The standard model of particle physics describes all known elementary particles and the forces between them. The strong force, which binds quarks inside hadrons and nucleons inside nuclei, is described by the theory of Quantum Chromodynamics. This theory predicts a new state of matter at extreme temperatures and densities: the Quark Gluon plasma. The ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva was build to study this QGP by looking at collisions of the most heavy stable ions: lead (Pb) ions. In such collisions one hopes to achieve sufficient energy density for the creation of a QGP. One of the signatures of QGP formation in high energy heavy ion collisions is the presence of collective behaviour in the system formed during the collision. This collectivity manifests itself in a common velocity in all produced particles: a collective flow. The most dominant contribution to collective flow is elliptic flow, which originates from the anisotropic overlap region of the two nuclei in non-central collisions and is visible in the azimuthal distribution of the produced particles. Elliptic flow is related to the equation of state of the system and its degree of thermalisation. The analysis of elliptic flow is complicated by the presence of correlations between particles from other sources, summarised in the term nonflow. Several analysis methods have become available over the years and have been implemented for elliptic flow analysis within the ALICE computing framework. These methods have different sensitivities to these nonflow correlations. Because the centre of mass energy at the LHC is so high, predictions have been made of collective behaviour even in proton-proton collisions. These predictions are very divers and give values between 0 and 0.2 for elliptic flow using different models. To constrain these predictions proton-proton data, recorded with the ALICE experiment at the LHC in the 2010 7 TeV proton-proton run, was studied. In proton-proton collisions large nonflow correlations are certainly present and might mask the elliptic flow correlation. The nonflow correlations have to be suppressed sufficiently such that the elliptic flow signal becomes detectable. Therefor an analysis method was choosen that can suppress nonflow correlations by increasing the separation in pseudorapidity of two subevents. This method is called the scalar product method. How much nonflow is suppressed is shown to depend on the pseudorapidity range of the nonflow. The dependence on the pseudorapidity gap size between the subevents, in 7 TeV proton-proton collisions, points to a strong nonflow component, because the signal decreases with increasing gap size. The corresponding Monte Carlo data set shows the same dependence, while it only includes nonflow correlations. This enforces the conclusion that nonflow is the dominant or the only correlation in 7 TeV proton-proton data at the LHC. The conclusion from this analysis is that elliptic flow in 7 TeV proton-proton collisions with at least 10 particles is less than 0.05. Predictions of a higher elliptic flow for these events can be excluded. To exclude or confirm lower predicted values the nonflow contribution has to be further reduced.


Poverty alleviation and food and nutrition security remain one of the priority areas of development policies for the German government. Poverty exists when individuals or groups are not able to satisfy their basic needs adequately. Poverty consists of at least three dimensions: (i) the availability of essential resources for basic needs; (ii) financial and other means of poor individuals and groups; and (iii) the physical, intellectual, social, and cultural status and position of poor individuals and groups. Following this model, the severity of poverty is the collective gap between the availability of the essential resources (i) and the individual ability to meet basic needs (ii) + (iii). Basic needs are not covered if individuals or groups are not able to develop themselves physically, intellectually, and/or socially according to their genetic potentials. As a result, growth retardation of children ('stunting'), who are biologically and socially the most vulnerable individuals of the society, is a valid cultural independent indicator for poverty. One form of poverty is food and nutrition insecurity. Food security is achieved if adequate food (quantity, quality, safety, sociocultural acceptability) is available and accessible for and satisfactorily utilized by all individuals at all times to live a healthy and happy life. Food and nutrition programmes have four dimensions: (i) categorical; (ii) socio-organizational; (iii) managerial; and (iv) situationrelated dimensions. As shown in three examples of Indonesian–German programmes, despite the complexity of poverty and food and nutrition security, with adequate targeting of the most vulnerable population, adequate identification of problems for a proper selection of interventions and frequent evaluation, reduction of poverty and food insecurity can be achieved.


This paper analyses whether accounting quality produces any impact on firm performance using only accounting data: the abnormal accruals methodology to evaluate accounting quality and ROA to determine firm performance. This is important because accounting information guides investment decisions (Bradshaw et al., 2004 and Verdi, 2006). For 17 European countries, findings confirm the mechanical relationship between accruals and accounting measures of performance: income increasing abnormal accruals, which mean decreasing accounting quality, will increase ROA and vice-versa. In addition, the lag effect is analysed, as per Chan et al. (2004). When current performance is compared with the abnormal accruals of the previous year, results suggest that the reverse effect does not occur for two consecutive years.


These essays explore what happens when a skilful economist makes unconventional assumptions. Economic theory has traditionally relied upon a tacit and 'classical' set of assumptions that have gradually acquired a life of their own in defining how economists write and how they justify economic models. Similarly, these assumptions have acquired an autonomous character: they guide the way economists think about the world. In consequence, consideration of alternative assumptions has become taboo. These essays are substantively and stylistically novel because they break these taboos and bring new assumptions into economic theory. The papers apply this adventurous approach to a wide range of issues - from insurance markets and trade in underdeveloped countries to unemployment and discrimination. Some of the essays derive the implications for economic markets of costly asymmetric information. Others explore the findings of other social sciences such as anthropology, psychology and sociology.


Methionine synthase activity was measured in 11 placentae after Caesarean section during which nitrous oxide had been used as an anaesthetic agent, and compared with that from 20 placentae after normal vaginal delivery with no exposure to nitrous oxide. There was no significant difference in enzyme activity between the two series.


In-memory computing (IMC) is a promising hardware architecture to circumvent the memory walls in data-intensive applications, like deep learning. Among various memory technologies, static random-access memory (SRAM) is promising thanks to its high computing accuracy, reliability, and scalability to advanced technology nodes. This paper presents a novel multi-bit capacitive convolution in-SRAM computing macro for high accuracy, high throughput and high efficiency deep learning inference. It realizes fully parallel charge-domain multiply-and-accumulate (MAC) within compact 8-transistor 1-capacitor (8T1C) SRAM arrays that is only 41% larger than the standard 6T cells. It performs MAC with multi-bit activations without conventional digital bit-serial shift-and-add schemes, leading to drastically improved throughput for high-precision CNN models. An ADC-reduction encoding scheme complements the compact sram design, by reducing the number of needed ADCs by half for energy and area savings. A $576 \times 130$ macro with 64 ADCs is evaluated in 65nm with post-layout simulations, showing 4.60 TOPS/mm2 compute density and 59.7 TOPS/W energy efficiency with 4/4-bit activations/weights. The MC2 - RAM also achieves excellent linearity with only 0.14 mV (4.5% of the LSB) standard deviation of the output voltage in Monte Carlo simulations.


This paper reports on a multichannel radiation detection platform enabled with nanoparticles that is capable of detecting and discriminating all types of radiation emitted from fissionable bomb making materials. Typical Geiger counters are limited to detecting only beta and gamma radiation. The micro-Geiger counter reported here detects all species of radiation including beta particles, gamma/X rays, alpha particles, and neutrons. The multispecies detecting micro-Geiger counter contains a hermetically sealed and electrically biased fill gas. Impinging radiation interacts with tailored nanoparticles to release secondary charged particles that ionize the fill gas. The ionized particles collect on respectively biased electrodes resulting in a characteristic electrical pulse. Pulse height spectroscopy and radiation energy binning techniques can then be used to analyze the pulses to determine the specific radiation isotope. The ideal voltage range of operation for energy discrimination was found to be in the proportional region at 1000 Vdc. In this region, specific pulse heights for different radiation species resulted. The amplification region strength which determines the device sensitivity to radiation energy can be tuned with the electrode separation distance. An electrode separation of 0.8 mm produced a count rate of 530 cpm for a 90Sr beta source when compared to an off-the-shelf Geiger counter which produced 1500 cpm. Count rates as high as 15 300 were observed for the same radiation source with electrodes spaced closer than 0.5 mm. By using a novel microinjection ceramic molding and silver paste metallizing process, the batch fabrication of essentially disposable devices can be achieved.


Ten years after the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed by world leaders became the greatest-ever commitment for a 'more peaceful, prosperous and just future', progress is slow and many hard-won achievements have been undone after the global food, fuel and economic crises. Unless an urgent rescue package is developed to accelerate fulfillment of all the MDGs, we are likely to witness the greatest collective failure in history. Along with the goals on maternal health and water and sanitation, MDG 1 – eradicate extreme poverty and hunger - is one of the most off-track MDGs. In 2009, the number of people going to sleep hungry every day reached an all-time high of more than 1 billion- most of them children and women. The fact that these goals remain so far from success puts the whole MDG initiative at risk. Halving hunger must be one of the top priorities for urgent action at the MDG Summit in September 2010. The only chance of avoiding failure is a rescue plan for all MDGs that includes the necessary measures, both political and financial. Because halving hunger is still possible. Some countries have achieved tremendous advances in hunger reduction through a combination of effective policies and investment. Malawi, for example, is no longer dependent on food aid and has even become an exporter after it facilitated access to subsidized seeds and fertilizers to small producers. And Brazil has made the fight against hunger a state policy, combining social protection programmes with support for family-based agriculture.


