Background Dysbiosis has been hypothesized to play a role in the pathogenesis of autoimmune disease. Primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) is an autoimmune disease characterized by sicca symptoms resulting from salivary and lacrimal gland dysfunction. This could result in dysbiosis of oral cavity. At the same time, dysbiosis could also be hypothesized to have a causative role. Previous studies using culture dependent approaches have provided evidence for altered oral microflora in pSS. However culture dependent approaches have caveats which have been abrogated with the advent of culture independent methodologies. Objectives To systematically evaluate the microbiome in the oral cavity in patients with pSS using a culture independent shotgun metagenome sequencing Methods Cases included adult patients fulfilling criteria for pSS by American-European Consensus Group (AECG) 2002 or American College of Rheumatology (ACR) 2012 classification criteria, while controls included healthy volunteers. Neither cases nor controls had oral disease or other obvious co morbidities, recent antibiotic intake. Individuals who had chronic intake of alcohol and tobacco were excluded. Saliva was collected in sterile tubes with buffer. DNA was extracted using Qiagen DNA isolation kit. Libraries were prepared and sequenced on Illumina Hiseq 2500 (Illumina Inc, USA). Reads mapping to the Human reference genome (hg19) were tagged. Reads were further reference mapped to the core oral microbiome sequences available from the Human Oral Microbiome Database. The read counts were normalized for the input reads as well as the genome size of the organism. A fold change (FC) of >2 and p value <0.05 by Student's t-test was considered significant. Results Oral microbiome of 13 pSS patients and 12 healthy controls were analysed. Organisms significantly enriched in pSS included the following (FC; p-value) Capnocytophaga (2.09; 0.01), Dialister (2.13; 0.02), Fusobacterium (2.84; 0.04), Helicobacter (4.83; 0.03), Streptococcus (3.33; 0.01) and Veilonella (3.82; 0.006) spp. A paucity of Pseudomonas (8.9;0.03) spp. was noted compared to controls. Conclusions A distinct subset of organisms was enriched in the oral cavity of patients with pSS. This subset includes Capnocytophaga previously shown to be associated with the pathogenesis and T cell activation in pSS. References Almståhl A, Kroneld U, Tarkowski A, Wikström M. Oral microbial flora in Sjögren's syndrome. J Rheumatol. 1999;26:110-4. Almståhl A, Wikström M, Kroneld U. Microflora in oral ecosystems in primary Sjögren's syndrome. J Rheumatol. 2001;28:1007-13. Szymula A, Rosenthal J, Szczerba BM, Bagavant H, Fu SM, Deshmukh US.T cell epitope mimicry between Sjögren's syndrome Antigen A (SSA)/Ro60 and oral, gut, skin and vaginal bacteria. Clin Immunol. 2014;152:1-9. Acknowledgements Authors acknowledge colleagues at Department of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology, CMC Vellore for help in recruiting volunteers for the study. Authors VS and SS acknowledge funding from CSIR, India through Grant OLP1105 (EMPOWER). Disclosure of Interest None declared


BACKGROUND
main biomedical information retrieval systems are based on controlled vocabularies and most specifically on terminologies or ontologies (T/O). These classification structures allow indexing, coding, annotating different kind of documents. Many T/O have been created for different purposes and it became a problem for finding specific concepts in the multitude of existing nomenclatures. The NCBO (National Center for Biomedical Ontologies) BioPortal and the CISMeF (Catalogue et Index des Sites Médicaux de langue Française) HeTOP projects have been developed to tackle this issue.

OBJECTIVE
the present work consists in comparing both portals.

METHODS
we hereby are proposing a set of criteria to compare bio-ontologies portals in terms of goals, features, technologies and usability.

RESULTS
BioPortal and HeTOP have been compared based on the given criteria. While both portals are designed to store and make T/O available to the community and are sharing many basic features, they differ on several points mainly because of their basic purposes.

CONCLUSION
thanks to the comparison criteria, we can assume that a merge between BioPortal and HeTOP is possible in terms of functionalities. The main difficulties will be about merging the data repositories and applying different policies on T/O content.


Abstract. Let G be a vertex transitive graph. A study of the range of simple random walk on G and of its bridge is proposed. While it is expected that on a graph of polynomial growth the sizes of the range of the unrestricted random walk and of its bridge are the same in first order, this is not the case on some larger graphs such as regular trees. Of particular interest is the case when G is the Cayley graph of a group G. In this case we even study the range of a general symmetric (not necessarily simple) random walk on G. We hope that the few examples for which we calculate the first order behavior of the range here will help to discover some relation between the group structure and the behavior of the range. Further problems regarding bridges are presented.


The article attempts to ascertain the connection between spirituality and psychotherapy. All effective psychotherapeutic techniques imply lasting and holistic change in individuals which is spiritual in nature. It is suggested that secular psychotherapy and spirituality could complement each other without affecting the professional competence of therapy or attenuating the essence of spirituality.  Spiritual values key to effective psychotherapy have been discussed. Empirical evidence has shown that spiritual values and behaviours can promote physical and psychological coping, healing and well-being in individuals. This finding has stressed the importance of viewing clients' spiritual values as a potential resource in psychotherapy. Suggestions have been presented regarding psychotherapist training and areas for further research.


Aiming at increasing the protein and calcium contents in sandwich loaf, formulations were prepared by adding whey protein concentrate (WPC) and the calcium carbonate in order to get an end calcium-enriched product, whereas the national average of dietary calcium intake is rather below the recommended one. Four formulations of breads were prepared. Samples of fresh dough and end breads were analyzed on pH and acidity. The specific volume was analyzed only on end breads. All of bread formulations were evaluated on acceptance criterium, and the calcium contents were determined in F1, F2 and F3. The chemical composition was determined in bread samples selected for the sensorial tests and containing a minimum calcium content of 300 mg/100 g bread. All the products were well accepted, and the mean scores were above 6.0 ("like it slightly"). The formulation F2 showed the best acceptance for flavor, tenderness and appearance, and the calcium contents were of 697 mg/100 g bread. The use of 7.5% of WPC achieved to be a source of protein, and by complementing with 2% calcium carbonate increased this mineral contents in approximately 70% of the DRI for adults, turning into a product rich in calcium.


Although, or perhaps because, Gant didn't satisfy certain key diagnostic criteria, his case remains noteworthy. Those familiar with the Jerusalem Syndrome will know its defining symptom: the sufferer is convinced that he or she is in the Holy City to fulfil some religious or spiritual mission and, in many cases, believes him- or herself to be a biblical character. But Gant's delusions were not religious in nature. Having treated the Jerusalem Syndrome for some twenty years, I found this anomaly both curious and, at first, extremely refreshing. After all, how often can one converse with Ezekiel or the Virgin Mary without experiencing a certain weariness? How many times can one be warned that the Apocalypse is just around the corner without occasionally hoping that it really is? As for Messiahs, there are never less than three in the facility on any given day, and this figure tends to increase around Easter...


: Aerobic enteric organisms, especially Escherichia coli, are the most common cause of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis in alcoholic cirrhosis with ascites, despite the preponderance of anaerobic bacteria in the bowel flora. The major routes of infection are transmural migration of gastrointestinal flora, lymphatic spread, and hematogenous seeding. Most patients present with fever and chills, abdominal pain, leukocytosis, and hypotension, although some may be asymptomatic. Differentiation from secondary peritonitis, which is essential in determining appropriate therapy, is difficult. Microbiologic studies of the ascitic fluid can provide valuable clues in this regard. Although most patients respond favorably to antibiotic therapy, mortality is high because of complications of the underlying disorder.


Abstract–This article studies the identification of the coefficients in a linear equation when data on the outcome, covariates, and an error-laden proxy for a latent variable are available. We maintain that the measurement error in the proxy is classical and relax the assumption that the proxy is excluded from the outcome equation. This enables the proxy to directly affect the outcome and allows for differential measurement error. Without the proxy exclusion restriction, we first show that the effects of the latent variable, the proxy, and the covariates are not identified. We then derive the sharp identification regions for these effects under any configuration of three auxiliary assumptions. The first weakens the assumption of no measurement error by imposing an upper bound on the noise-to-signal ratio. The second imposes an upper bound on the outcome equation coefficient of determination that would obtain had there been no measurement error. The third weakens the proxy exclusion restriction by specifying whether the latent variable and its proxy affect the outcome in the same or the opposite direction, if at all. Using the College Scorecard aggregate data, we illustrate our framework by studying the financial returns to college selectivity and characteristics and student characteristics when the average SAT score at an institution may directly affect earnings and serves as a proxy for the average ability of the student cohort.


This thesis is centred on modelling and multi-objective optimization of Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS) in compliance with the standard IEC 61508. SIS are in charge of monitoring that the operating conditions of a plant remain under safe limits and free of hazards. Their performance is, therefore, critical for the integrity of people around the plant, the environment, assets and production.

A large part of this work is devoted to modelling of SIS. Safety integrity and reliability measures, used as optimization objectives, are quantified by the Average Probability of Failure on Demand (PFDavg) and the Spurious Trip Rate (STR). The third objective is the Lifecycle Cost (LCC); ensuring system cost-effectiveness. The optimization strategies include design and testing policies. This encompasses optimization of design by redundancy and reliability allocation, use of diverse redundancy, inclusion of MooN voting systems and optimization of testing frequency and strategies.

The project implements truly multi-objective optimization using Genetic Algorithms. A comprehensive analysis is presented and diverse applications to optimization of SIS are developed. Graphical techniques for presentation of results that aid the analysis are also presented.

A practical approach is intended. The modelling and optimization algorithms include the level of modelling detail and meet the requirements of IEC 61508. The focus is on systems working in low-demand mode. It is largely based on the requirements of the process industry but applicable to a wide range of other process.

