2 hospitals in Shanghai. No significant difference was found between maternal age groups for these indicators. However, the lead levels in the cord blood and breast milk increased with the lead level in the maternal blood, with coefficient of correlation of 0.714 (P < 0.0001) and 0.353 (P < 0.01) respectively. The mean concentration of lead in breast milk for 12 occupationally lead exposed women was 52.7 micrograms/L, which was almost 12 times higher than that for the occupationally non-exposed population. These results suggested that transfer of lead via placenta prenatally and breast milk postnatally were possible and might pose a potential health hazard to the fetuses and the neonates.


The Saccharomyces cerevisiae gene RTS1 encodes a protein homologous to a variable B-type regulatory subunit of the mammalian heterotrimeric serine/threonine protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A). We present evidence showing that Rts1p assembles into similar heterotrimeric complexes in yeast. Strains in which RTS1 has been disrupted are temperature sensitive (ts) for growth, are hypersensitive to ethanol, are unable to grow with glycerol as their only carbon source, and accumulate at nonpermissive temperatures predominantly as large-budded cells with a 2N DNA content and a nondivided nucleus. This cell cycle arrest can be overcome and partial suppression of the ts phenotype of rts1 -null cells occurs if the gene CLB2 , encoding a Cdc28 kinase-associated B-type cyclin, is expressed on a high-copy-number plasmid. However, CLB2 overexpression has no suppressive effects on other aspects of the rts1 -null phenotype. Expression of truncated forms of Rts1p can also partially suppress the ts phenotype and can fully suppress the inability of cells to grow on glycerol and the hypersensitivity of cells to ethanol. By contrast, the truncated forms do not suppress the accumulation of large-budded cells at high temperatures. Coexpression of truncated Rts1p and high levels of Clb2p fully suppresses the ts phenotype, indicating that the inhibition of growth of rts1 -null cells at high temperatures is due to both stress-related and cell cycle-related defects. Genetic analyses show that the role played


Trigas, P. & Iatrou, G.: The local endemic flora of Evvia (W Aegean, Greece). – Willdenowia 36 (Special Issue): 257-270. – ISSN 0511-9618; © 2006 BGBM Berlin-Dahlem. doi:10.3372/wi.36.36121 (available via http://dx.doi.org/) The local endemic element in the flora of the W Aegean island of Evvia comprises 39 taxa (2.1 % of an estimated total of 1833 taxa). The three centres of endemism on the island are the ophiolitic areas of N Evvia, Mt Dirphis in central Evvia and Mt Ochi and the Cape Kafireas area in S Evvia. The majority of the endemic taxa inhabit limestone and ophiolitic habitats. Schizoendemics (80.8 %) form the largest category, followed by apoendemics (11.5 %) and palaeoendemics (7.7 %). Taxonomical comments on selected taxa are provided. The chromosome number of ten taxa is given for the first time.


Pulmonary ventilation and asthmatic reaction under laboratory conditions have been investigated in 23 patients with allergic rhinitis hypersensitive to grass pollen. Pulmonary ventilation has been assessed with the aid of VCin, FVC, FEV1, FEV1/VCin, PEF, MEF50, and MTT. Asthmatic reaction has been produced by an inhalation of allergens mixture with dose-response technique. An early reaction has been diagnosed, when FEV1 decreased by at least 20% or MEF50 by 30% within 10 minutes, and late reaction when the same parameters decreased after 6 or 24 hours. An early asthmatic reaction has been noted in 2 patients (8.7%), late--in 4 patients (17.4%), and double (both early and late) reaction in 2 patients (8.7%). Pulmonary ventilation has been normal in all examined patients, except two of them with peripheral airways obstruction (MEF50 less than 70% of the normal value). Results suggest, that asthmatic reaction may be provoked in the laboratory in patients with pollinosis and normal pulmonary ventilation after pollen season. Such a reaction may also be expected during a natural exposition to pollens.