This article focuses on an investigation whose general objective is to reconstruct and classify forms of differentialist racism towards the members of non-Catholic Christian religions in the city of Saltillo, both in their face - to - face relationships and in the mass media. The theoretical framework consists of the following concepts and themes: racism, cultural racism/differentialist racism and racism in the mass media. The main results highlight, among other aspects, ambivalent tendencies: on the one hand, interviewees point out the scarce presence of non-Catholic Christian religions in the traditional mass media (mainly in open television, radio and newspapers) and, on the other hand, the guaranteed presence in social networks which seem to be, although with some problematic implications, the main means of expression of non-Catholic Christian religions in Mexico. In face-to-face relationships, however, the most racist actors are the priests and members of the Catholic Church, priests and members of other Christian churches, family members of Catholicism, school friends and school teachers; while the acts by which differentialist racism is expressed have to do with more or less serious forms of symbolic violence. Finally, in the conclusions, it is pointed out the importance of promoting the passage from diversity to religious pluralism, as a starting point to be able to aspire to the construction of societies based on peaceful coexistence of differences.


The second phase particle effect on texture evolution of polycrystalline material is studied through phase-field method. A unique field variable is introduced into the phase-field model to represent the second phase particles. Elastic interaction between particles and grains is also considered. Results indicate that in the presence of second phase particles the average particle diameter turns smaller than in the absence of these particles and retards texture formation by pinning effect. The second phase particles change the strain energy profile, which tremendously influences the pinning effect.


A conceptual approach to the governance choice at the micro-level, relevant to the specific type of knowledge, is presented. It is based on the idea that the more basic is the type of knowledge the less available it is for the consumer and hence the less are opportunities for its transfer by the market mechanism. Each type of knowledge requires its adequate governance. The more this accordance, the less is the friction for knowledge creation and sharing mechanism operation, hence the less is the transaction cost, minimizing of which can be served as one of the possible criteria for choosing adequate governance.


Automated ball-indentation tests were performed on a duplex stainless steel (2205) and on a high-strength Al-Cu alloy (2014-T651) using a tungsten carbide (TC) spherical ball indenter to derive the materials' stress-strain parameters, which were validated with standard tensile specimen data. Test method and data analysis procedures, as proposed by Haggag et al. in a previous research publication, were followed. During analysis, we observed some interesting details, such as the existence of a linear relationship between the maximum applied compressive force and the plastic depth of penetration for a given material, a relationship between force and plastic diameter of indentation, and a unique relationship between plastic diameter of indentation and plastic depth of indentation, which is independent of the material being evaluated. The correlation between ABI derived stress-strain data and tensile stress-strain data was reasonable for duplex stainless steel, whereas the correlation was not good in the case of Al-Cu alloy 2014-T651. This work suggests the need to improve the formulations, taking into account the properties of indenter and indenting material, as well as the need to account for events such as sink-in and pile-up that take place during indentation.


Moesin is a 78-kDa protein with diverse functions in linking the cytoskeleton to the membrane while
controlling cell shape, adhesion, locomotion, and signaling. The aim of this study was to characterize the
expression and localization of moesin in mononuclear phagocytes by using confocal microscopy, flow cytom·
etry, immunoprecipitation, and Western blotting and to analyze the function of moesin as a lipopolysaccharide
receptor, utilizing an antisense oligonucleotide approach to knock down the moesin gene. Results revealed that
moesin is expressed on the surface of monocytes/macrophages and surface expression is increased after
lipopolysaccharide stimulation. The total protein mass of moesin is increased in monocytes after lipopolysaccharide
stimulation. Immunoprecipitation showed that moesin coprecipitates with TLR4, a well-known lipopolysaccharide
receptor, suggesting an early role of moesin in the formation of the initiation complex for
lipopolysaccharide signaling. Two antisense and two control sense oligonucleotides were synthesized and
introduced every 4 h for 48 h in adherent macrophage-like cells. Cells were then stimulated with lipopolysaccharide
for 4 h, and the supernatants were assayed for tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-a) production. Cell
Iysates were assayed for moesin expression by Western blotting immediately after the 48-h treatment period
and also after 116 h of recovery to assess the return of moesin expression and function. Moesin gene expression
was completely suppressed after 48 h of incubation with antisense oligonucleotides. The antisense elimination
of moesin gene expression led to a significant reduction of lipopolysaccharide-induced TNF-a secretion.
Restoration of moesin gene expression led to restoration of TNF-a production. These data suggest an important
role for moesin in lipopolysaccharide-induced TNF-a production, highlighting its importance in lipopolysaccharide-
mediated signal transduction.


This paper focuses on two compelling arguments made in the literature regarding the efficiency gap: first, that consumers face significant transaction costs related to searching for and analyzing information on prospective energy-saving investments; and second, that even well-informed consumers still rationally perceive substantial risks -higher risks than with most financial investments in making these purchases. Two case studies of efforts to promote governmental energy-efficiency investment are presented. One is a volume-purchase of LED traffic lights by the city of Philadelphia, and the other an information dissemination program aimed at federal purchasers by the U.S. Department of Energy's Federal Energy Management Program. This paper asserts that these programs have been successful because they reduce the two market barriers of high "search cost" and high perceived risks.


This paper studies the impacts on Western European CO2 emissions of a reduction in Norwegian gas sales. Such impacts are due to changes in energy demand, energy supply, and environmental and political regulations. The gas supply model DYNOPOLY is used to analyse the effects on Russian and Algerian gas exports of a reduction in Norwegian gas supply. The effects on the demand side and the effects of committing to CO2 targets are analysed using the energy demand model SEEM. If Western European countries commit to their announced CO2 emissions targets, reduced Norwegian gas sales have no impact on emissions. The consumption of oil and coal will increase slightly, while total energy consumption will go down. Also, a reduction in Norwegian gas sales have only minor impacts on the CO2 emissions from Western Europe when no emissions regulations are considered.


ABSTRACT Inactivation of progeny virions with chimeric virion-associated proteins represents a novel therapeutic approach against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) replication. The HIV type 1 (HIV-1) Vpr gene product, which is packaged into virions, is an attractive candidate for such a strategy. In this study, we developed Vpr-based fusion proteins that could be specifically targeted into mature HIV-1 virions to affect their structural organization and/or functional integrity. Two Vpr fusion proteins were constructed by fusing to the first 88 amino acids of HIV-1 Vpr the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase enzyme (VprCAT) or the last 18 C-terminal amino acids of the HIV-1 Vpu protein (VprIE). These Vpr fusion proteins were initially designed to quantify their efficiency of incorporation into HIV-1 virions when produced in cis from the provirus. Subsequently, CD4+ Jurkat T-cell lines constitutively expressing the VprCAT or the VprIE fusion protein were generated with retroviral vectors. Expression of the VprCAT or the VprIE fusion protein in CD4+ Jurkat T cells did not interfere with cellular viability or growth but conferred substantial resistance to HIV replication. The resistance to HIV replication was more pronounced in Jurkat-VprIE cells than in Jurkat-VprCAT cells. Moreover, the antiviral effect mediated by VprIE was dependent on an intact p6 gag domain, indicating that the impairment of HIV-1 replication required the specific incorporation of Vpr fusion protein into virions. Gene expression, assembly, or release was not affected upon expression of these Vpr fusion proteins. Indeed, the VprIE and VprCAT fusion proteins were shown to affect the infectivity of progeny virus, since HIV virions containing the VprCAT or the VprIE fusion proteins were, respectively, 2 to 3 times and 10 to 30 times less infectious than the wild-type virus. Overall, this study demonstrated the successful transfer of resistance to HIV replication in tissue cultures by use of Vpr-based antiviral genes.


Osteosarcoma is the most common primary malignant tumor of the bone in adolescents and children, with high rates of metastasis and a poor prognosis. Recently, osteosarcoma cancer stem/stem‑like cells (CSCs) have been identified as the main cause of recurrence and metastasis. Stress‑induced phosphoprotein 1 (STIP1), a co‑chaperone that binds to heat shock proteins 70 and 90, is abnormally expressed in several tumor cell lines, and may play an important role in tumor cell migration and invasion. These features indicate that STIP1 may represent a new therapeutic target for osteosarcoma CSCs. However, the role of STIP1 in osteosarcoma CSC migration and invasion remains largely unknown. In the present study, CD133‑positive osteosarcoma CSCs were first isolated and cultured by magnetic cell sorting and serum‑free medium suspension cell sphere culture, respectively. Knockdown of STIP1 by small interfering RNA significantly was then shown to inhibit the migration and invasion of these cells, possibly due to the regulation of the expression of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)‑2, MMP‑9 and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase‑2. Furthermore, data from the present study suggested that the knockdown of STIP1 decreased the levels of phosphorylated Akt and phosphorylated ERK1/2. In summary, these findings indicate that targeting STIP1 in osteosarcoma may constitute a viable molecular targeted therapy strategy for the inhibition of CSC invasion and migration.


Quantitative risk assessment (QRA) characterizes the risk of an adverse health outcome for an organism exposed to a chemical, environmental, physical, or other hazard. Historically, QRAs define risk based upon the increased probability of adverse response because of exposure when compared with the background probability of response in unexposed individuals. For a specified risk level, the exposure–response relationship is inverted to find an exposure (or dose) for minimizing risk; these exposures are often called the benchmark dose (BMD). For continuous endpoints, BMD analyses have employed strong assumptions on the form of the response distribution which may not be met for most toxicology data sets. We propose a reformulation of the BMD for use in QRA for continuous response that is based upon milder assumptions using quantile regression and monotone smoothing splines. This method takes into account the uncertainty in the response distribution as well as uncertainty in the exposure–response relationship. We apply this method to a data example and show through a simulation study that the approach is often superior to current practice. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


In this article, we try to investigate which factors affect the visits to cultural heritage (CH), using Italy as a case study. We adopt a broad definition of CH including archaeological and historical sites, historical buildings and museums, focusing our attention on State CH. In our empirical analysis, we use a rather innovative indicator of CH value, that is, the monetary value of State CH, officially provided by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Using these data, this article aims at evaluating if such monetary value has a significant role in stimulating visits to cultural sites for the years 1996–2010. We also control for other factors potentially affecting the number of visits to cultural sites, such as alternative tourist attractors and the regional performance in the tourism sector. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that attempts to investigate the effect of CH monetary value on cultural participation.