Novel contributions include a model for quantification of time-dependent Probability of Failure on Demand; an approximation for STR; implementation of modelling by Fault Trees with flexibility for evaluation of multiple solutions; and the integration of system modelling with optimization by Genetic Algorithms. Thus, this work intends to widen the state-of-the-art in modelling of Probability of Failure on Demand, Spurious Trip Rate and solution of multi-optimization of design and testing of safety systems with Genetic Algorithms.


Neuroendocrine (NE) tumors of the prostate are rare tumors, that can arise de novo but much more commonly occur after androgen deprivation therapy for prostate adenocarcinoma. NE tumors of the prostate are classified into: adenocarcinoma with NE differentiation, well-differentiated NE tumor/carcinoid, small-cell NE carcinoma, large cell NE carcinoma, adenocarcinoma with Paneth cell NE differentiation and mixed NE carcinoma—acinar adenocarcinoma. IHC plays a vital role and should be approached at two levels. For the issue of confirming NE differentiation, markers for NE differentiation include synaptophysin, chromogranin, and CD56. If there is any uncertainty about the histogenesis, that is, whether a tumor is primary to the prostate, markers for prostatic lineage—PSA, PSAP, PSMA, prostein (p501s), NKX3.1, ERG (by IHC or FISH)—may be used. Actually, platinum-based chemotherapy is commonly administered to patients with pure small cell carcinoma based on small cell lung cancer (SCLC) data and the accumulating data for aggressive variants of castration-resistant prostate cancer (AVPC). This may consist of a combination of carboplatin (or sometimes cisplatin) plus either etoposide (based on SCLC) or a taxane (especially if mixed histology or AVPC features). A combination regimen of cisplatin, etoposide, and doxorubicin has been also investigated but the benefit-risk ratio of the three-drug combination was considered unfavorable. Unfortunately, platinum-based chemotherapy often presents high toxicity and a short overall survival. Results of currently ongoing preclinical and clinical studies are expected to enhance our understanding of these tumors' underlying biology and guide our efforts toward the development of personalized medicine through targeted diagnostic and therapeutic approaches.


Industrial fog computing deploys various industrial services, such as automatic monitoring/control and imminent failure detection, at the fog nodes (FNs) to improve the performance of industrial systems. Much effort has been made in the literature on the design of fog network architecture and computation offloading. This paper studies an equally important but much less investigated problem of service hosting where FNs are adaptively configured to host services for sensor nodes (SNs), thereby enabling corresponding tasks to be executed by the FNs. The problem of service hosting emerges because of the limited computational and storage resources at FNs, which limit the number of different types of services that can be hosted by an FN at the same time. Considering the variability of service demand in both temporal and spatial dimensions, when, where, and which services to host have to be judiciously decided to maximize the utility of the fog computing network. Our proposed fog configuration strategies are tailored to battery-powered FNs. The limited battery capacity of FNs creates a long-term energy budget constraint that significantly complicates the fog configuration problem as it introduces temporal coupling of decision making across the timeline. To address all these challenges, we propose an online distributed algorithm, called adaptive fog configuration (AFC), based on Lyapunov optimization and parallel Gibbs sampling. AFC jointly optimizes service hosting and task admission decisions, requiring only currently available system information while guaranteeing close-to-optimal performance compared to an oracle algorithm with full future information.


We present intensive quasi-simultaneous X-ray and radio monitoring of the narrow line Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 4051, over a 16-month period in 2000-01. The X-ray observations were made with the Proportional Counter Array on the Rossi Timing X-ray Explorer (RXTE) and radio observations were made at 8.4 and 4.8 GHz with the Very Large Array (VLA). In the X-ray band NGC 4051 behaves very much like the analogue of a Galactic black hole binary (GBH) system in a 'soft state'. In such systems, there has so far been no firm evidence for an active, radio-emitting jet like those found in 'hard-state' GBHs. VLBI observations of NGC 4051 show three well-separated compact components almost in a line. This structure resembles the core and outer hot spots seen in powerful, jet-dominated, extragalactic radio sources and, although no jet is visible in NGC 4051, suggests that a weak jet may exist. However it has not previously been clear whether the nucleus is currently active in the radio band and whether there is any link between the radio and X-ray emission processes.

Radio monitoring of the core of NGC 4051 is complicated by the presence of surrounding extended emission and by the changing array configurations of the VLA. Only in the A configuration is the core reasonably resolved. We have carefully removed the differing contaminations of the core by extended emission in the various arrays. The resulting lightcurve shows no sign of large amplitude variability (i.e. factor 50 per cent) over the 16-month period and is consistent with being constant. Within the 6 A configuration observations where we have greatest sensitivity we see marginal evidence for radio core variability of similar to 25 per cent (similar to 0.12 mJy at 8.4 GHz) on a 2-week time-scale, correlated with X-ray variations. These percentage variations are similar to those of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 5548, which is 10 times brighter. Even if the radio variations in NGC 4051 are real, the percentage variability is much less than in the X-ray band. Within the B configuration observations, although sensitivity is somewhat reduced, there is no sign of correlated X-ray/radio variability.

NGC 4051 is one decade lower in radio luminosity than the radio/X-ray/mass fundamental plane for jet-dominated hard-state black holes, although the scatter around the plane is of the same order. The lack of radio variability commonly seen in hard-state GBHs may be explained by orientation effects. Another possibility, consistent with the lack of radio variability, is that the radio emission arises from the X-ray corona although, in that case, the linear structure of the compact radio components is hard to explain. A combination of corona and jet may explain the observations.


No money? No support from your supervisor? No experience in test automation? No problem. Even with these barriers to entry, you too can reap the rewards of automating test activities in your web application. Sometimes a formal framework is overkill. Shooting for the moon rarely works when there are so many unknowns. With a less than optimal implementation, bad test automation could also leave your project at risk. This presentation will provide you with an idea framework to help your test efforts along. The key is to start small and learn as you go along. By utilizing Ruby (a free scripting language) and the Watir (Web Application Testing in Ruby) library among other tools, the hit to your budget is zero dollars. By building on cumulative successes, you can present the business case for supporting automated test efforts in your organization.


Background: The evidence for effectiveness of perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis is well established. However, despite evidence of effectiveness and the publication of guidelines for antimicrobial prophylaxis, use is often suboptimal.
Aim: The aim of the present study was to explore the impact of irrational perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis use on the nursing workload in a surgical ward.
Methods and Material: Α prospective observational study took place for a period of one month in a surgical ward of a general hospital in Athens, Greece. Patient data consisted of demographic characteristics, underlying diseases and data for antibiotic agent, the timing of administration and the duration of prophylaxis. In each shift, structured observational data for nursing workload were collected by the registered nurses of the surgical ward.
Results: A total of 51 patients undergoing surgery operations were prospectively evaluated. Patients received in total 1604 doses. Of these doses, 1106 (69%) were newer antibiotics under restriction. Antibiotic prophylaxis was inappropriately given to 3,9%. The timing indicator was 88,2 %. The use of antibiotic prophylaxis was misuse in 94% and overuse in 96%. The mean daily nursing workload due to
irrational antibiotic prophylaxis was 5,05 hours.
Conclusion: Irrational antibiotic prophylaxis use increase the daily nursing workload 5,05 hours. The adherence with perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis is poor. The education and discussion of our results with surgical team and infection control committee will contribute to reducing the nursing workload, increasing the adherence with prescribing and administering perioperative antimicrobial prophylaxis, and improving the safety and quality care in studied population.


"The immateriality and infinite reproducibility of digital information presents significant phenomenological shifts in the entwined relationship between painting and photography. The virtual matrix supporting digital images reveals the mechanics of illusion in pixelated close-up, reminiscent of representational painting"s abstracted, brush-stroked surface. Seamless computer simulations of three-dimensional space, or different painting styles combined with intended and accidental atmospheric effects and filters, dissolve distinctions between the two media."


A major limitation of biopharmaceutical proteins is their fast clearance from circulation via kidney filtration, which strongly hampers efficacy both in animal studies and in human therapy. We have developed conformationally disordered polypeptide chains with expanded hydrodynamic volume comprising the small residues Pro, Ala and Ser (PAS). PAS sequences are hydrophilic, uncharged biological polymers with biophysical properties very similar to poly-ethylene glycol (PEG), whose chemical conjugation to drugs is an established method for plasma half-life extension. In contrast, PAS polypeptides offer fusion to a therapeutic protein on the genetic level, permitting Escherichia coli production of fully active proteins and obviating in vitro coupling or modification steps. Furthermore, they are biodegradable, thus avoiding organ accumulation, while showing stability in serum and lacking toxicity or immunogenicity in mice. We demonstrate that PASylation bestows typical biologics, such as interferon, growth hormone or Fab fragments, with considerably prolonged circulation and boosts bioactivity in vivo.


Evolvable hardware (EHW) is a set of techniques that are based on the idea of combining reconfiguration hardware systems with evolutionary algorithms. In other word, EHW has two sections; the reconfigurable hardware and evolutionary algorithm where the configurations are under the control of an evolutionary algorithm. This paper, suggests a method to design and optimize the synchronous sequential circuits. Genetic algorithm (GA) was applied as evolutionary algorithm. In this approach, for building input combinational logic circuit of each DFF, and also output combinational logic circuit, the cell arrays have been used. The obtained results show that our method can reduce the average number of generations by limitation the search space.


The purpose of the investigation was to examine the influence of the victim's provocation and hopefulness on the sentencing of a husband convicted of domestic violence. It was hypothesized that mock jurors would assign less-severe sentencing if the victim was provoking and hopeful. Mock jurors read one of four factorial court case combinations of provocation and hopefulness and rendered an individual predeliberation sentence and a group postdeliberation sentence. Analyses revealed a significant effect of provocation, indicating that participants reduced the sentencing for the defendant when the wife was provoking relative to when she was not provoking. The analyses also revealed an effect of gender on predeliberation sentencing, with women delivering more-severe sentences than men. The effect of gender was not present in the postdeliberation sentencing, indicating that deliberation produced a sentencing compromise between women and men. The implications of these findings are discussed.