This thesis investigates complications of surgery in infants, particularly infections and
liver disease in infants receiving parenteral nutrition (PN) following gastrointestinal
surgery, and intraoperative hypercapnia and acidosis in surgery for congenital
diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) and oesophageal atresia with tracheo-oesophageal fistula
(OA/TOF), using a series of clinical studies.
A pilot randomised controlled trial comparing open versus thoracoscopic surgery in
neonates with CDH and OA/TOF showed that neonatal thoracoscopy resulted in more
severe intraoperative hypercapnia and acidosis than open surgery, particularly in patients
with CDH. This highlights a need for studies assessing neurodevelopmental outcomes
following neonatal thoracoscopy.
In surgical infants receiving PN, chlorhexidine antisepsis to clean central venous catheter
connectors was associated with a significant reduction in the rate of septicaemia
(particularly staphylococcal). In such infants, septicaemia due to bowel organisms
occurred later than septicaemia due to coagulase-negative staphylococci.
In congenital duodenal obstruction, while avoidance of initial PN was successful for two
thirds of cases in which it was attempted, one third subsequently required PN, and this
group showed poorer growth than children who commenced PN soon after surgery.
One third of surgical infants with intestinal failure develop intestinal failure associated
liver disease (IFALD), and 61% developed septicaemia. I found no association between
septicaemia and IFALD. In a randomised controlled trial to investigate whether glutamine supplementation affects
the incidence of microbial invasion in surgical infants receiving PN, microbial invasion
was detected by blood cultures, broad-range and targeted PCR for bacterial DNA, and
assays of endotoxin, and lipopolysaccharide binding protein. Monocyte HLA-DR
expression was measured by flow cytometry. Glutamine had no effect on microbial
invasion, which was detected in 60% of patients (half of which was detected by blood
culture). Glutamine supplementation significantly enhanced recovery of monocyte
function. Among patients with low monocyte function at enrolment, glutamine was
protective against microbial invasion.


Objective: Iron defi ciency anemia is the most common cause of microcytic anemia throughout the world. Ferritin levels are good indicators of iron stores; however, levels may increase irrespective of iron stores in cases of chronic disease. Therefore, it is diffi cult to diagnose iron defi ciency anemia coexisting with anemia of chronic disease. Materials and Methods: To determine the level of transferrin receptor in subjects, 30 patients with iron defi ciency anemia, 30 patients with anemia of chronic disease and 30 patients with both diseases were included in the study. Results: Mean serum transferrin receptor levels were 5.99±2.98 mg/L in the iron defi ciency anemia group, 1.90±1.15 mg/L in the anemia of chronic disease group and 3.07±0.90 mg/L in the combination group. Comparing groups with each other revealed signifi cant diff erences (p<0.05). Conclusion: It is concluded that the assessment of serum transferrin receptor levels is a useful method for the diagnosis of iron defi ciency anemia in patients.


Farmers have been encroaching fragile wetlands as a strategy to increase their rice production thus threatening wetlands' existence and capacity to other critical ecosystem services. This calls for efficient production to strike the balance between food rice production and wetlands' sustainable existence. The current study sought to provide assess rice farmers' technical efficiency of resource use by detecting the determinants of rice yield and further identify the determinants of technical efficiency of the resources used by rice farmers in Kilombero wetland. A cross-sectional survey of 145 randomly sampled farmers aided in achieving the study objective. A stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) model was used to analyze data. The mean technical efficiency among farmers was at 60.54% level. The positive determinants of rice yield were land and fertilizers while labor influenced it negatively. Age, education, farming experience, group membership, and credit access reduced inefficiency while the distance to the extension agent and off-farm income increased farmers' inefficiency. The study concludes that there is a possibility of expanding rice production without threatening the wetland's existence. It recommends that government and other stakeholders to ensure that rice farmers are up-to-date with optimal use of fertilizers in rice production since it will assist in improving rice yield while the rate of expansion of rice lands in the wetlands will lower. Policy implementers ought to establish initiatives that inspire rice farmers to capitalize on farmer groups and join education programs to take full advantage of their potential efficiency and might participate in community development activities.
JEL code: Q15