Social circles can be valuable in online applications, but existing approaches don't readily support such grouping: they either require a user to manually tag connections or offer no more than broad-brush acquaintanceship between connections. Platys Social is a novel approach that learns users' social circles and prioritizes their connections by bringing together contextual information and user interactions. Platys Social runs incrementally, can execute on a resource-limited mobile device, and can potentially avoid storing users' private information on a remote site.


In this paper a pendulum of two degrees of freedom is investigated, i.e. a spherical pendulum which is attached to the end effector of an industrial robot manipulator. The result of the presented research is a controllable transport of the pendulum in all three dimensions. That means a real time control of the pendulum during all the time of the transport and a stable reaction of suddenly changing circumstances. The mathematical model has been derived due to the Lagrangian mechanics without consideration of the external forces. The position of the pendulum is observed with an USB camera which is also attached to the end effector and follows the motion of the manipulator. The analysis of the images taken by the USB camera provides an estimation of the current position of the pendulum and builds the input of the controller. For the first the experimental setup, the mathematical model and the controller are explained and then some experimental results are presented.


SN 2017dio shows both spectral characteristics of a type-Ic supernova (SN) and signs of a hydrogen-rich circumstellar medium (CSM). Prominent, narrow emission lines of H and He are superposed on the continuum. Subsequent evolution revealed that the SN ejecta are interacting with the CSM. The initial SN Ic identification was confirmed by removing the CSM interaction component from the spectrum and comparing with known SNe Ic and, reversely, adding a CSM interaction component to the spectra of known SNe Ic and comparing them to SN 2017dio. Excellent agreement was obtained with both procedures, reinforcing the SN Ic classification. The light curve constrains the pre-interaction SN Ic peak absolute magnitude to be around M g = − 17.6 mag. No evidence of significant extinction is found, ruling out a brighter luminosity required by an SN Ia classification. These pieces of evidence support the view that SN 2017dio is an SN Ic, and therefore the first firm case of an SN Ic with signatures of hydrogen-rich CSM in the early spectrum. The CSM is unlikely to have been shaped by steady-state stellar winds. The mass loss of the progenitor star must have been intense, M ˙ ∼ 0.02 ( ϵ H α / 0.01 ) − 1 ( v wind / 500 km s−1) ( v shock / 10,000 km s−1)−3 M⊙ yr−1, peaking at a few decades before the SN. Such a high mass-loss rate might have been experienced by the progenitor through eruptions or binary stripping.


Migration of cells is required in multiple tissue-level processes, such as in inflammation or cancer metastasis. Endocytosis is an extremely regulated cellular process by which cells uptake extracellular molecules or internalise cell surface receptors. While the role of endocytosis of focal adhesions (FA) and plasma membrane (PM) turnover at the leading edge of migratory cells is wide known, the contribution of endocytic proteins per se in migration has been frequently disregarded. In this review, we describe the novel functions of the most well-known endocytic proteins in cancer cell migration, focusing on clathrin, caveolin, flotillins and GRAF1. In addition, we highlight the relevance of the macropinocytic pathway in amoeboid-like cell migration.


Discovery of high-energy neutrino events by the IceCube Collaboration [1] opened a new era of experimental neutrino astrophysics. The analysis of starting and uncontained cascade and track events based on multiple years of IceCube data [2] leaves no doubt that the excess of the neutrino events above 100 TeV or so cannot be explained by atmospheric neutrinos. Isotropic distribution of these events, showing no significant evidence of spatial or temporal correlations with known sources, points to extragalactic origin of high energy neutrinos. However, the production mechanism of this cosmic component is not clear yet. It might have astrophysical origin being produced by cosmic rays with a typical power law spectrum, or cosmological origin related to dark matter decay which would produce the neutrino spectrum in a form of one ore more bumps. Here we present a model of decaying dark matter represented by heavy mirror neutrinos, with masses of few PeV, from a parallel gauge sector with very large electroweak scale, in which ordinary high energy neutrinos are produced via the majoron portal. In this case the neutrino spectrum would consist of two bumps, one with maximal energy of about 0.5 PeV, and another with maximal energy of about 5 PeV. In addition, the majoron decay produces the neutrino mass eigenstates ν1,2,3 with fractions proportional to the neutrino mass squared, F1 : F2 : F3 = m1 : m 2 2 : m 2 3, with specific implications for the flavor composition of the IceCube neutrinos. Thus, precise determination of the energy spectrum and flavor content of the IceCube neutrinos in the future can discriminate between their cosmological and astrophysical origins.


There are a lot of games which have good benefits in the game genre such as serious game. In this paper we implement an serious game for increasing intensive power by calculating the index of the intensive power based on EEG signal. First we explain the definition of the EEG and the classification of the brainwaves and we depict the method for increasing the intensive power. Then we apply the index of the intensive power to the game production to train the intensive power. At last we make an experiment on the effect of an game which increases the intensive power and the analysis shows the increase of the intensive power.


ABSTRACT This article attempts to initiate a critical dialogue on the politics of love and attachment by investigating the way in which the concept of attachment governs the field of transnational adoption. We take our starting point in an analysis of a collection of background articles, teaching materials, and interviews produced by child psychologists as well as instructions to and testimonies from adopters. Reading the material through Sara Ahmed's notion of affective orientation and Lauren Berlant's critical deconstruction of love, we argue that the texts popularize and instrumentalize John Bowlby's framework of attachment theory in ways that connect attachment to specific notions of love. Even though the aim seems to be the strengthening of intimate familial ties in adoptive families and ensuring feelings of kinship and security for the adoptee, the notion of attachment-as-love simultaneously organizes a narrative logic that positions the adoptee in a deadlock between pathologization and the demand for affective assimilation into the adoptive family. Our reading seeks to invite a more critical approach to notions of the attachment paradigm as an idealized route to affective belonging and psychological well-being for adoptees.


A numerical computation of low-frequency electromagnetic field near power apparatus and systems that may be used for analysis of occupational and general public low-frequency electromagnetic field exposure is described in this paper. The computation is based upon the integral equation approach and the usage of the method of moments for solving such equations. The charge that causes the irrotational component of electric field is calculated from known potentials of wires. The rotational component of electromagnetic field is calculated from a priori known line-currents taking into account the influence of the induced eddy currents in earth. The application of the computation is illustrated by the analysis of the occupational electromagnetic field exposure in a 400 kV substation at 50 Hz.


With the OECD issuance in June 2018 of its final guidance on the profit split method, individual countries must determine how they might consider and apply the profit split method (PSM) going forward. The OECD guidance issued reflects a consensus view that included input from the very large number of countries. The need for consensus means that guidance can only reflect the lowest common denominator of country positions. Hence, it is not surprising that the final guidance does not include innovative proposals for simplification of the PSM or any effort to expand its use. In previous comments to the OECD concerning the PSM, the BEPS Monitoring Group recommended making the PSM truly easy to apply by taxpayers and tax authorities alike by establishing standardised concrete allocation keys and weightings for common business models. This article calls for individual countries and regional groups to now consider adopting this approach. It also suggests that countries that choose to do so could not only establish standardised concrete allocation keys and weightings for common business models, but such countries could require that any groups whose businesses reflect these common business models must use the PSM and these required keys and weightings. Another method or the use of alternative keys and weightings could only be used where a taxpayer group establishes to the satisfaction of the relevant tax authorities that some other transfer pricing method or key and weighting approach is, in fact, more appropriate. Countries should also consider encouraging the Platform for Collaboration on Tax to take on the challenge of further developing this approach so that it could more easily be adopted by many countries.


Currently, our treatment modalities for patients with severe coronary artery disease consist of combinations of medication, percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) and coronary revascularization operations. Still, the number of patients who cannot be treated adequately in these ways is growing. In recent years progress has been made in the field of angiogenesis: the process of the development of new capillaries. It is now known that blood vessel growth is an essential phenomenon in a range of disease. It is possible to inhibit or stimulate this process, offering hope for new treatments in a wide array of diseases. Stimulation of angiogenesis has already been successful in animal models of chronic peripheral and myocardial ischaemia. Results of experimental treatments of coronary patients have been reported since 1998. 'Therapeutic angiogenesis' may evolve as our fourth treatment modality for the treatment of coronary artery insufficiency.


A machine learning-based methodology is proposed and implemented for conducting evaluations of cyberdeceptive defenses with minimal human involvement. This avoids impediments associated with deceptive research on humans, maximizing the efficacy of automated evaluation before human subjects research must be undertaken. Leveraging recent advances in deep learning, the approach synthesizes realistic, interactive, and adaptive traffic for consumption by target web services. A case study applies the approach to evaluate an intrusion detection system equipped with application-layer embedded deceptive responses to attacks. Results demonstrate that synthesizing adaptive web traffic laced with evasive attacks powered by ensemble learning, online adaptive metric learning, and novel class detection to simulate skillful adversaries constitutes a challenging and aggressive test of cyberdeceptive defenses.


Instance-level alignment is widely exploited for person re-identification, e.g. spatial alignment, latent semantic alignment and triplet alignment. This paper probes another feature alignment modality, namely cluster-level feature alignment across whole dataset, where the model can see not only the sampled images in local mini-batch but the global feature distribution of the whole dataset from distilled anchors. Towards this aim, we propose anchor loss and investigate many variants of cluster-level feature alignment, which consists of iterative aggregation and alignment from the overview of dataset. Our extensive experiments have demonstrated that our methods can provide consistent and significant performance improvement with small training efforts after the saturation of traditional training. In both theoretical and experimental aspects, our proposed methods can result in more stable and guided optimization towards better representation and generalization for well-aligned embedding.