Klaus Nathaus and C. Clayton Childress convincingly argue that cultural and symbolic objects are produced before they are consumed and that therefore cultural historians should take a closer look at the social and economic conditions of cultural production. Instead of taking it for granted that mass reception inversely indicates the existence of a demand already 'being there', historians should dig into the production processes influenced (among others) by individual taste, material interest, and arbitrary decisions – or, as Nathaus, Childress and the often cited Richard A. Peterson would call it – contingency. While most of Nathaus and Childress's examples stem from the field of music, I will in my response apply the cultural production concept to a non-musical field, namely documentary photography in the first half of the twentieth century. Further, I will raise some questions that still seem to be unanswered. Given that the causal relation between production and consumption by and large equals the chicken and egg problem, what sense does it make to shift attention from reception to production – especially when dealing with modifications of objects, commodities, or genres rather than inventions in the sense of 'there was nothing like this before'? I will suggest to extend the concept beyond the study of 'classical' cultural objects – like novels or records – and to include commodities like food, clothes, or cars. Finally, I will raise the question of how to apply the production of culture perspective to socialist economies after 1945, which to my knowledge has not been tried yet.


Molecular and functional evidence indicates that a variety of Ca 2' - dependent chloride (Cl(Ca)) channels are involved in fluid secretion from secretory epithelial cells in different tissues and species. Most Cl (Ca) channels so far character- ized have an I 1 permeability greater than Cl 1 , and most are sensitive to 4,48-diiso- thiocyanatostilbene-2,28-disulfonic acid (DIDS). Whole-cell Cl(Ca) currents show outward rectification. Single-channel current voltage relationships are linear with con- ductances ranging from 2 to 30 pS. Some Cl(Ca) channels are blocked by Ca 2' -cal- modulin-dependent protein kinase (CAMKII) inhibitors. Others, such as the Cl(Ca) channels of parotid and submandibular acinar cells, appear to be directly regulated by Ca 2' . In native cells, the Cl (Ca) channels are located on the apical plasma membrane and activated by localized mechanisms of Ca 2' release. This positioning allows the Cl(Ca) channel to respond specifically to localized Ca 2' signals that do not invade other regions of the cell. The Cl(Ca) follows the rising phase of the Ca 2' signal, but in the falling phase hysteresis occurs where the Cl (Ca) current decays more rapidly than the underlying Ca 2' . The future elucidation of the identity and mechanisms of regulation of Cl(Ca) channels will be critical to our understanding of stimulus-secretion coupling.


Wulff's two-dimensional model of approaches to religion was an inspiration for the development of the Post-Critical Belief Scale (PCBS), an instrument measuring religious attitudes, that is, "paradigms of religious belief structure" in a secularized Western European context. The scale has been frequently used in psychological studies, has undergone psychometric analyses and modifications, and has been translated into several languages. The current study shows results of a psychometric analysis of the component structure of PCBS in different age groups over time using Clusterwise Simultaneous Component Analysis-Equal Cross-Product (SCA-ECP). The analysis was based on samples collected in Flanders (Belgium; N = 14,599). The one-cluster and two-cluster models yielded three components: Literal Affirmation, Literal Disaffirmation, and Symbolic Attitude, and there were no differences between age groups. In the two-cluster model, subtle differences between samples collected before and after 2002 were found, and these were related to two PCBS items referring to interpretation of Biblical stories. Our finding of a generalized Symbolic Attitude might be related to the changes in the approaches to religion in secularized Western Europe, and might capture the religious (dis-)belief of individuals who are open and tolerant to other religious systems, or alternatively, have become indifferent to them. Further cross-cultural and longitudinal studies are needed to better understand the religious attitudes in a secularized context, and the development of a new scale based on the paradigm of personal meaning systems is suggested


BACKGROUND
Sex differences in the risk of a particular disorder can yield important clues regarding its pathogenesis. The evidence for a sex difference in the risk of schizophrenia is inconclusive. The purpose of this study was to integrate results from the published literature and to provide a quantitative index of the male-female ratio for the incidence of schizophrenia.

METHODS
The MEDLINE and PsychLIT databases were searched for English-language publications on "incidence and schizophrenia" that appeared during the period between January 1980 and September 2001. Population-based incidence studies using standard clinical diagnostic criteria were included if they reported sex-specific incidence rates. Sex-specific incidence figures were extracted directly from each study. Categorical analyses were conducted on a subset of studies that met specific methodological criteria (to minimize criterion bias, hospital bias, and age bias). Study categorization and data extraction were performed independently by 2 of us (A. A. and J.-P.S.).

RESULTS
Log risk ratio meta-analysis was conducted using a random-effects model. The incidence risk ratios for men to develop schizophrenia relative to women were 1.42 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.30-1.56) when all studies were included in the analysis (49 effect sizes), 1.31 (95% CI, 1.13-1.51) when studies that minimized selection biases were analyzed separately (23 effect sizes), and 1.39 (95% CI, 1.15-1.68) when only high-quality studies were included (11 effect sizes). The sex difference was significantly smaller in studies with sample years before 1980 than those with sample years after 1980. No significant sex differences were reported in studies from developing countries. A final analysis, limited to studies with an age cutoff of 64 years or older (16 effect sizes), yielded a mean risk ratio of 1.32 (95% CI, 1.13-1.55).

CONCLUSION
This meta-analysis provides evidence for a sex difference in the risk of developing schizophrenia, as reported in the published literature from the last 2 decades.


Causes and consequences of land degradation: A case study on 'Keyain' village of Munshigonj district. Author: Abu Sayeed During the last few years the agriculture sector is facing danger in many ways. Conversion of agricultural land in non-agricultural uses is one of the main reasons to follow. Why the land is decreasing, how it is converted to non-agricultural purposes is the important matter of concern at present. The study is going to answer why the land is decreasing, how it is converted to non-agricultural uses and what might be the consequences for improper uses of agricultural land. In Bangladesh most of the people live in rural areas and makes Bangladesh predominantly rural. The development in rural seems development of agriculture. But the agricultural land is decreasing day by day. Poverty, rapid population growth, improper uses of land, lack of interest in agriculture, conventional system of irrigation, Real Estate companies etc are playing a critical role for decreasing agricultural land. Besides this, a nature itself is also responsible for land degradation. Flood, drought and salinity due to climate change are very common in Bangladesh thus the result is land degradation. As a result, soil fertility, crop productivity, and food security might be seriously in danger. But it is important to keep full of life this sector for land-scarce country like Bangladesh or else the consequences might be terrible. Food insecurity, unsustainable environment, economic downturn, agricultural productivity decrease and social decay etc are the important matters to consider.


Some species of soybean cultivars have the characteristic of resistance or alteration in survival skills, and perpetuation of nematodes (female index - FI), whose process is activated when the nematode parasitism starts and the development of new resistant cultivars is primordial to the preservation of plant productivity. The objective of this study was to identify the reaction of 101 soybean genotypes and two standards, one susceptible (M-SOY 8866) and the other resistant (BRSGO Raissa) of the Germplasm Laboratory of Federal University of Uberlândia (LAGER/UFU) improvement program, after inoculation of Heterodera glycines race 3 eggs. The evaluations 35 days after inoculation consisted of the fresh and dry weight of roots, root volume, the number of females (NF), and females index (FI). Genotypes 46 (F5: 6 BRSGO Caiaponia x 100 IAC) and 11 (Engopa 316 RR - Sel. 4) performed moderate resistance; the genotype 61 (F5: 6 Caiaponia x Potenza) had moderate susceptibility; and the rest of the genotypes presented susceptible. Between the genotypes, NF ranged from 9.5 to 159.7 and FI ranged from 17 to 214.8. The coefficient of genotypic determination (H2) was 70.28 (high) for NF, indicating genetic variation in the genotypes tested. Estimates of genotypic (rg), phenotypic (rf), and environmental (ra) correlation coefficients had lower magnitude values (<0.70). Analysis of the simple Pearson correlation was significant and positive between the variables dry weight (g) and root volume (cm3) but was not related to the resistance to the cyst nematode in the assay.


Pellet ablation and particle deposition have been extensively studied at JET giving a clear evidence of B drift effects in hot plasmas and its impact on fuelling efficiency. This result confirms observations made on smaller devices. In L-mode or moderately heated H-mode this effect seems to be weak while at high temperature, injection from the VHFS has proven to be much more effective than from LFS in depositing particles beyond the pedestal. In the latter case ablated particles are quickly lost due to a combination of B drift and edge instabilities. The fuelling performance, although investigated only in a limited range of plasma and pellet parameters, seems to be promising for the capability of pellets to raise the density without increasing the neutral pressure in the main chamber. This latter feature is important for ITER, because it confirms that pellets are less demanding in terms of required pumping speed. Experiments of pellet fuelling in combination with ELM mitigation techniques using Error Field Correction Coils (EFCC) have also given encouraging results and are also reported.


Evaluation of the role of calcium in irreversible sickling has been approached by treating sickled cells with calcium and the ionophore A23187. A calcium-dependent stabilization of the sickled cell shape was observed after reoxygenation of cells in the presence of ionophore. At low calcium concentrations, this retention of sickled shape was maintained for periods up to 1 hr. However, the morphology of the oxygen-stable sickled cells was like that of deoxygenated sickle cells and significantly different from the characteristic morphology of native irreversibly sickled cells (ISCs). Because the stabilized cells did not fulfill the morphological criterion for ISCs, the shape-stabilizing effect of calcium in this system did not provide additional support for the hypothesis that calcium accumulation was the determining factor in ISC generation.