A randomized prospective controlled trial of 155 patients with trochanteric fractures compared the A 0 dynamic hip screw and the Jewett nail plate. The dynamic hip screw showed significantly less evidence of mechanical failure and a lower incidence of reoperation. The implant had no effect on mortality or success of rehabilitation. Mortality was significantly associated with social dependence before fracture and the hospital attended. Capacity to return home and walk again were associated with mobility before fracture and age. While the fate of the majority of patients appeared to be determined by their state before fracture, hospital differences appear to offer the greatest potential for influencing the outcome of this condition.


Labeled graphs are particularly well adapted to represent objects in the context of topology-based geometric modeling. Thus, graph transformation theory is used to implement modeling operations and check their consistency. This article defines a class of graph transformation rules dedicated to embedding computations. Objects are here defined as a particular subclass of labeled graphs in which arc labels encode their topological structure (i.e., cell subdivision: vertex, edge, face) and node labels encode their embedding (i.e., relevant data: vertex positions, face colors, volume density). Object consistency is defined by labeling constraints which must be preserved by modeling operations that modify topology and/or embedding. Dedicated graph transformation variables allow us to access the existing embedding from the underlying topological structure (e.g., collecting all the points of a face) in order to compute the new embedding using user-provided functions (e.g., compute the barycenter of several points). To ensure the safety of the defined operations, we provide syntactic conditions on rules that preserve the object consistency constraints.


INTRODUCTION: Pregnancy and obesity cause distension of the abdominal wall and produce changes in the shape and size of the breasts. Thus, the need of aesthetic improvement of the abdominal area is not uncommon, coinciding with the desire for breast augmentation. Performing mammoplasty via the abdominoplasty incision approach was first described in 1976. Because of the lack of prospective studies using this approach, we performed a series of dermolipectomy procedures using the abdominal incision to insert a pair of silicone gel breast implants. METHODS: In total, 100 consecutive patients were selected, with a mean age of 33 ± 2 years. Classic abdominoplasty was performed, and 2 tunnels were then made in the right and left hypochondria. After implant placement, the mammary fold was reconstructed using simple sutures with absorbable threads to attach the subcutaneous tissue to the aponeurosis. RESULTS: None of the following complications were observed: deep-vein thrombosis, cardiorespiratory or anesthetic complications, skin necrosis, visible bleeding, hematoma, or clinically detectable infection. The volume of the implants ranged from 280 to 450 mL (median, 350 mL). The mean operation time was 116 minutes. Reoperation was not necessary in any of the cases. The monitoring period ranged from 9 to 84 months (mean, 36 months). CONCLUSIONS: Breast augmentation via the abdominoplasty incision approach was demonstrated to be a reliable and simple technique, providing a new, scar-free alternative to mammary surgical procedures.


If animals avoid road surfaces or are unable to follow conspecific trails across such surfaces, previously continuous populations may be fragmented. We gathered data on the effects of a small (4-m wide) gravel road on the behavior and trail-following abilities of garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis) in Manitoba, central Canada. As expected, the road surface had less vegetation cover, a more open canopy and, thus, higher incident radiation than did the surrounding grassland. Contrary to expectations, however, substrate temperatures were lower on the road than in its surrounds, because of the higher reflectivity of the road's surface. On a nearby asphalt road, substrate temperatures were relatively high on the road surface only in the evening, as surrounding areas cooled. Focal sampling showed that snakes avoided the gravel road, typically changing direction when they encountered it. If they crossed the road, they did so by the shortest possible route (straight across). Mate-searching male snakes were less able to follow substrate-deposited pheromonal trails left by females if those trails crossed a road than if the trails were entirely within the surrounding grassland. Thus, roads may significantly modify snake movement patterns, as well as the ability of males to locate reproductive females. Our study provides the first detailed information on the effects of roads on snake behavior.


Holmium doped scandium silicate (Ho:SSO) bulk crystal grown by Czochralski technique is reported. The absorption cross section of 4.8 × 10(-21) cm2 at pumping wavelength 1940 nm and emission cross section of 5.56 × 10(-21) cm2 at lasing wavelength 2112 nm were calculated, respectively. Lifetime was measured to be 1.51 ms at 300 K and 0.92 ms at 77 K. Continuous-wave laser was operated by using a diode-pumped Tm:YAP laser as pump source with central wavelength of 1940 nm. Output power of 385 mW at 2112 nm was primarily obtained.


The possibility of using two-component contraction of the myocardium to evaluate the mechanisms of action of cardiotropic pharmacological agents was studied. Caffeine, ouabain, low-natrium solution, varapamil, nifedipine and BAY K-8644 were used. It was concluded that the analysis of contraction component amplitude dynamics makes it possible to determine the effect of the pharmacological agents on the interrelated mechanisms of the delivery of Ca2+ into the myoplasm of cardiomyocytes from sarcoplasmic reticulum and through sarcolemma during a single cardiac cycle.


In this position paper we describe our vision on designing playful interactions to persuade people to be physically active in public spaces. Social embeddedness and playful interaction are the core elements of this vision. We illustrate how our design vision is incorporated into innovative concepts that stimulate physical activity for various user groups and in various use contexts, and present some general findings on the basis of these cases. New technologies such as mobile networks and social media provide new opportunities for creating location-independent solutions that support groups of people to motivate each other to be physically active by creating challenges for each other. Designing playful solutions for public spaces asks for low-threshold solutions that support easy stepping in and stepping out solutions.


A method is indicated for obtaining electrodeposited amorphous Co-P alloys with differing anisotropies, employing an alternating current density of very low frequency. The method allows samples of a high degree of permeability to be obtained with the result that, in the case of a current density at 5 Hz with amplitude between +0.6 and -0.2 A/cm2, the magnetic properties are similar to those found by Dietz and coworkers, in samples deposited on rotating cylindrical substrates. In the case of samples without perpendicular anisotropy, there can be observed a distribution of the magnetization in the plane, with 180° domains.


The world's wealth, as measured by GDP, has been steadily growing for the last 100 years or so. But today there is more and more evidence of crisis in our world, in all areas: finance, environment, society. The causes are related to the lack of sustainability of our current model for growth and development. Simply put, the natural resources of this planet (Fig. 1) cannot sustain a population of 7+ billion people, on the basis of current modes of living. Infinite and unsustainable growth (economic as well as demographic), which often has been sought to boost the power and near-term prosperity of nations, is now at the root of the multi-faceted crisis of our "knowledge society." Is there a way to turn this weakness back into an opportunity?


Although technological solutions promise access to cheaper and safer financial services, creating regulation that enables innovation in the FinTech industry remains a challenge. Regulators must protect the public interest while still providing an environment conducive to product and partnership innovation. In response, many financial authorities are introducing regulatory sandboxes to simultaneously give providers the opportunity to test their innovations while also giving regulators time to learn about the risks of the products. However, as our experience with mobile money demonstrates, sandboxes do not go far enough to create a truly enabling environment for FinTech innovation. To do so public-sector stakeholders need to address broad business barriers and consider the entire package of incentives faced by FinTech firms and investors. The authors provide a nine-item list of reforms beyond sandboxes for governments to consider in order to create a holistic and multi- dimensional ecosystem for FinTech innovation.


Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a Gram-negative opportunistic human pathogen possessing a type III secretion system (T3SS) which injects toxic effector proteins into mammalian host cells. In previous studies, P. aeruginosa strains lacking all of the known type III effectors were shown to cause cytotoxicity upon prolonged infection time. In this study, we report the identification of a new cytotoxin, nucleoside diphosphate kinase (NDK), which is injected into eukaryotic cells in a T3SS-dependent manner. Injection of NDK is inhibited by the presence of previously known effectors of the T3SS, with an effectorless strain injecting the highest amount, suggesting active competition with the known T3SS effectors. NDK is shown to cause a cytotoxic response when expressed in eukaryotic cells, and P. aeruginosa strains harbouring NDK also show a greater toxicity than strains lacking it. Interestingly, the cytotoxic effect of intracellular NDK is independent of its kinase activity. In previous studies, NDK was shown to be secreted into culture supernatants via a type I secretion system and cause cytotoxicity in a kinase-dependent manner. Therefore, the current study highlights an alternative route of NDK secretion as well as two different cytotoxic mechanisms of NDK, depending on the extra- or intra-cellular location of the protein.


Worried that the current paradigm of political corruption (individual corruption: the misuse of public office for private gain) is too narrow to protect democratic institutions from private interests, the political theorist Dennis Thompson resurrects the premodern notion of institutional corruption, which refers to practices that undermine the purpose of political institutions. From the lenses of institutional corruption, practices such as money in political campaigns, lobbying, or wealth inequality are to be condemned and eradicated to protect democratic institutions. The goal of this paper is to provide reasons against resurrecting the notion of institutional corruption in the realm of policy for three main reasons. First, it is baseless: there is no empirical evidence that the sole presence of money alters democratic results. Second, it is unnecessary: individual corruption can be used to condemn and sanction illegal actions that undermine democratic decision making. And third, it is unclear whether policies against money in politics are beneficial or detrimental to electoral competition. In the light of empirical evidence, I conclude, we should not resurrect the unnecessary and potentially misleading idea of institutional corruption. Empirical studies, in fact, show that liberal electoral democracies, at least in developed countries, are more responsive to the voters' will than Thompson believes.