Understanding China as a de facto federalism can generate explanations and recommendations concerning the path of China's health reform. The first section reviews how de facto federalism drove the historical development of the problems plaguing China's health system. The next section shows how certain features of the current reform plan, namely, the plan's ambivalence between government and market approaches and its lack of strong centralisation, can be explained by de facto federalism. The third section uses the hypothesis of de facto federalism to generate two courses of action — one cautionary; the other, aspirational — that could be considered for the future. The consequences for the health sector of under-articulated federalism are clarified and point to the need for discursive reasoned elaboration, as opposed to political bargaining alone, in federalism.


Abstract De novo renal cell carcinoma (RCC) rarely occurs in kidney allografts; however, the risk of RCC in these patients is 100-fold that of the general healthy population. Although total nephrectomy has been the standard treatment for kidney allograft RCC, several authors have reported that early-stage RCC in kidney allografts was successfully treated with nephron-sparing surgery. We herein describe a new procedure involving renal autotransplantation and extracorporeal nephron-sparing surgery, which was performed to treat de novo RCC near the hilum of a transplanted kidney. In the 22 months since transplantation, the patient's renal function has been favorable, and no recurrence has been observed. In conclusion, renal autotransplantation is a feasible technique for the treatment of RCC in kidney allografts, especially RCC located near the hilum.


Augmented reality (AR) has been seen as the next big thing to change the way people perceive and interact with the world. Many researchers have attempted to explore how AR can be combined with different scenarios to create an immersive experience for the customers. However, previous studies on AR were fragmented, which may lead to lacking a holistic understanding of it. Our study intends to figure out the main themes and future trends of AR in marketing by conducting a systematic review of 118 papers. We divide the application of AR in marketing into four categories such as advertising, gaming, retailing, and experiences of place (tourism, museum, and sport events). In each category, we summarize current research progress and propose future research agendas for researchers. They can address the current research gap and open up new research perspectives based on our work. This study also provides practical implications for system developers and managers to design and apply this technology in their field.


High-quality information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure is essential for developing countries to achieve rapid economic growth. International trade and the structure of the global economy require a level of integration that is achievable only with sophisticated infrastructure. Since the early 1990s, international institutions have been pushing developing nations to deregulate and heavily invest in ICT infrastructure as a strategy for accelerating socioeconomic development. After more than a decade of continued investments, some countries have still not achieved expected outcomes. Recently, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has called for empirical research to assess the performance and impact of ICT expansion in developing countries. In this article, we respond to this call by investigating factors affecting the efficiency of ICT expansion in five emerging economies in Latin America. Our findings demonstrate that deregulation is not enough to effect efficient ICT expansion, and we argue that existing conditions (economic factors, human capital, geography, and civil infrastructure factors) must also be considered. We conclude by asserting that policy makers can more easily realize socioeconomic development via ICTs if they consider these conditions while cultivating their technology strategies. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


There is considerable interest in developing techniques for predicting human behavior, and a promising approach to this problem is to collect phenomenon-relevant empirical data and then apply machine learning methods to these data to form predictions. This two-part paper shows that the performance of such learning algorithms often can be improved substantially by leveraging sociological models in their development and implementation. In this paper, the second of the two parts, we demonstrate that a sociologically-grounded learning algorithm outperforms a gold-standard method for the task of predicting whether nascent social diffusion events will "go viral". Significantly, the proposed algorithm performs well even when there is only limited time series data available for analysis.


We explain the force balance in flowing marine ice sheets and the ice shelves they often feed. Treating ice as a viscous shear-thinning power law fluid, we develop an asymptotic (late-time) theory in two cases: the presence or absence of contact with sidewalls. Most real-world situations fall somewhere between the two extreme cases considered. The solution when sidewalls are absent is a fairly simple generalization of that found by Robison (JFM, 648, 363). In this case, we obtain the equilibrium grounding line thickness using a simple computer model and have an analytic approximation. For shelves in contact with sidewalls, we obtain an asymptotic theory valid for long shelves. We determine when this is. Our theory is based on the velocity profile across the channel being a generalized version of Poiseuille flow, which works when lateral shear dominates the force balance. We conducted experiments using a laboratory model for ice. This was a suspension of xanthan in water, at a concentration of 0.5% by mass. The model has n ≈ 3.8, similar to that of ice. Our theories agreed extremely well with our experiments for all relevant parameters (front position, thickness profile, lateral velocity profile, longitudinal velocity gradient and grounding line thickness). We also saw detailed features similar to natural systems. Thus, we believe we have understood the dominant force balance in both types of ice shelf. Combining our understanding of the forces in the system with a basic model for basal melting and iceberg formation, we uncovered some instabilities of the natural system. Laterally confined ice shelves can rapidly disintegrate but ice tongues cannot. However, ice tongues can be shortened until they no longer exist, at which point the sheet becomes unstable and ultimately the grounding line should retreat above sea level. While the ice tongue still exists, the flow of ice into it should not be speeded up and the grounding line should also not retreat, assuming that only conditions in the ocean change. However, laterally confined ice shelves experience significant buttressing. If removed, this leads to a rapid speedup of the sheet and a new equilibrium grounding line thickness. We believe that something like this occurred in the Larsen B ice shelf.


The results of an analysis of the surgery ("Repair of Ptosis using Frontalis Muscle and Fascia Lata") carried out on 316 lids is presented. The main indication for this operation is a large congenital ptosis with minimal levator function. Conclusions from the study indicate that autogenous fascia is an ideal tissue for lid suspension, and is better than stored fascia. Stored fascia does present some problems but is useful in small children or when the patient does not want a scar on the leg. Bilateral repair for unilateral ptosis is recommended for symmetrical results. The best ages for surgery is between 3-1/2 and 6 years of age, as these young corneas rapidly adapt to the exposure problems. It is very important to check the corneal sensation before carrying out the surgery. When this operation is done on older patients with acquired ptosis, e.g. ptosis associated with myasthenia gravis, corneal exposure problems frequently result.


Background and Objective : Kidney stone disease goes back to thousands of years ago. Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy (ESWL) is currently the first line treatment for this disease. Different analgesics were already used to relieve pain in the patients but they still complain about their pain. Therefore, the effect of two combinations of pregabalin-fentanyl and midazolam-fentanyl was investigated in controlling pain in the patients undergoing ESWL in this study. Materials and Methods: This was double-blind clinical trial on 141 patients visiting Lithotripsy Unit in Peymaniyeh Hospital in Jahrom Town. The participants were selected using a simple sampling method. Inclusion criterion was 8mm < kidney stone < 20mm. Exclusion criteria were 20 kg/m 2 < body mass index (BMI) < 30 kg/m 2 , a history of mental disorders, namely addiction to analgesics and opiates. Finally, the patients were randomly assigned to two groups. One microgram per kilogram fentanyl was administered intravenously and 300mg pregabalin was given orally to the patients ten minutes before surgery in the first group (pregabalin-fentanyl and n = 47). One microgram per kilogram fentanyl and one microgram per kilogram midazolam were injected intravenously to the patients ten minutes prior to operation in the second group (fentanyl-midazolam and n = 46). Then, standard shock wave lithotripsy was carried out in both groups. The severity of pain was measured every 20 minutes during the operation and two hours after the operation using the Visual Analog Scale for Pain (VAS Pain). The collected data was analyzed using SPSS version 21. Descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation and percent) and analytical statistical tests (Mann-Whitney and Chi-square) were used to analyze the data. Results : The mean age of participants was 43.80±13.71 in the first group (pregabalin + fentanyl) and 39.0±11.19 in the second group (midazolam + fentanyl). Chi-square test results were matched in both groups in terms of age, gender, number of shocks and size of the stone. The Mann-Whitney test results showed a significant difference between the first and second groups in terms of pain score from the first 20 minutes up to 2 hours after drug administration (p-value<0.05). The results also showed that the number of patients experiencing higher than average severity of pain in the second group was significantly less than the first group (pvalue< 0.05). Conclusion : The results of this study showed that the number of patients experiencing higher than average severity of pain in the group receiving midazolam-fentanyl combination was less than the group receiving pregabalin-fentanyl combination. Therefore, it can be deduced that fentanyl in combination with midazolam has a greater analgesic effect on pain relief in the patients undergoing ESWL. Keywords : pregabalin-fentanyl, midazolam-fentanyl, pain, extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy


An international Task Force was convened under the guidance of BMBF Conference so as to review the "State of the art" for measuring quality of life (QoL) in children who have suffered traumatic brain injury (TBI). After expert review of instruments and evaluation of two independent literature reviews this work group established "inclusion criteria" for the review of current tools that could contribute to the measurement of QoL in children with TBI. Six instruments were determined to meet all or most of the criteria required to be used in current clinical practice and research for children with TBI.


Mood and anxiety disorders are highly prevalent in primary health care. In this study we assessed performance of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) for screening of depression and anxiety disorders in a population of primary care patients. A total of 503 primary care patients consecutively admitted to the primary care medical center in Kaunas, Lithuania, completed the study. We found that the HADS subscale of depression (HADS‐D) at a cutoff score of 6 or more showed the best performance screening for a major depressive episode diagnosed by means of the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI), with a sensitivity of 80%, specificity of 69%, positive predictive value of 80%, negative predictive value of 92%, and area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of 0.75. Performance of the HADS‐D against MINI diagnosis of dysthymia was weak. The HADS subscale of anxiety (HADS‐A) at a cutoff score of 9 or more showed the best performance screening for MINI diagnosis of overall anxiety disorders, with a sensitivity of 77%, specificity of 75%, positive predictive value of 53%, negative predictive value of 90%, and area under the ROC curve of 0.76. These results suggest that in primary care patients HADS is an adequate screening instrument for the MINI diagnoses of major depressive episode, but not for dysthymia at a cutoff score of 6, and for anxiety disorders at a cutoff score of 9. Depression and Anxiety 24:455–460, 2007. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Forty five patients with moderate or severe pulmonary valvular stenosis had been treated by percutaneous balloon valvuloplasty. The age of these patients varied between 55 days and 24 years. Nine patients (group 1) had a right ventricular/pulmonary artery gradient (RV/PA) between 25 and 50 mmHg, thirty six patients (group 2) had a RV/PA gradient superior to 50 mmHg. Fourty nine dilatations had been practised. The right ventricular pressure failed from 106.31 +/- 46.03 mmHg to 61.11 +/- 32.62 mmHg. The RV/PA gradient passed from 86.02 +/- 45.64 mmHg to 39.58 +/- 32.16 mmHg and the ratio of right ventricular pressure/systemic pressure passed from 0.98 +/- 0.44 to 0.49 +/- 0.23. The difficulties, failures, and the results are discussed together with predilectory factors.