Bambusa arnhemica F.Muell., a long-lived, gregarious-flowering and semelparous bamboo endemic to north-western Australia, occurs in remarkably disparate but somewhat fire-sheltered flood-prone riparian forest and rocky hillside vine-thickets, but not in adjacent fire-prone savannas. We investigated the response of B. arnhemica seedlings to fire and flood at two contrasting sites over 2.5 years following a mass-flowering and die-off event. Seedlings grew vigorously notwithstanding either prolonged inundation or total loss of above-ground parts to fire within their first year. However, there was no evidence that such disturbance promoted regeneration, and several veins of evidence suggest that B. arnhemica is fire-retardant and refugial rather than fire-promoting. We suggest that creation of canopy gaps by parental death is a more parsimonious and generalisable hypothesis for the evolution of gregarious semelparity in bamboos than the recently advanced bamboo fire-cycle hypothesis. However, both hypotheses are potentially group selectionist, and resolution of dispersal distances and/or the spatial genetics of relatedness are required to resolve the problem.


In this paper, we describe an approach for mining images of objects (such as touristic sights) from community photo collections in an unsupervised fashion. Our approach relies on retrieving geotagged photos from those web-sites using a grid of geospatial tiles. The downloaded photos are clustered into potentially interesting entities through a processing pipeline of several modalities, including visual, textual and spatial proximity. The resulting clusters are analyzed and are automatically classified into objects and events. Using mining techniques, we then find text labels for these clusters, which are used to again assign each cluster to a corresponding Wikipedia article in a fully unsupervised manner. A final verification step uses the contents (including images) from the selected Wikipedia article to verify the cluster-article assignment. We demonstrate this approach on several urban areas, densely covering an area of over 700 square kilometers and mining over 200,000 photos, making it probably the largest experiment of its kind to date.


This paper makes use of feminist posthumanism to outline how a range of heritage policies, practices and strategies, partly through their base in social constructivism have a clear anthropocentric focus. Not only do they risk downplaying materiality, but also a number of human and non-human others, driving a wedge between nature and culture. This may in turn be an obstacle for the use of heritage in sustainable develop ment as it deals with range of naturalized others as if they have no agency and leaves the stage open for appropriation and exploita tion. This paper probes into what heritage could be in the wake of current climate and environmental challenges if approached differently. It explores how a selection of feminist posthumanisms challenge the distinction between nature:culture in a way that could shift the approach to sustainability in heritage making from a negative to an affirmative framing.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) medication on auditory skills in clinically depressed subjects. Experimental subjects prescribed an SSRI were tested in a medicated and an unmedicated condition, and the test results were compared. Furthermore, the experimental group was compared with a control group consisting of normal subjects. Test measures included pure tone audiometry, tympanometry, acoustic reflex thresholds, and auditory electrophysiologic measures such as auditory brainstem and auditory late responses. An assessment scale for depression (Beck Depression Inventory-II) was also used. Results indicated statistically significant differences for the BDI-II between the control and experimental groups for both conditions. Electrophysiologic measures indicated a significantly shorter latency for auditory late potential P1 at 55 dBnSL, and a significantly larger amplitude at 45 dBnSL for the N1/P2 component for the unmedicated group. Although the other measures showed trends, they did not reach significance.


In this paper, we describe a novel unmixing algorithm for detecting breast cancer. In this approach, the breast tissue is separated into three components, low water content (LWC), high water content (HWC), and cancerous tissues, and the goal of the optimization procedure is to recover the mixture proportions for each component. By utilizing this approach in a hybrid DBT / NRI system, the unmixing reconstruction process can be posed as a sparse recovery problem, such that compressive sensing (CS) techniques can be employed. A numerical analysis is performed, which demonstrates that cancerous lesions can be detected from their mixture proportion under the appropriate conditions.


Neonatal rat islets of Langerhans respond in vitro to prolonged arginine exposure by cellular dissociation and a cell monolayer formation resulting in complete dissolution of the islet structure. This effect is seen at an arginine concentration of 10 mM and a minimum exposure of 8 hr. The dissociated cells remain viable in culture for at least 3 weeks though there is no response to a glucose challenge following the first week. Leucine, another amino acid which initiates hormone release, does not alter islet morphology. The arginine-induced alteration in the islet structure may be due to an effect on the factors which control cellular adhesion.


Context. To use the data in the future Gaia catalogue it is important to have accurate estimates of the statistical uncertainties and correlations of the errors in the astrometric data given in the catalogue. Aims. In a previous paper we derived a mathematical model for computing the covariances of the astrometric data based on series expansions and a simplified attitude description. The aim of the present paper is to determine to what extent this model provides an accurate representation of the expected random errors in the astrometric solution for Gaia. Methods. We simulate the astrometric core solution by making least-squares solutions of the astrometric parameters for one million stars and the attitude parameters for a five-year mission, using nearly one billion simulated elementary observations for a total of 26 million unknowns. Two cases are considered: one in which all stars have the same magnitude, and another with 30% brighter and 70% fainter stars. The resulting astrometric errors are statistically compared with the model predictions. Results. In all cases considered, and within the statistical uncertainties of the numerical experiments (typically below 0.4%), the theoretically calculated variances and covariances are consistent with the simulations. To achieve this it is however necessary to expand the covariances to at least third or fourth order, and to apply a (theoretically motivated and derived) "fudge factor" in the kinematographic model. Conclusions. The model provides a feasible method to estimate the covariance of arbitrary astrometric data, accurate enough for most applications, and as such it should be available as part of the user's interface to the Gaia catalogue. A main assumption in the current model is that the observational errors are uncorrelated (e.g., photon noise), and further studies are needed on how correlated modelling errors, in particular in the attitude, can be taken into account.


Comparison of partial primary sequences of sigma-class glutathione S-transferases (GSH) of parasitic helminths and a GSH-dependent prostaglandin (PG)-H D-isomerase of rat immune accessory cells suggested that some of the helminth enzymes may also be involved in PG biosynthesis [Meyer and Thomas (1995) Biochem. J. 311, 739-742]. A soluble GSH transferase of the parasitic nematode Ascaridia galli has now been purified which shows high activity and specificity in the GSH-dependent isomerization of PGH to PGE, comparable to that of the rat spleen enzyme in its isomerization of PGH to PGD, and similarly stimulates the activity of prostaglandin H synthase. The enzyme subunit is structurally related to the rat spleen enzyme and sigma-class GSH transferases of helminths according to the partial primary sequence. The data support the hypothesis that some sigma-class GSH transferases of helminth parasites are involved in PG biosynthesis which, in the case of PGE, is likely to be associated with the subversion or suppression of host immunity. A PG-H E-isomerase of comparable specificity and activity has not previously been isolated.


The properties of the SW and its transmission law in the low-speed rolling bearing were studied in this paper. Firstly, the three-dimension contact model of the bearing was set up. The defects which occurred on the outer race were simulated in the model. According to the model, the stress, the strain and the contact stress distribution was computed. Then, the stress and strain distribution law and the contact stress distribution law of the interface on good and fault bearing were compared. In the real-world testing, fault signals were acquired using stress wave transducer. Fault characteristic parameters were extracted and the background noise was reduced using wavelet analysis. Both simulation and real-world testing result obtained indicate that SW and wavelet transform can be the effective method in the fault diagnosis of low-speed bearing.


Calcium phosphate/polyacrylate/alginate hybrid polymer microspheres with bovine serum albumin (BSA) embedded and coated on the surface were prepared with (NH4)2HPO4, sodium polyacrylate (SPA) and sodium alginate (SA) via Ca2+ crosslinking in inverse suspension. Rebinding behaviors of the microspheres were evaluated. The factors influencing the imprinting efficiency (IE) of imprinted microspheres were also studied, including the concentration of CaCl2, template content and pH values in rebinding solutions. Selectivity tests showed that the imprinted microspheres exhibited good recognition property for the template protein.


It is important to detect population bottlenecks in threatened and managed species because bottlenecks can increase the risk of population extinction. Early detection is critical and can be facilitated by statistically powerful monitoring programs for detecting bottleneck‐induced genetic change. We used Monte Carlo computer simulations to evaluate the power of the following tests for detecting genetic changes caused by a severe reduction in a population's effective size (Ne): a test for loss of heterozygosity, two tests for loss of alleles, two tests for change in the distribution of allele frequencies, and a test for small Ne based on variance in allele frequencies (the 'variance test'). The variance test was most powerful; it provided an 85% probability of detecting a bottleneck of size Ne = 10 when monitoring five microsatellite loci and sampling 30 individuals both before and one generation after the bottleneck. The variance test was almost 10‐times more powerful than a commonly used test for loss of heterozygosity, and it allowed for detection of bottlenecks before 5% of a population's heterozygosity had been lost. The second most powerful tests were generally the tests for loss of alleles. However, these tests had reduced power for detecting genetic bottlenecks caused by skewed sex ratios. We provide guidelines for the number of loci and individuals needed to achieve high‐power tests when monitoring via the variance test. We also illustrate how the variance test performs when monitoring loci that have widely different allele frequency distributions as observed in five wild populations of mountain sheep (Ovis canadensis).


Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are molecule-based 2D and 3D materials that possess a wide range of mechanical and electronic properties. We have performed a joint experimental and theoretical study of the electronic structure of boroxine-linked COFs grown under ultra-high vacuum conditions and characterized using scanning tunneling spectroscopy on Au(111) and hBN/Cu(111) substrates. Our results show that a single hBN layer electronically decouples the COF from the metallic substrate, thus suppressing substrate-induced broadening and revealing new features in the COF electronic local density of states (LDOS). The resulting sharpening of LDOS features allows us to experimentally determine the COF bandgap, bandwidths, and the electronic hopping amplitude between adjacent COF bridge-sites. These experimental parameters are consistent with the results of first principles theoretical predictions.


The solar chromosphere consists of three classes — plage, network, background — which contribute differently to ultraviolet radiation reaching the earth. Solar physicists are interested in relating plage area and intensity to UV irradiance, as well as understanding the spatial and temporal evolution of plage shapes. We describe a data set of solar images, means of segmenting the images into constituent classes, and a novel high-level representation for compact objects based on a spatial 'membership function' defined via a triangulated planar graph. Segmentations are found using a discrete Markov random field setup, and the high-level representations axe learned by a Markov chain Monte Carlo birth/death process on the triangulations.


A total of twenty (20) West African Dwarf (WAD) bucks having an average weight of 6.5 kg were used to study their nutrient digestibility and carcass characteristics. The animals were allotted to five treatment group four animals each randomly. The treatment diets contained varying levels of un-degraded ground nutshells (UGNS) and Pleurotus tuber regium biodegraded Ground Nut Shells (PT-GNS) in a Completely Randomized Design (T1=100% UGN; T2=75% UGN+25% PT-GNS; T3=50% UGN+50% PT-GNS; T4=25% UGN+75% PT-GNS; and T5=100% PT-GNS). Each animal served as a replicate. Feed and water were provided ad libitum. The experiment lasts for 84th day of feeding trial. Data on nutrient digestibility and carcass characteristics were taken and subjected to one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and where significant differences occurred, means were separated using Duncan's Multiple Range Tests (DMRT). The results showed that nutrient digestibility had no significance (p>0.05) difference among the treatment diets, although the digestibility coefficient of Dry Matter (DM) was high, the observed values ranging from 92.10% (T1) to 93.21% (T5). Bucks in T5 had the highest digestibility coefficient of crude protein (93.41) while bucks in T1 had the least values. The carcass characteristics showed a significant difference (p<0.05) among the treatments for carcass yield, carcass weight, and dressing percent increased as the percent substitution of Un-degraded Ground Nut Shells (UGNs) with Pleurotus tuber-Groundnut Shell (PT-GNS) increased from 0 to 100%. Wholesale cuts also showed significant difference (p<0.05) among treatments. Thus, Pleurotus tuber can be used to improve the low-quality farm by-product such as groundnut shell to increases animal protein production.


November 11, 2001 was a defining moment in Taiwan's diplomatic and economic history. In Doha, Qatar, on the other side of the world, the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) unanimously approved Taiwan's application for WTO membership, just twenty-four hours after approving China's admission. After Taiwan's Congress ratified the country's entry protocol and the government deposited relevant agreements in the Secretariat in Geneva, Taiwan became the 144th WTO member as the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu, abbreviated as Chinese Taipei, on January 1, 2002. Taiwan's choice of this tedious title in the WTO, instead of its official name, Republic of China (ROC), shows its reluctant compromise with political reality. Taiwan's trade volume places it among the top 10% of that of all WTO members. Nonetheless, it took Taiwan twelve years of strenuous efforts to enter this United Nations of Economics and Trade since submitting its accession application in 1990. In fact, most of Taiwan's agreements were completed by late 1999, but because of China's insistence that Taiwan can only accede to the WTO after its entry and because most countries were concerned about trade relations with China, Taiwan's accession progress was postponed. Taiwan's accession to the WTO is considered to be the most important diplomatic breakthrough. The government believes that WTO will enable Taiwan to open a new window of the century and a window of the world. Part I of this Article will describe Taiwan's application to the WTO and its status as a separate customs territory. Part II will introduce how WTO membership benefits Taiwan. Part III will analyze cross-strait trade laws and policies of China and Taiwan. Part IV will examine interactions between China and Taiwan in the WTO and potential violations of international trade law they may trigger.


We measured egg hatching times and stage specific naupliar development times of the key calanoid copepods Calanus helgolandicus and C. finmarchicus in response to temperature, food quantity and food type. Calanus helgolandicus development times decreased with increasing temperature and when fed Isochrysis galbana (4.4 μm ESD) rather than Prorocentrum micans (29.5 μm ESD). Nauplii needed higher food carbon concentration to develop past the first feeding stage (N3) when fed I. galbana compared with P. micans. At low food carbon concentrations nauplii developed more slowly past N3 than at more saturated levels. The survival of nauplii fed P. micans increased with temperature, but starved nauplii survival decreased at higher temperatures. We parameterized a temperature-dependent model of development for both species which fitted the observed stage durations under non-limiting food extremely well and demonstrated that C. finmarchicus develops faster than C. helgolandicus. Further data are needed to clarify the effect of food-temperature interactions on development rates.


The development of complete regional carbon (C) budgets for different biomes is an integral step in the effort to predict global response and potential feedbacks to a changing climate regime. Wetland and lake contributions to regional C cycling remain relatively uncertain despite recent research highlighting their importance. Using a combination of field surveys and tower-based carbon dioxide (CO2) flux measurements, modeling, and published literature, we constructed a complete C budget for the Northern Highlands Lake District in northern Wisconsin/ Michigan, a !6400 km region rich in lakes and wetlands. This is one of the first regional C budgets to incorporate aquatic and terrestrial C cycling under the same framework. We divided the landscape into three major compartments (forests, wetlands, and surface waters) and quantified all major C fluxes into and out of those compartments, with a particular focus on atmospheric exchange but also including sedimentation in lakes and hydrologic fluxes. Landscape C storage was dominated by peat-containing wetlands and lake sediments, which make up only 20% and 13% of the landscape area, respectively, but contain480% of the total fixed C pool (ca. 400 Tg). We estimated a current regional C accumulation of 1.1 " 0.1 Tg yr#1, and the largest regional flux was forest net ecosystem exchange (NEE) into aggrading forests for a total of 1.0 " 0.1 Tgyr#1. Mean wetland NEE (0.12 " 0.06 Tg yr#1 into wetlands), lake CO2 emissions and riverine efflux (each ca. 0.03 " 0.01 Tgyr#1) were smaller but of consequence to the overall budget. Hydrologic transport from uplands/wetlands to surface waters within the region was an important vector of terrestrial C. Regional C fluxes and pools would be misrepresented without inclusion of surface waters and wetlands, and C budgets in heterogeneous landscapes open opportunities to examine the sensitivities of important fluxes to changes in climate and land use/land cover.


We describe how selected adolescent learners experience their current HIV / AIDS programmes in school. The rationale of the instrumental case study was that knowing, appreciating and understanding learners' preferences and experiences should inform future HIV / AIDS curriculum design. Research was conducted at three specifically selected secondary schools (cases). Focus groups and written essays were used as methods for data collection from 90 Grade 11 participants. Whilst learners agreed that HIV / AIDS education is necessary, they suggested that certain changes be incorporated in future HIV / AIDS programmes. They suggested the following innovations: smaller gender-specific groups; outsider presenters; the involvement of parents / caregivers; more variety in the programme format; extended and continuous HIV / AIDS education; acquiring more information about HIV / AIDS care, support and treatment (the current emphasis is on prevention); addressing values and life skills in HIV / AIDS education; utilizing fear-provoking and real-life images and contexts to instil preventive caution. The findings support an integration of HIV / AIDS, life skills and values education into the formal curriculum. This approach is supported in the literature. Further research into learners' preferences and suggestions about the format and content of HIV / AIDS programme development is strongly recommended.


Across music disciplines, authenticity has been referred to in various ways. Within music therapy and music teaching, only sparsely has it been discussed focusing on the intrapersonal aspects of authenticity. This study seeks to explore and understand authenticity as experienced and expressed by three music professionals practicing within the areas of music therapy, music teaching, and music performance, the goal being primarily to deepen, enrich, and understand the authenticity experience to possibly benefit professionals and their clients, students, and audiences. Three music professionals holding various professional backgrounds were selected based on their assumed ability to reflect on this rather philosophical topic. Preparatory materials were sent out to participants prior to conducting two semi-structured interviews – 1 solo interview and 1 group interview. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed through a thematic coding analysis revealing four meta themes: 1) paradoxes in language and action, 2) imbalance and inauthenticity, 3) roles, relationships, masks, and 4) the field of authenticity. Findings were discussed with chosen theory synthesizing the experience of authenticity as being associated with several interconnected elements: relationship (with self and others), role (self-chosen and assigned), context (role fits the context), professionalism (having skills needed, letting go of control), and personality (transparent persona).