Abstract Tylenchulus semipenetrans was identified morphologically from root samples collected from citrus orchards in Shahdad region, southeastern Iran. The number of juveniles and females averaged 648/100 g soil and 65/10 g root, respectively, in infected samples. Monitoring these orchards for two years (2012-2013) indicated no significant correlation between soil pH (7.21-7.70) and EC (0.56-1.98) values and populations densities of T. semipenetrans. With respect to seasonal distribution, T. semipenetrans attained the highest density during fall and the lowest in spring. Sequence analysis of the D2-D3 segment of 28S rDNA confirmed this population as T. semipenetrans. Nblast indicates that the sequence from this population differs in only three or five nucleotides from corresponding sequences from T. semipenetrans populations from Korea (FJ969715, FJ060713, and FJ969712), with 99% identity. The phylogenetic position and a table of measurements of this species are provided.


Abstract Aims We aimed to evaluate the frequency, clinical features, and prognostic implications of cardiac arrest (CA) in takotsubo syndrome (TTS). Methods and results We reviewed the records of patients with CA and known heart rhythm from the International Takotsubo Registry. The main outcomes were 60-day and 5-year mortality. In addition, predictors of mortality and predictors of CA during the acute TTS phase were assessed. Of 2098 patients, 103 patients with CA and known heart rhythm during CA were included. Compared with patients without CA, CA patients were more likely to be younger, male, and have apical TTS, atrial fibrillation (AF), neurologic comorbidities, physical triggers, and longer corrected QT-interval and lower left ventricular ejection fraction on admission. In all, 57.1% of patients with CA at admission had ventricular fibrillation/tachycardia, while 73.7% of patients with CA in the acute phase had asystole/pulseless electrical activity. Patients with CA showed higher 60-day (40.3% vs. 4.0%, P < 0.001) and 5-year mortality (68.9% vs. 16.7%, P < 0.001) than patients without CA. T-wave inversion and intracranial haemorrhage were independently associated with higher 60-day mortality after CA, whereas female gender was associated with lower 60-day mortality. In the acute phase, CA occurred less frequently in females and more frequently in patients with AF, ST-segment elevation, and higher C-reactive protein on admission. Conclusions Cardiac arrest is relatively frequent in TTS and is associated with higher short- and long-term mortality. Clinical and electrocardiographic parameters independently predicted mortality after CA.


The process of deregulation that has involved electricity markets in the recent years has opened the way for several interesting research topics. This thesis addresses one of the most fascinating ones among them: the study of strategic bidding and the analysis of its consequences in terms of market stability. The problem faced is twofold. From the generators' point of view, it is of interest to develop bidding strategies aimed to optimize the individual profits, given their costs of production, the evolution of energy demand and the response of the other players in the market. On the other hand, the point of view of the society is addressed by analyzing the behavior and the stability of the market when these strategies are applied. In this thesis, two competition models are considered in analyzing electricity markets: the Cournot and the Linear Supply Function (LSF) models. In the former one, the supply bid is assumed to be in the form of a quantity representing the amount of energy that each generator is going to dispatch to the market. In the latter framework, instead, the bid is in the form of a linear function relating the quantity to the relative price the producers are willing to sell the energy at. In both the cases, the problem is tackled by means of optimal control theory and the approach used is the same. First, a dynamic closed loop system is built in order to model electricity markets' competition, in which each generator aims to optimize its profits in the next bidding round. Then, an optimal strategy is developed with the goal of maximizing the individual profits over a longer horizon. This multi step strategy is derived analytically in the Cournot framework and numerically in the LSF competition model, namely through the use of the Simultaneous Perturbation Stochastic Approximation (SPSA) algorithm. The simulations performed show that a generator can increase its profits by employing the multi step strategy; both in the Cournot and the LSF frameworks. On the other hand, the analysis of the social consequences of strategic bidding gives different results in the two competition models. In the Cournot framework, the society benefits when the generators become more strategic. In the LSF competition model, instead, the social welfare decreases when players bid more strategically. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis are performed in order to evaluate the effects of changes in the market demand on both the individual generators and on the society. Besides these analysis in a deterministic framework, the work is aimed to develop stochastic versions of these models. The closed loop dynamic systems are modified in order to account for wind power generation, which brings uncertainty into the system. Then, optimal strategies are developed with the aim of maximizing the expectation of the profits over more days. Again, the convenience of switching to the multi step strategy is shown in both the competition models for the generators, while a benefit for the society is verified, again, only in the Cournot framework. The stochastic models allow also the assessment of the consequences of the introduction of wind power in electricity generation markets. The results obtained in both the Cournot and the LSF frameworks show that switching to wind power generation is convenient both for the generators and for the society.


The diagnostic and prognostic usefulness of copeptin were evaluated in septic patients, as compared to procalcitonin assessment. In this single centre and observational study 105 patients were enrolled: 24 with sepsis, 25 with severe sepsis, 15 with septic shock, and 41 controls, divided in two subgroups (15 patients with gastrointestinal bleeding and 26 with suspected SIRS secondary to trauma, acute coronary syndrome, and pulmonary embolism). Biomarkers were determined at the first medical evaluation and thereafter 24, 48, and 72 hours after admission. Definitive diagnosis and in-hospital survival rates at 30 days were obtained through analysis of medical records. At entry, copeptin proved to be able to distinguish cases from controls and also sepsis group from septic shock group, while procalcitonin could distinguish also severe sepsis from septic shock group. Areas under the ROC curve for copeptin and procalcitonin were 0.845 and 0.861, respectively. Noteworthy, patients with copeptin concentrations higher than the threshold value (23.2 pmol/L), calculated from the ROC curve, at admission presented higher 30-day mortality. No significant differences were found in copeptin temporal profile among different subgroups. Copeptin showed promising diagnostic and prognostic role in the management of sepsis, together with its possible role in monitoring the response to treatment.


Abstract Presidential elections are conducted in two stages. The November general election is proceeded by a series of contests where delegates are selected to national party conventions, which is where the parties select their candidates for the fall election. These nominating contests' political environments vary: the rules regarding who can participate; the levels of electoral competition, which are related to when they are held; and that other offices present on the ballot, if any. We explore the effects of these conditions on voter participation in recent presidential contests and generally find turnout highest in competitive and inclusive contests where other offices are on the ballot. Examining the 2008 American National Election Panel Study, we find primary voters are more ideologically extreme than general election voters, but there is little difference between voters in closed and open primary states. We suggest primary type has little effect on the ideological composition of the electorate because modern nomination contests are low turnout elections that draw only the most politically interested.


Summary The pattern of block and basin, well known in the Carboniferous rocks of the Pennines, is traced eastwards beneath the later rocks. In Durham and Yorkshire the basinal areas remain strongly defined, with an indication that the eastern edge of the Askrigg Block is near Darlington, with the "Cleveland Basin" beyond. South of the Humber the basinal developments (Gainsborough Trough, Edale Gulf and Widmerpool Gulf) finger out into the block-like shelf area of Lincolnshire. The structural lines which bounded these basins in the later Lower and early Upper Carboniferous continue on to the shelf, but are not there associated with differential intra-Carboniferous (early Hercynian) movement on a significant scale. The later Hercynian folding and faulting (post-Westphalian, pre-Zechstein) does not appear to have produced large displacements east of the Carboniferous outcrops. Available evidence in East Yorkshire shows no major folding at this time, and although the well-known fold and fault structures of the Yorkshire–Nottinghamshire coalfield belt continue eastwards into Lincolnshire, they become progressively more gentle as they pass on to the shelf area. Seismic surveys beneath the Fenland show the relief of the Lower Carboniferous to be comparable with that of the overlying Permian. Within the concealed Carboniferous rocks of north-eastern England the vertical amplitude of movements associated with the early-Hercynian disturbances is several times as great as that due to the late-Hercynian phase. Both are more nearly of epeirogenic than of orogenic type.


The Holocene sedimentary deposit of the Rockingham-Becher plain in southwestern Australia provides a case study of cuspate foreland geometry, stratigraphy and origin, useful for stratigraphic geology. Sedimentation occurs in a mixed carbonate-terrigeneous setting within a wave-dominated, or wave-activated, bathymetrically complex coastal zone. Eroded remnants of ancestral Pleistocene limestone ridges and depressions have had a major control on the distribution of wave energy and Holocene sedimentation. The sedimentary environments include an inter-related array of basin, tseagrass) bank, beach and beachridge/dune facies. With progradation and shoaling there has developed a relatively simple stratigraphy within the foreland. The Holocene deposits form a large scale lensoid package of sediment, cuspate in plan, that records a history of shoaling from basin, through bank, to beach and dune. The lensoid accumulation is plastered on, or abuts, a hinterland of Pleistocene limestone, and its apex is located near (and is influenced by), the Pleistocene limestone (barrier island) ridge to seaward. In the stratigraphic record this cuspate foreland system would appear as a discrete lensoid package of sediment, with an upward-shoaling stratigraphic sequence, and would appear lithologically distinct from its surrounding rock units.