This study analyzed the financial reporting practices of the biggest pension fund covering employees of the private sector in the Philippines – the Social Security System (SSS). Of particular interest in the present assessment of the SSS financial reports was the sufficiency and quality of information available in the reports for users to assess the System's financial position, performance, and cash flows. The study finds that, despite the unqualified opinion given the reports by the Commission on Audit, there are inadequacies in the reporting practices of the SSS regarding receivables, investment property, and its pension and insurance liabilities. Thus, there is insufficient quality information provided in the SSS' financial reports to enable users to assess its financial condition, including its disclosed unfunded liability of ₱1.22 trillion as of 2011. The study also presents findings comparing the performance of the SSS with the GSIS and with two government pension funds in Thailand and Singapore. It concludes with a number of policy issues relating to the pension fund system of the Philippines


The role of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) during domestic disaster response has increased significantly over the last century due to the military's response capacity and the increased frequency and impact of natural hazards. However, there has been no systematic academic assessment of how effectively CAF is integrated into the civilian emergency management system, particularly during the response phase. Using archival analysis and interviews with senior CAF officers and civilian officials, this study fills that gap with an examination of four of Canada's worst and most recent natural disasters: Hurricane Igor (2010), the Assiniboine River flood (2011), the Alberta multi-river floods (2013), and the Saskatchewan wildfires (2015). Each event was analyzed to assess the effectiveness of CAF-civilian response across different hazards, provincial jurisdictions, and CAF Joint Task Forces.
The analysis is broken down into descriptive, evaluative, and normative concepts to assess the presence and quality of, and barriers to, interorganizational collaboration throughout each response. The presence of interorganizational collaboration was high across all events while the quality of such collaboration was moderately high with room for improvement. Barriers to interorganizational collaboration were low, although conceptual differences on the scope of the formal Request for Assistance and the value of defining 'disaster end states' did adversely affect collaboration between military and civilian organizations. Lack of resources generally did not adversely affect levels of interorganizational collaboration, except through the limited availability of Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) aircraft and the limited emergency management capacity of most municipalities. Organizational traits such as conceptions of reality unique to an organization type had more influence on the level of interorganizational collaboration compared to jurisdiction or hazard type, with only wildfires having a hazard-specific effect on such collaboration.
The results of this study have implications for emergency management practitioners, as well as the academic literatures of emergency management, public administration, and civil-military relations. Three policy recommendations - the expansion of emergency management networks, the maintenance of Canada's decentralized emergency management system, and additional disaster response resources for the RCAF and municipalities - are presented in the study's conclusion to improve Canadian disaster response.


Phytoplasmas are insect-transmitted bacterial phytopathogens that secrete virulence effectors and induce changes in the architecture and defense response of their plant hosts. We previously demonstrated that the small (± 10 kDa) virulence effector SAP11 of Aster Yellows phytoplasma strain Witches' Broom (AY-WB) binds and destabilizes Arabidopsis CIN (CINCINNATA) TCP (TEOSINTE-BRANCHED, CYCLOIDEA, PROLIFERATION FACTOR 1 AND 2) transcription factors, resulting in dramatic changes in leaf morphogenesis and increased susceptibility to phytoplasma insect vectors. SAP11 contains a bipartite nuclear localization signal (NLS) that targets this effector to plant cell nuclei. To further understand how SAP11 functions, we assessed the involvement of SAP11 regions in TCP binding and destabilization using a series of mutants. SAP11 mutants lacking the entire N-terminal domain, including the NLS, interacted with TCPs but did not destabilize them. SAP11 mutants lacking the C-terminal domain were impaired in both binding and destabilization of TCPs. These SAP11 mutants did not alter leaf morphogenesis. A SAP11 mutant that did not accumulate in plant nuclei (SAP11ΔNLS-NES) was able to bind and destabilize TCP transcription factors, but instigated weaker changes in leaf morphogenesis than wild-type SAP11. Overall the results suggest that phytoplasma effector SAP11 has a modular organization in which at least three domains are required for efficient CIN-TCP destabilization in plants.


The distribution of nitrogen metabolism end-products and the associated enzyme activities, free amino acids and purine base catabolites were investigated in all the body compartments (circulating fluids and tissues) of the hydrothermal vent tubeworm Riftia pachyptila to acquire a general overview of nitrogen metabolism in this symbiotic organism. There were striking differences between the symbiont-containing trophosome tissue and other host tissues. High concentrations of ammonia, creatinine and, in particular, urate were found in all tissues, but they were present at consistently higher concentrations in the trophosome, which also contained large amounts of urea. Uric acid crystals were present at the periphery of trophosome lobules. The urea cycle appears to be fully functional in this tissue, which also uses creatine phosphate for phosphagen storage, while arginine phosphate or a combination of both phosphagens occurs in other tissues. The amino acid patterns are dominated by sulphated compounds in all tissues except the trophosome, which has high levels of aspartate and glutamate. Although no definitive conclusions could be drawn regarding the nitrogen regime of Riftia pachyptila, this in vitro study gives several indications for future research in this area.


Geographic information systems (GIS), global positioning systems and remote sensing have been increasingly used in public health settings since the 1990s, but application of these methods in humanitarian emergencies has been less documented. Recent areas of application of GIS methods in humanitarian emergencies include hazard, vulnerability, and risk assessments; rapid assessment and survey methods; disease distribution and outbreak investigations; planning and implementation of health information systems; data and programme integration; and programme monitoring and evaluation. The main use of GIS in these areas is to provide maps for decision-making and advocacy, which allow overlaying types of information that may not normally be linked. GIS is also used to improve data collection in the field (for example, for rapid health assessments or mortality surveys). Development of GIS methods requires further research. Although GIS methods may save resources and reduce error, initial investment in equipment and capacity building may be substantial. Especially in humanitarian emergencies, equipment and methodologies must be practical and appropriate for field use. Add-on software to process GIS data needs to be developed and modified. As equipment becomes more user-friendly and costs decrease, GIS will become more of a routine tool for humanitarian aid organisations in humanitarian emergencies, and new and innovative uses will evolve.


An important property of PRM roadmaps is that they provide a good approximation of the connectivity of the free C-space. We present a general framework for building and querying probabilistic roadmaps that includes all previous PRM variants as special cases. In particular, it supports no, complete, or partial node and edge validation and various evaluation schedules for path validation, and it enables path customization for variable, adaptive query requirements. While each of the above features is present in some PRM variant, the general framework proposed here is the only one to include them all. Our framework enables users to choose the best approximation level for their problem. Our experimental evidence shows this can result in significant performance gains.


Recovering the relative motion of a moving camera from images is a classic problem in computer vision. In addition to being an important problem in its own right, the successful recovery of camera motion is vital for tasks such as building 3D models, recognition, robot localization, navigation, and map building, just to name a few. The two parts to most motion recovery algorithms are matching, or correspondence, and the estimation of epipolar geometry. The most difficult of these, and arguably one of the most difficult tasks in all of image processing, is in determining correspondence. In fact, one can recover the epipolar geometry of a moving camera without having solved for correspondences perfectly, however even knowing the epipolar geometry does not always ensure a solution to the correspondence problem. While motion estimation is well-studied when the camera motion is relatively small, the problem becomes even more difficult as the camera motions get larger (large rotation or wider baseline).
In this thesis, our primary objective is to present a family of algorithms designed to provide robust estimation of camera motions while circumventing the difficult task of identifying correspondences. For 3D rotations, our approach is based on maximizing the overlap of spherical images. Such a computation can be expressed as a spherical correlation, which in turn can be computed as a multiplication of the images' spherical Fourier transforms. This method requires neither correspondences nor features.
For general 3D motions, we present a novel approach using the Radon transform. The feasibility of any camera motion is computed by integrating over all feature pairs that satisfy the epipolar constraint. This integration is equivalent to taking the inner product of a similarity function on feature pairs with a Dirac function embedding the epipolar constraint. The maxima in this five dimensional motion space will correspond to compatible rigid motions. The main novelty is in the realization that the Radon transform is a filtering operator: If we assume that the similarity and Dirac functions are defined on spheres and the epipolar constraint is a group action of rotations on spheres, then the Radon transform is a correlation integral. We propose a new algorithm to compute this integral from the spherical harmonics of the similarity and Dirac functions. Generating the similarity function now becomes a preprocessing step which reduces the complexity of the Radon computation by a factor equal to the number of feature pairs processed. The strength of the algorithm is in avoiding a commitment to correspondences, thus being robust to erroneous feature detection, outliers, and multiple motions.
In developing the algorithms to study camera motions, we have also built a foundation for addressing difficult data association tasks with a novel combination of robust, exhaustive algorithms and theoretical harmonic analysis techniques. This framework is quite general and applies to various seemingly unrelated problems. In this thesis we examine two specific tasks: automatic alignment of 3D point clouds, and 3D model retrieval.


We performed femtosecond transient absorption (TA) experiments to monitor the solvation dynamics of charge-transfer-to-solvent (CTTS) electrons originating from UV photoexcitation of ammoniated iodide in close proximity to the counterions. Solutions of KI were prepared in liquid ammonia and TA experiments were carried out at different temperatures and densities, along the liquid-gas coexistence curve of the fluid. The results complement previous femtosecond TA work by P. Vöhringer's group in neat ammonia via multiphoton ionization. The dynamics of CTTS-detached electrons in ammonia was found to be strongly affected by ion pairing. Geminate recombination time constants as well as escape probabilities were determined from the measured temporal profiles and analysed as a function of the medium density. A fast unresolved (τ < 250 fs) increase of absorption related to the creation/thermalization of solvated electron species was followed by two decay components: one with a characteristic time around 10 ps, and a slower one that remains active for hundreds of picoseconds. While the first process is attributed to an early recombination of (I, e-) pairs, the second decay and its asymptote reflects the effect of the K+ counterion on the geminate recombination dynamics, rate and yield. The cation basically acts as an electron anchor that restricts the ejection distance, leading to solvent-separated counterion-electron species. The formation of (K+, NH3, e-) pairs close to the parent iodine atom brings the electron escape probability to very low values. Transient spectra of the electron species have also been estimated as a function of time by probing the temporal profiles at different wavelengths.


This article describes major aspects of the rehabilitation system of the former German Democratic Republic, GDR. Based on presentation of the actors in the medical and occupational rehabilitation system, differences are pointed out in comparison to the notion of rehabilitation in the former Federal Republic of Germany, FRG. The article focuses on the system of rehabilitation after stroke, which is outlined with relevant scientific literature. The health and rehabilitation system of the GDR was company-centred. Patients in rehabilitation received comprehensive care and guidance, and especially the companies played an integrative part and adjusted the occupational activity of the patients in rehabilitation to their physical and mental abilities in order to avoid early retirement. On account of the political and social transformation process as well as transfer of the health and rehabilitation legislation of the old FRG, the company-centred rehabilitation system of the GDR was replaced, implementing West German rehabilitation structures in East Germany as well.