Purpose: The purpose of this study was two-fold and consisted of the development of a skills-based model for Case-by-Collaboration (CBC) and the collection of qualitative data from students and teachers aimed at answering the research question: What skills do individuals (students) apply during the completion of a hypothetical medical laboratory management-based Case-by-Collaboration capstone project? Method: A consensual qualitative research design was selected for this study. Students and their instructors from three Medical Laboratory Science programs located in Texas, New York, and Missouri were recruited. Students were given a case that centers on the fictitious Cheapskate Health Maintenance Organization (HMO). The project culminated when each team presented their proposal to become the sole provider of laboratory testing services to the Cheapskate HMO Board of Directors (BOD). The project was initially designed to be accessed and completed online, where students from different institutions would come together and remotely complete the requirements. Data were collected through in-person observations of the final presentation, semi-structured interviews with students and instructors, and analysis of project documents. Data was coded, and transcripts were reviewed numerous times. Two strategies were employed to ensure the integrity of the study. First, the coded data were examined across the data collection strategies, transcripts containing the data, and the themes identified by a researcher and an outside auditor. Secondly, an audit trail was established to document how the data were collected and analyzed, along with documentation of the thought processes used in the data interpretation phase of the project. Results: The current study analyzed responses from 36 students and 5 instructors across the three data collection sites. Seven themes, in the form of skill sets, were identified in the data analyzed:1) information technology, 2) collaboration/team building, 3) verbal and written communication, 4) clinical reasoning, 5) creativity, 6) managerial, and 7) research/investigative. Conclusion: These results suggest the CBC can develop desirable soft skills. This model can be transferrable and apply to CBCs independent of the studied content. Thus, the CBC is an innovative model to teach soft skills across health disciplines.


Supernova (SN) 2009ig was discovered 17 hr after explosion by the Lick Observatory Supernova Search, promptly classified as a normal Type Ia SN (SN Ia), peaked at V = 13.5 mag, and was equatorial, making it one of the foremost SNe for intensive study in the last decade. Here, we present ultraviolet (UV) and optical observations of SN 2009ig, starting about 1 day after explosion until around maximum brightness. Our data include excellent UV and optical light curves, 25 premaximum optical spectra, and 8 UV spectra, including the earliest UV spectrum ever obtained of an SN Ia. SN 2009ig is a relatively normal SN Ia, but does display high-velocity ejecta—the ejecta velocity measured in our earliest spectra (v ≈ −23, 000 km s−1 for Si ii λ6355) is the highest yet measured in an SN Ia. The spectral evolution is very dramatic at times earlier than 12 days before maximum brightness, but slows after that time. The early-time data provide a precise measurement of 17.13 ± 0.07 days for the SN rise time. The optical color curves and early-time spectra are significantly different from template light curves and spectra used for light-curve fitting and K-corrections, indicating that the template light curves and spectra do not properly represent all SNe Ia at very early times. In the age of wide-angle sky surveys, SNe like SN 2009ig that are nearby, bright, well positioned, and promptly discovered will still be rare. As shown with SN 2009ig, detailed studies of single events can provide significantly more information for testing systematic uncertainties related to SN Ia distance estimates and constraining progenitor and explosion models than large samples of more distant SNe.


Because of their size and price, miniature gas sensors are good candidates for long-term, large-scale, continuous monitoring of the air quality in confined environments, even in the presence of occupants. In spite of their still somewhat limited metrological performances, these tools are able to provide relevant information on the pollutants spatial and temporal evolution. They can therefore be used to identify pollution sources and automatically control ventilation and remediation systems, provided they are associated with adequate data treatment procedures. In the present study, four sensors for the detection of CO2, NO, NO2 and O3 have been deployed, without previous calibration, inside a classroom of a low energy high school building, together with standard analytical instruments. The data are analyzed with a procedure based on the bisecting K-means algorithm. This unsupervised classification allows the identification of similar measurements, which can be merged into clusters. An excellent agreement has been found between the classification results provided by the analyzers and by the sensors, even if the latter were not calibrated before deployment. These results validate the data treatment methodology proposed in this work, and demonstrate the potential of using commercial micro sensors in real conditions.


While we can see robots in more areas of our lives, they still make errors. One common cause of failure stems from the robot perception module when detecting objects. Allowing users to correct such errors can help improve the interaction and prevent the same errors in the future. Consequently, we investigate the effectiveness of a virtual reality (VR) framework for correcting perception errors of a Franka Panda robot. We conducted a user study with 56 participants who interacted with the robot using both VR and screen interfaces. Participants learned to collaborate with the robot faster in the VR interface compared to the screen interface. Additionally, participants found the VR interface more immersive, enjoyable, and expressed a preference for using it again. These findings suggest that VR interfaces may offer advantages over screen interfaces for human-robot interaction in erroneous environments.


We have studied the feasibility of detecting tumor-associated aberrant p16 methylation in the circulation of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We extracted DNA from the tumor tissues and peripheral blood plasma or serum of 22 HCC patients.p16methylation was found in 73% (16 of 22) of HCC tissues using methylation-specific PCR. Among the 16 cases with aberrant methylation in the tumor tissues, similar changes were also detected in the plasma/serum samples of 81% (13 of 16) of the cases. No methylatedp16sequences were detected in the peripheral plasma/serum of the six HCC cases without these changes in the tumor, in 38 patients with chronic hepatitis/cirrhosis, or in 10 healthy control subjects. These results suggest that circulating liver tumor DNA may be detected using tumor-associated DNA methylation changes. Because methylation abnormalities have been found in many other genes and tumor types, this approach may have implications for the noninvasive detection of a wide variety of cancers.


The study was conducted to develop composite bread with maize flour and also to evaluate the nutritional quality and sensory properties of resulting breads. The results of the proximate analysis showed that wheat and maize flour contain protein 12.56 and 9.08%; fat 0.85 and 1.15%; ash 0.62 and 1.60%; fibre 0.68 and 1.25%; gluten 12.11 and 0.0%, respectively. Breads were produced from composite flour containing 10, 20, 25, 30 and 40% of maize flour and compared with wheat bread for various quality attributes of the developed products. The incorporation of maize flour adversely affected the baking properties and dough expansion but the nutritional quality was improved in case of fiber and energy content. The sensory analysis showed that there was no significant difference between the wheat bread and bread with 10% maize flour. Substitution of 10% maize flour into wheat flour retained much of the nutritional and sensory properties and gave the bread with the good overall acceptability. It was found that volume and specific volume highly positively correlated with taste, texture and overall acceptability but negatively correlated with hardness. The sensory qualities such as hardness and springiness deteriorated during storage with increasing level of maize flour in the breads.


Background: Healthy dietary behaviors are critical strategies for cancer control. Despite this, many African Americans do not meet the recommended guidelines for fruit and vegetable intake. To develop effective cancer control interventions for African Americans, it is first necessary to understand within group variation in motivations for making dietary behavior changes and identify socioeconomic, social, and clinical factors that have significant independent associations with these motivations. Objectives: To characterize motivations for making dietary changes among African Americans and to identify socioeconomic, social, and clinical factors having significant independent associations with these intrinsic and extrinsic motivations among African American adults (n=530). Results: The mean (SD) level for intrinsic motivation was 26.5 (3.5) whereas the mean (SD) level for extrinsic motivation was 16.1 (4.8). Increasing age (Beta=0.03, p=0.03) and membership in at least one community organization (Beta=1.20, p=0.0003) had significant independent associations in the regression model for intrinsic motivation (n=479, F=5.97, p=0.0001). Lower incomes (Beta=-1.10, p=0.02) and age (Beta=0.06, p=0.006) had significant independent associations with extrinsic motivation. None of the clinical factors were associated significantly with intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Conclusions: African Americans may be motivated to make dietary changes for cancer control because of intrinsic motivations. Different variables had significant independent associations with intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to make dietary changes among African Americans. It may be important to use alternative strategies to enhance these motivations as part of cancer control interventions that are developed for these individuals. Citation Format: Melanie S. Jefferson, Vanessa Briggs, Ernestine Delmoor, LaShanta Rice, Jerry Johnson, Chanita Hughes-Halbert. Motivation for cancer control changes among African Americans. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Seventh AACR Conference on The Science of Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; Nov 9-12, 2014; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2015;24(10 Suppl):Abstract nr B15.


Abstract This paper examines the degree and patterns of intergenerational economic mobility in Italy. It uses data from the Bank of Italy's repeated cross-section household survey. Retrospective information on parental economic status may be exploited by applying a two-sample two-stage least squares estimation. I estimate the intergenerational income elasticity for Italy and investigate the main mobility patterns across the distribution. From an overall comparison, the evidence provided in this paper hints that Italy is in the low-mobility group among advanced societies, in the range of values found in the U.S. and the UK. The transmission of economic status appears to be particularly strong at the top of the income distribution. I investigate the role of education in the transmission of economic status in Italy and find evidence that children with the same level of formal education seem to have unequal chances in the labor market depending on family background.


AIMS
Obesity has been shown to be a risk factor for first atrial fibrillation (AF), but whether it is associated with progression from paroxysmal to permanent AF is unknown.

METHODS AND RESULTS
In this longitudinal cohort study, Olmsted County, MN residents confirmed to have developed paroxysmal AF during 1980-2000 were identified and followed passively to 2006. The interrelationships of body mass index (BMI), left atrial (LA) size, and progression to permanent AF were analysed. Of a total of 3248 patients (mean age 71 +/- 15 years; 54% men) diagnosed with paroxysmal AF, 557 (17%) progressed to permanent AF (unadjusted incidence, 36/1000 person-years) over a median follow-up period of 5.1 years (interquartile range 1.2-9.4). Adjusting for age and sex, BMI independently predicted the progression to permanent AF (hazard ratio, HR 1.04, CI 1.03-1.06; P < 0.0001). Compared with normal BMI (18.5-24.9 kg/m(2)), obesity (30-34.9 kg/m(2)) and severe obesity (>or=35 kg/m(2)) were associated with increased risk for progression [HR 1.54 (CI 1.2-2.0; P = 0.0004) and 1.87 (CI 1.4-2.5; P < 0.0001, respectively)]. BMI remained highly significant even after multiple adjustments. In the subgroup with echocardiographic assessment (n = 744), LA volume was incremental to BMI for independent prediction of progression after multiple adjustments, and did not weaken the association between BMI and progression to permanent AF (HR 1.04; CI 1.02-1.05; P < 0.0001).