For the first time in the southern part of the Volga Upland, a detailed study of the population distribution and structure of rare and protected species Hedysarum grandiflorum Pall., listed in the Red Books of the Russian Federation (2008) and the Saratov Region (2021), was carried out. The study was conducted in 2007–2021. To identify the distribution, data from routine observations and information from herbarium specimens, literary data and oral reports were used. The determination of the abundance and density was carried out in all encountered cenopopulations (CP), and for a detailed description of structure, 23 CP were studied with the laying of more than 600 discount areas and with a description of more than 3600 individuals of the average generative state of the sweetvetch. It was revealed that all CP in study area occupy a total area of about 30.8 ha, on which there are at least 2.068 million individuals of the sweetvetch, of which about 1.305 million are generative. The average density of individuals ranges from 4.6 to 18.4, and of generative from 2.8 to 11.4 ind./m2. From the northeast to the southwest of the southern part of the Volga Upland, the number of individuals and the density of CP of the sweetvetch decrease, and the areas of CP decrease. The basic ontogenetic spectrum of CP in the study area is unimodal, centred, with a maximum at the mature generative state, but due to small temporal shifts of the ontogenetic spectra to the left, the type of dynamics of the age composition is fluctuating. CP are, as a rule, normal complete, transitional and mature, with an average level of vitality and are in a stable state. A comparison is made with data from other regions. The results obtained can be used in organizing and maintaining SPNR, compiling floristic lists, introducing and reintroducing H. grandiflorum and similar species, and selecting initial material when introduced into culture.


Drawing upon Homi. K. Bhabha's essay A Personal Response and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's Can The Subaltern Speak? I initiated my research project When the Silenced Voices Meet Homi. K. Bhabha's "Megaohone". The focal point of this paper aims at identifying and questioning the limitatpons of Bhabha's theories while highlighting Spivak's insightful perspectives. In conducting this project, the motif of my paper is derived, which is to question male scholars' gender-blindness under the feminist lens in the field of post-colonial studies. Issues, such as identity, hybridity and representation are under discussion; meanwhile by citing the example of and debate on sati, the gender issue and the special contributions of postcolonial feminism are developed.


induction is that increases produced by exposure to an inducing agent are small,' man might be especially vulnerable to the effects of such inducers. The frequency of spontaneous human aneuploidy is unusually high compared with that in other mammals. There is some uncertainty about the real frequency because most aneuploid conceptions abort spontaneously, but the best current estimate is that about 20% of human conceptions are aneuploid.1 In addition, at least in some experimental systems the level of aneuploid induction is proportional to the underlying spontaneous frequency.2 Since even a small increase in the aneuploid frequency in man will result in many additional aneuploid conceptions we have to be particularly alert to the hazard posed by inducing agents. A second feature of aneuploid induction is that the mechanisms by which aneuploidy is generated are entirely different from those giving rise to gene mutation. It is likely, therefore, that some substances, perhaps those acting on the cell division spindle, will produce aneuploidy as their sole genetic endpoint. Such substances will go undetected because the battery of test procedures which are available do not include a test for aneuploid induction. A specific example of such a substance is dimethylsulphoxide, which is used in the cryopreservation of embryos. In this laboratory we have shown that dimethylsulphoxide induces aneuploidy in a fungal test system at levels of exposure which are at least a thousand times lower than those used to protect mammalian embryos during cryopreservation.2 There is a possible danger, therefore, that should traces of dimethylsulphoxide remain when the embryo resumes mitotic activity these could induce mitotic nondisjunction with the subsequent formation of mosaic individuals. Because of the taxonomic remoteness of fungal test systems from man there is an understandable reluctance to accept the extrapolation of experimental findings such as these. Dimethylsulphoxide has, however, been shown to affect the in vitro polymerisation of mammalian tubulin3 and it is also known to prevent depolymerisation of mammalian microtubules in vivo4and so there is some additional evidence to support the contention that dimethylsulphoxide could have a detrimental effect on the cell division spindle. There is therefore an obvious need to test dimethylsulphoxide in a mammalian aneuploidy system.


The InP nanostructures have been fabricated by low-energy Ar+-ion of dose 1 × 1018 cm-2 and energy 50 keV, at normal incidence. The InP nanodot size varies from 50 to 90 nm. Photoluminescence spectra show blue shifted visible emission band at 1.98 eV, and quenching of the band edge emission from the nanopatterned surface. The blue-shifted emission band arises due to size convoluted band-to-band emission form the surface nanodots while the defects formation in the irradiated surface leads to the quenching of band edge emission. Thermal annealing results in clustering of the patterned surface and enhancement of the band edge emission accompanied with absence of visible band. Our results show that the origin of visible emission is from the surface nanodots and not from the nanocrystallites in the implanted surface region. This is corroborated by the wavelength dependence of photoluminescence measurement by probing different depth of the disordered region.


Family with sequence similarity 20,-member C (FAM20C) is highly expressed in the mineralized tissues of mammals. Genetic studies showed that the loss-of-function mutations in FAM20C were associated with human lethal osteosclerotic bone dysplasia (Raine Syndrome), implying an inhibitory role of this molecule in bone formation. However, in vitro gain- and loss-of-function studies suggested that FAM20C promotes the differentiation and mineralization of mouse mesenchymal cells and odontoblasts. Recently, we generated Fam20c conditional knockout (cKO) mice in which Fam20c was globally inactivated (by crossbreeding with Sox2-Cre mice) or inactivated specifically in the mineralized tissues (by crossbreeding with 3.6 kb Col 1a1-Cre mice). Fam20c transgenic mice were also generated and crossbred with Fam20c cKO mice to introduce the transgene in the knockout background. In vitro gain- and loss-of-function were examined by adding recombinant FAM20C to MC3T3-E1 cells and by lentiviral shRNA–mediated knockdown of FAM20C in human and mouse osteogenic cell lines. Surprisingly, both the global and mineralized tissue-specific cKO mice developed hypophosphatemic rickets (but not osteosclerosis), along with a significant downregulation of osteoblast differentiation markers and a dramatic elevation of fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF23) in the serum and bone. The mice expressing the Fam20c transgene in the wild-type background showed no abnormalities, while the expression of the Fam20c transgene fully rescued the skeletal defects in the cKO mice. Recombinant FAM20C promoted the differentiation and mineralization of MC3T3-E1 cells. Knockdown of FAM20C led to a remarkable downregulation of DMP1, along with a significant upregulation of FGF23 in both human and mouse osteogenic cell lines. These results indicate that FAM20C is a bone formation "promoter" but not an "inhibitor" in mouse osteogenesis. We conclude that FAM20C may regulate osteogenesis through its direct role in facilitating osteoblast differentiation and its systemic regulation of phosphate homeostasis via the mediation of FGF23.


This chapter focuses on some of the special challenges and difficulties in conducting crosscultural research. In particular, it describes some of the problems my colleagues and I have faced in our own research: a series of studies in which helpfulness toward strangers was assessed in 36 cities across the United States and 23 large cities around the world. We conducted independent field experiments in each city to measure helping in various situations, such as seeing if passersby would alert a pedestrian who dropped a pen, offer help to a pedestrian with a hurt leg trying to reach a pile of dropped magazines, assist a blind person to cross the street and retrieve a lost letter. The results of these studies are discussed, including some ways they exemplify both what can be learned from cross-cultural research and the "noise" or uncertainties one can expect to encounter in this learning process. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. This article is available in Online Readings in Psychology and Culture: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/orpc/vol5/iss3/2


OBJECTIVE
Long noncoding RNA LINC00473 (LINC00473) has been reported to be involved in the progression of several tumors. Our present study was conducted to study the potential roles and mechanism of long noncoding RNA LINC00473 (LINC00473) on cells proliferation, migration, invasion, and apoptosis of breast cancer (BC).

PATIENTS AND METHODS
RT-PCR was applied for the analysis of LINC00473 in BC cell lines and tissues samples. The correlations between the LINC00473 levels and clinicopathological parameters were investigated. Kaplan-Meier methods and Cox proportional hazards regression models were explored to reveal potential associations of LINC00473 levels with overall survival of BC patients. The effect of LINC00473 on tumor behavior was evaluated by colony formation, Cell Counting Kit-8, EdU assays, flow-cytometric analysis, wound healing assays and transwell assays. Interactions between LINC00473 and miR-497 were determined using a luciferase reporter assay and RT-PCR assays.

RESULTS
Upregulation of the expression of LINC00473 was found in BC samples and cell lines, in comparison with non-tumor breast tissues and human breast epithelial cells. High expression of LINC00473 was correlated with lymph node metastasis, clinical stage, and poorer outcome in BC patients. Multivariate logistic regression assays further showed LINC00473 as an independent prognostic factor in BC. Lost-of-function assays revealed that knockdown of LINC00473 resulted in the suppression of tumor cell proliferation, promotion of cells apoptosis, inhibition of cells metastasis. Bioinformatics analysis and luciferase reporter assays revealed LINC00473 bonds to miR-497. Further RT-PCR revealed that knockdown of LINC00473 suppressed the expressions of miR-497 in BC cells.

CONCLUSIONS
Our data revealed that LINC00473 acted as a tumor promoter in BC and LINC00473/miR-497 axis may be a novel therapeutic strategy for this tumor.