CONCLUSION
There was a graded risk relationship between BMI and progression from paroxysmal to permanent AF. This relationship was not weakened by LA volume, which was independent of and incremental to BMI for the prediction of progression to permanent AF.


Race-conscious affirmative action in higher education admissions is currently permitted in order for universities to meet their compelling interest in pursuing the educational benefits of a diverse student body. But the legality of affirmative action, which plays a prominent role in creating a diverse student body at elite educational institutions, is under attack. I develop and provide an empirical basis for an expanded understanding of the educational benefits provided by affirmative action: namely, of fostering a pipeline of future societal leaders and professionals. Using data on nearly 500,000 college graduates, I demonstrate that the likelihood of earning a professional or graduate degree—an outcome that is closely linked to employment in influential positions—drops off dramatically in the universities attended by the majority of college graduates, as compared with elite universities that use affirmative action. Further, race is a relatively unimportant predictor of professional or graduate degree attainment among graduates of similarly elite schools. Curtailing race-conscious affirmative action would thereby exclude many students from underrepresented minority groups who would successfully earn professional and graduate degrees—and later, enter into influential positions that shape society.


The study purpose was to develop and validate a quality assurance test for CT automatic exposure control (AEC) systems based on a set of nested polymethylmethacrylate CTDI phantoms. The test phantom was created by offsetting the 16 cm head phantom within the 32 cm body annulus, thus creating a three part phantom. This was scanned at all acceptance, routine, and some nonroutine quality assurance visits over a period of 45 months, resulting in 115 separate AEC tests on scanners from four manufacturers. For each scan the longitudinal mA modulation pattern was generated and measurements of image noise were made in two annular regions of interest. The scanner displayed CTDIvol and DLP were also recorded. The impact of a range of AEC configurations on dose and image quality were assessed at acceptance testing. For systems that were tested more than once, the percentage of CTDIvol values exceeding 5%, 10%, and 15% deviation from baseline was 23.4%, 12.6%, and 8.1% respectively. Similarly, for the image noise data, deviations greater than 2%, 5%, and 10% from baseline were 26.5%, 5.9%, and 2%, respectively. The majority of CTDIvol and noise deviations greater than 15% and 5%, respectively, could be explained by incorrect phantom setup or protocol selection. Barring these results, CTDIvol deviations of greater than 15% from baseline were found in 0.9% of tests and noise deviations greater than 5% from baseline were found in 1% of tests. The phantom was shown to be sensitive to changes in AEC setup, including the use of 3D, longitudinal or rotational tube current modulation. This test methodology allows for continuing performance assessment of CT AEC systems, and we recommend that this test should become part of routine CT quality assurance programs. Tolerances of ±15% for CTDIvol and ±5% for image noise relative to baseline values should be used. PACS number(s): 87.57.Q.


Development of large-scale off-shore wind farms (OWFs) around the world has created different technical and economic challenges. Optimal configuration of the electrical interconnection of the OWFs is a key factor to minimize the investment and operational costs. This paper proposes an optimization formulation by using a Genetic Algorithm (GA) to find the optimal electrical interconnection configuration for a given OWF topology with different number of turbines. A search algorithm has been incorporated into the objective function that enumerates all feasible power flow directions from all turbines towards the power collecting hub, identifying the power flow path that minimizes the cable dimensions and thus the overall cost. The algorithm has been tested on several OWF topologies. The impact of the location of the hub has also been investigated by way of simulations. Furthermore, a comparison between single-hub and multi-hub solution has been made for multi-OWF system. The results show that multihub solution can be a better choice in general, especially when only the interconnection cost is compared.


Background: Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA)1 is a common surgical treatment for severe knee Osteoarthritis (OA)2, which generally improves pain, physical function, quality of life and possibly fall risk. Fall risk increases for older adults with severe knee OA; however it has not been studied extensively whether this parameter is improved after TKA. Objective: To investigate: a) the history and frequency of falls, including mechanism or causes of falls, injuries sustained from falls reported, activity during falling and location of falls and, b) the factors affecting falls, a year after TKA in elderly patients with severe knee OA. Patients and Method: An observational prospective longitudinal study of 68 patients (11 males and 57 females) was conducted. The frequency of falls was recorded every month after knee replacement for a year period. A year after the TKA patients completed self-administered questionnaires (SF-36, Womac, FOF, ABC, PASE) and were assessed in physical performance tests (TUG and BBS). Results: There was significant improvement in falls frequency (p<0.001), differentiation of falling status to the benefit of non fallers (p<0.001) and risk of serious injuries (p<0.001). The factors that affected falling status was history of falls (p<0.0005), fear of falls (p<0.017) and advanced age, marginally (p<0.097). Conclusion: TKA generally improved a lot of aspects in patients' life. One of these was the reduction of fall risk, which always co-exists in this population and can cause devastating problems threatening the benefits of the procedure.


The goal of this paper is to identify firm-level factors that affect the valuation of companies in a transitional economy of Poland in comparison to companies from developed continental markets of Germany and France. The novelty of our approach rests in a careful construction of the comparable sample, which is a challenge given that Polish companies are relatively small in terms of market capitalization. Therefore we limit our sample to companies for which we can find comparable companies in the other two markets and then use sample matching techniques to identify the comparables. We increase comparability by limiting the sample to IFRS reporting companies and studying only the period after the mandatory adoption of IFRS in the European Union. Then, we measure accruals intensity, conditional conservatism, intangibles intensity and control for negative earnings. Results of valuation model estimations show that cross-country differences in valuation can be explained by the level of accruals intensity and conservatism, the interaction between the two variables, and the interaction between conservatism and intensity of intangible assets. The results imply that it is firm-specific choices in accounting practice that affect the value relevance of earnings rather than the broad factors which characterize each country.


Traditionally, the application of Bayesian testing procedures to classi- cal nonparametric settings has been restricted by difficulties associated with prior specification, prohibitively expensive computation, and the absence of sampling densities for data. To overcome these difficulties, we model t he sampling distri- butions of nonparametric test statistics—rather than the sampling distributions of original data—to obtain the Bayes factors required for Bayesian hypothesis tests. We apply this methodology to construct Bayes factors from a wide class of non- parametric test statistics having limiting normal distributions and illustrate these methods with data. Finally, we consider the extension of our methodology to non- parametric test statistics having limiting � 2 distributions.


The TaCEM project (Technology and Creativity in Electroacoustic Music), funded by the United Kingdom's Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), investigates the relationship between creative process and technological innovation on the basis of eight key works from the electroacoustic repertoire. A significant part of the dissemination of this investigation is in the form of software that embeds, on the one hand, interactive software tools to engage aurally both with the structures of the considered work and the technologies used and, on the other hand, filmed materials with the composer and, where applicable, her/his collaborators. This presentation demonstrates the software developed for pieces by two major figures of the developments of real-time electronics at Ircam, Philippe Manoury's Pluton (1988) and Cort Lippe's Music for Tuba and Computer (2008), and compares the aesthetic and technological aspects of these works and of their real-time performing environments.


The visibility of images of outdoor scenes is degraded by bad weather conditions. Atmospheric phenomena like haze and fog reduce significantly the visibility of the captured image. Haze is the atmospheric phenomenon that dims the clarity of an observed scene due to the particles such as smoke, fog, and dust. Due to these atmospheric particles there is a significant degradation in the color and contrast of the captured image in the bad weather conditions. If two or more images of same scene are given, then the process of image matching requires find valid corresponding feature points in images. Image matching is a fundamental aspect of many problems in computer vision. Besides the geometric and photometric variation, outdoor and aerial images that are subjected to the process of matching are often degraded by the atmospheric phenomenon of haze. In this paper we presented an efficient physics based method for recovering a haze-free image when a single photograph is available as an input. This technique restores the hazy images based on the estimated transmission (depth) map. Our method benefits from three main contributions. The first is a new constraint on the scene transmission. Second contribution is contextual regularization that enables us to incorporate a filter bank into image dehazing. Our final contribution is an efficient optimization scheme, enables us to quickly dehaze images of large sizes. Our method requires some general assumption and can restore a high quality haze free image. At final stage we have performed matching of images by SURF operator to show efficiency of our method and also demonstrate that our technique is suitable for the challenging problem of image matching based on local feature points.


My thesis is called One Day Your Ship Will Come In and consists of several pieces of fiction. The setting of most of these pieces is deliberately vague for aesthetic reasons but any reader inclined to investigate can deduce that they are set in the small-town South. That said the "Southern-ness" of these stories is restrained; you won't see anything about "Carolina accents as sweet as Karo syrup " but you will see plenty of guns and pickup trucks. The characters in these stories all just want things to get better one day but they don't know how to get there so they do things like buy lottery tickets. My artistic influences are eclectic to say the least. Not-so-subtle allusions to Chekhov Hemingway and other artists are in there and some of the fictions have dramatically different styles than others--some are straightforward traditional narratives and others self-consciously postmodern. I think I have achieved a degree of unity among these pieces however by working through multiple revisions to strip out excess prose and establish a consistent tone.


This thesis explores two novel ways of reducing the data complexity of tactile sensing. The thesis begins by examining the state-of-the art in tactile sensing, not only examining the sensor construction and interpretation of data but also the motivation for these designs. The thesis then proposes two methods for reducing the complexity of data in tactile sensing. The first is a low-power tactile sensing array exploiting a novel application of a pressure-sensitive material called quantum tunnelling composite. The properties of this material in this array form are shown to be beneficial in robotics. The electrical characteristics of the material are also explored. A bit-based structure for representing tactile data called Bitworld is then defined and its computational performance is characterised. It is shown that this bit-based structure outperforms floating-point arrays by orders of magnitude. This structure is then shown to allow high-resolution images to be produced by combining low resolution sensor arrays with equivalent functional performance to a floating-point array, but with the advantages of computational efficiency. Finally, an investigation into making Bitworld robust in the presence of positional noise is described with simulations to verify that such robustness can be achieved. Overall, the sensor and data structure described in this thesis allow simple, but effective tactile systems to be deployed in robotics without requiring a significant commitment of computational or power resources on the part of a robot designer.


Two West Spitsbergen fiords, Hornsund (77°N) and Kongsfjorden (79°N) were compared with respect to their hydrology and zooplankton occurrence on the base of two summer surveys made in 1987 and 1988. Both fiords were found to be influenced by four types of masses: Atlantic Waters, Intermediate Atlantic Waters, Local Waters and Brackish Surface Waters, Intermediate Atlantic Waters, Local Waters and Brackish Surface Waters. The amount of fresh water in both fiords reached up to 10% of water volume of the uppermost water layers. Hornsund in August 1987 was richer in mesozooplankton biomass than Kongsfjorden in 1988. Estimated energie value of pelagic prey of marine birds was 180-500 KJ/100 m3 in Hornsund, and 130-200 in Kongsfjorden. Two major plankton communities were found in both fiords: Pseudocalanus community in the inner fiord basins and Calanus dominated community in the outer areas of the fiords. Plankton occurrence in fiords was not linked directly with the temperature — salinity patterns but rather with dynamic phenomena like upwellings and wind drift of surface waters.


Importance
Women giving birth have high rates of dural puncture secondary to neuraxial anesthesia and are at high risk for a resulting headache. It appears to be unknown whether there is a significant association between post-dural puncture headache and subsequent intracranial subdural hematoma.

Objective
To determine the association of post-dural puncture headache with postpartum intracranial subdural hematoma.

Design, Setting, and Participants
This cohort study of patients used hospital discharges recorded in the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality National Readmission Database for women who experienced childbirth from January 2010 to December 2016. Patients were included if they had been admitted for childbirth, had 2 months of follow-up data, and did not receive a diagnostic lumbar puncture. Only the first delivery for a calendar year was studied. Data were analyzed from January 2018 to June 2019.

Exposures
Women with post-dural puncture headache associated with neuraxial anesthesia in the 2-month postpartum period were identified using International Classification of Disease (Ninth Edition and Tenth Edition) codes and were compared with those without post-dural puncture headaches.

Main Outcome and Measures
The primary outcome was intracranial subdural hematoma in the 2-month postpartum period. Secondary outcomes included in-hospital mortality and occurrence of neurosurgery.

Results
A total of 26 469 771 patients with 26 498 194 deliveries were included. Exclusion of repeated deliveries (n = 28 423), deliveries without 2 months of follow-up data (n = 4 329 621), and deliveries with diagnostic lumbar puncture (n = 9334) resulted in a final cohort of 22 130 815 patients and deliveries. For the cohort, the mean (SD) age was 28.1 (6.0) years, and there were 68 374 post-dural puncture headaches, for an overall rate of 309 (95% CI, 302-316) per 100 000. There were 342 cases of subdural hematoma identified, indicating a rate of 1.5 (95% CI, 1.3-1.8) per 100 000 women. Of these, 100 cases were in women with post-dural puncture headache, indicating a rate of 147 (95% CI, 111-194) hematoma cases per 100 000 deliveries in this subgroup. Post-dural puncture headache had an unadjusted absolute risk increase of 145 (95% CI, 117-174) subdural hematoma cases per 100 000 deliveries. After adjusting for confounders, post-dural puncture headache had an odds ratio for subdural hematoma of 199 (95% CI, 126-317; P < .001) and an adjusted absolute risk increase of 130 (95% CI, 90-169; P < .001) per 100 000 deliveries.

Conclusions and Relevance
The presence of presumed post-dural puncture headache after neuraxial anesthesia in childbirth, compared with no headache, was associated with a small but statistically significant absolute increase in the risk of being diagnosed with intracranial subdural hematoma. Further research is needed to establish if this association is causal for this rare outcome.


The Shield of Heracles by Hesiod and Homer's Iliad, XVIII show how mimesis should be considered: it is a process that should be seen different according to the levels that it refers to. There is one object constructed by a craftsman (first level of representation), after that a poet may write about this object and its construction (second level of representation). Then yet another poet could write, on the model of the previous text, his poem with his personal idea. Explaining first, the meaning of representation, arts and mimesis in Plato (Ion, Phaedrus, Cratylus, Sophist, Laws, Republic-Book X) and in Aristotle (Poetics, Nichomachean Ethics), I would like to explain how mimesis was considered according to the terms of form and representation. After that I would carry out a textual analysis of The Shield of Heracles and Iliad, to demonstrate that even if Hesiod's text is quite similar to Homer's, the context, the meaning, the background of the authors and the narrative structures are different. The different levels of pertinence and the different points of view demonstrate that mimesis is not a process that produces hierarchy in retrospect, but it is something heading to the direction of what "it is not created yet".


Circumpolar permafrost soils store about half of the global soil organic carbon pool. These huge
amounts of organic matter (OM) could accumulate due to low temperatures and water saturated
soil conditions over the course of millennia. Currently most of this OM remains frozen and
therefore does not take part in the active carbon cycle, making permafrost soils a globally
important carbon sink. Over the last decades mean annual air temperatures in the Arctic
increased stronger than the global mean and this trend is projected to continue. As a result the
permafrost carbon pool is under climate pressure possibly creating a positive climate feedback
due to the thaw-induced release of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Arctic warming will lead
to increased annual permafrost thaw depths and Arctic river runoff likely resulting in enhanced
mobilization and export of old, previously frozen soil-derived OM. Consequently, the great arctic
rivers play an important role in global biogeochemical cycles by connecting the large permafrost
carbon pool of their hinterlands with the arctic shelf seas and the Arctic Ocean.
The first part of this thesis deals with particulate organic matter (POM) from the Lena Delta and
adjacent Buor Khaya Bay. The Lena River in central Siberia is one of the major pathways
translocating terrestrial OM from its southernmost reaches near Lake Baikal to the coastal zone
of the Laptev Sea. The permafrost soils from the Lena catchment area store huge amounts of
pre-aged OM, which is expected to be remobilized due to climate warming. To characterize the
composition and vegetation sources of OM discharged by the Lena River, the lignin phenol and
carbon isotopic composition (δ13C and Δ14C) in total suspended matter (TSM) from surface
waters, surface sediments from the Buor Khaya Bay along with soils from the Lena Delta's first
(Holocene) and third terraces (Pleistocene ice complex) were analyzed. The lignin compositions
of these samples are consistent with inputs of OM from non-woody angiosperm sources mixed
with organic matter derived from woody gymnosperm sources. A simple linear mixing model
based on the lignin phenol distributions indicates organic matter in TSM samples from the delta
and Buor Khaya Bay surface sediments contain comparable contributions from gymnosperm
sources, which are primarily from the taiga forests south of the delta, and angiosperm material
typical for tundra vegetation. Considering the small area covered by tundra (~12% of total
catchment), the input of tundra-derived OM input is substantial and likely to increase in a
warming Arctic. Radiocarbon compositions (Δ14C) of bulk OM in Lena River TSM samples
varied from –55 to –391‰, translating into 14C ages of 395 to 3920 years BP. Using δ13C
compositions to estimate the fraction of phytoplankton-derived OM and assuming that this material has a modern 14C signature, we inferred the Δ14C compositions of terrigenous OM in
TSM exported by the Lena River to range between –190 and –700‰. Such variability in the ages
of terrigenous OM (i.e. 1640 to 9720 14C years BP) reflects the heterogeneous composition and
residence time of OM in the Lena River catchment soils (Holocene to Pleistocene ages). Lignin
phenol and Δ14C compositions of surface sediments from the adjacent Buor Khaya Bay suggest
that terrestrial OM deposited there is older and more degraded than materials present in river
particles and catchment soils. Stronger diagenetic alteration in Lena Delta TSM and marine
sediments relative to soils may reflect degradation of more labile components during permafrost
thawing and transport. Despite the high natural heterogeneity in catchment soils, the lignin
biomarker compositions and radiocarbon ages of terrestrial OM exported by the Lena River
reflect catchment characteristics such as vegetation and soil type. Climate warming related
changes in the Lena River catchment may be detectable in changing lignin biomarker
composition, diagenetic alteration, and radiocarbon age.
The second part of this thesis investigates past permafrost dynamics and the possible
permafrost/wetland climate feedback during the last deglaciation and Early Holocene. The Amur
hinterland in East Siberia was most likely characterized by extensive permafrost during the last
glacial maximum and is today permafrost-free with the exception of small areas in the northern
reaches of the catchment. The organic matter flux of the Amur River into its receiving basin, the
Okhotsk Sea, was reconstructed for the last 16,000 years in a high-resolution AMS 14C-dated
sediment core from the Sakhalin continental margin, based on organic geochemical multi-proxy
data and compound-specific radiocarbon dating of n-alkanoic acids. Within the deglacial
discharge maximum of organic matter to the Okhotsk Sea, two peaks of organic matter release
episodes; the first occurring during the Bolling-Allerod warm phase, and the second, larger one
after Termination Ib in the earliest Preboreal could be identified. The results highlight the
sensitivity of the Amur drainage basin's carbon reservoir to rapid deglacial temperature and
precipitation changes. It is hypothesized that large amounts of carbon were activated upon
deglacial permafrost thawing within this southernmost Siberian large catchment and quickly
transferred to the oceanic carbon reservoir via riverine freshwater transport into the Okhotsk Sea
and the North Pacific.