Genomic data often highlights an inconsistency between the number of gene clusters identified using bioinformatic approaches as potentially producing secondary metabolites and the actual number of chemically characterized secondary metabolites produced by any given microorganism. Such gene clusters are generally considered as "silent", meaning that they are not expressed under laboratory conditions. Triggering expression of these "silent" clusters could result in unlocking the chemical diversity they control, allowing the discovery of novel molecules of both medical and biotechnological interest. Therefore, both genetic and cultivation-based techniques have been developed aimed at stimulating expression of these "silent" genes. The principles behind the cultivation based approaches have been conceptualized in the "one strain many compounds" (OSMAC) framework, which underlines how a single strain can produce different molecules when grown under different environmental conditions. Parameters such as, nutrient content, temperature, and rate of aeration can be easily changed, altering the global physiology of a microbial strain and in turn significantly affecting its secondary metabolism. As a direct extension of such approaches, co-cultivation strategies and the addition of chemical elicitors have also been used as cues to activate "silent" clusters. In this review, we aim to provide a focused and comprehensive overview of these strategies as they pertain to marine microbes. Moreover, we underline how changes in some parameters which have provided important results in terrestrial microbes, but which have rarely been considered in marine microorganisms, may represent additional strategies to awaken "silent" gene clusters in marine microbes. Unfortunately, the empirical nature of the OSMAC approach forces scientists to perform extensive laboratory experiments. Nevertheless, we believe that some computation and experimental based techniques which are used in other disciplines, and which we discuss; could be effectively employed to help streamline the OSMAC based approaches. We believe that natural products discovery in marine microorganisms would be greatly aided through the integration of basic microbiological approaches, computational methods, and technological innovations, thereby helping unearth much of the as yet untapped potential of these microorganisms.


The principle of respect for autonomy has proved very useful for bioethical arguments in favor of euthanasia. However unquestionable its theoretical efficacy, countless aporiae can be raised when conducting a detailed analysis of this concept, probably checkmating it. Based on such considerations, this paper investigates the principle of autonomy, starting with its origins in Greek and Christian traditions, and then charting some of its developments in Western cultures through to its modern formulation, a legacy of Immanuel Kant. The main paradoxes of this concept are then presented in the fields of philosophy, biology, psychoanalysis and politics, expounding several of the theoretical difficulties to be faced in order to make its applicability possible within the scope of decisions relating to the termination of life.


Objectives Particulate matter has been associated with acute cardiovascular outcomes, but our understanding of the mechanism is incomplete. We examined the association between particulate matter and cell adhesion molecules. We also investigated the modifying effect of genotype and phenotype variation to gain insight into the relevant biological pathways for this association. Methods We used mixed regression models to examine the association of PM2.5 (particulate matter ≤2.5 μm in diameter) and black carbon with serum concentrations of soluble intercellular adhesion molecule (sICAM-1) and soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule (sVCAM-1), markers of endothelial function and inflammation, in a longitudinal study of 809 participants in the Normative Ageing Study (1819 total observations). We also examined whether this association was modified by genotype, obesity or diabetes status. Genes selected for analyses were either related to oxidative stress, endothelial function, lipid metabolism or metal processing. Results Black carbon during the 2 days prior to blood draw was significantly associated with increased sVCAM-1 (4.5% increase per 1 μg/m3, 95% CI 1.1 to 8.0). Neither pollutant was associated with sICAM-1. Larger effects of black carbon on sVCAM were seen in subjects with obesity (p=0.007) and who were GSTM1 null (p=0.02). Conclusions Black carbon is associated with markers of endothelial function and inflammation. Genes related to oxidative defence may modify this association.


BACKGROUND
A trapped temporal horn can be emergently decompressed by inserting a bedside temporal horn external ventricular drain (tEVD). However, no standardized method for this procedure has been described.

OBJECTIVE
To identify methods for bedside tEVD insertion, and determine the safest, most accurate, and most easily standardized approach.

METHODS
Volumetric images of 20 patients with trapped temporal horns were analyzed. Three tEVD approaches (perpendicular, lateral, and medial) were defined, along with standardized insertion points and external landmarks for trajectory guidance. Predicted success in penetrating the temporal horn, skin-to-temporal horn entrance distance, temporal horn distance traversed, and trajectory target error and accuracy were evaluated; data were compared with independent sample t tests.

RESULTS
Nineteen of 20 cases were analyzed; 13 had critical temporal horn entrapment. Penetration was achieved in 100% of perpendicular and 84% (16/19) of lateral and medial approaches (92% [12/13] of critical entrapments). In 19 patients, trajectory error was not significantly different among approaches. The perpendicular approach had significantly more accuracy than the lateral (P = .01) and medial (P = .002) approaches. The lateral approach afforded significantly more traversable distance than the perpendicular approach (P = .009). In cases with critical entrapment, the perpendicular approach had significantly less error (P = .02) and significantly better accuracy (P = .02) than the medial approach. The perpendicular approach trended toward more accuracy than the lateral approach (P = .06).

CONCLUSION
The perpendicular approach appears to be the easiest, safest, and most reliable approach tested. We recommend conducting bedside tEVD placement only in patients with a critically dilated temporal horn who are clinically deteriorating at a rate that prohibits other procedures.

ABBREVIATIONS
CSF, cerebrospinal fluidEVD, external ventricular draintEVD, temporal horn external ventricular drainOR, operating room.


BACKGROUND
Data on the risk stratification of pediatric differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) remain scarce. This study aimed to evaluate the predictors of structural persistent/recurrent disease and revise an initial risk-stratification system in pediatric DTC patients.

METHODS
This retrospective cohort study included 203 patients (aged <20 years) from two tertiary referral centers in Korea. The extent of cervical lymph node (LN) metastasis was classified based on the location or number of metastatic LNs.

RESULTS
During a median follow-up duration of 5.5 years, structural persistent/recurrent disease was observed in 51 (25%) patients, including 22 (11%) with distant metastases. The presence of extrathyroidal extension (ETE) and lateral cervical LN metastases or more than five metastatic LNs were independent predictors for structural persistent/recurrent disease. The presence of bilateral lateral cervical LN metastases or >10 metastatic LNs were independent predictors for distant metastasis. A total of 67 (33%), 72 (35%), and 64 (32%) patients were classified into the low-, intermediate-, and high-risk groups, respectively, based on the presence of ETE and the extent of cervical LN metastases. Compared to the low-risk group, the intermediate- and high-risk groups had a significantly greater risk of structural persistent/recurrent disease (hazard ratio = 7.32, p = 0.008, and hazard ratio = 24.28, p < 0.001, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS
This revised initial risk-stratification system based on the presence of ETE and the extent of cervical LN metastasis is useful for predicting the clinical outcomes of pediatric DTC patients. The findings could facilitate the practical use of a risk-stratification system.


In hospitals, critical care patients are often susceptible to various complications that adversely affect their morbidity and mortality. Digitized patient data from Electronic Health Records (EHRs) can be utilized to facilitate risk stratification accurately and provide prioritized care. Existing clinical decision support systems are heavily reliant on the structured nature of the EHRs. However, the valuable patient-specific data contained in unstructured clinical notes are often manually transcribed into EHRs. The prolific use of extensive medical jargon, heterogeneity, sparsity, rawness, inconsistent abbreviations, and complex structure of the clinical notes poses significant challenges, and also results in a loss of information during the manual conversion process. In this work, we employ two coherence-based topic modeling approaches to model the free-text in the unstructured clinical nursing notes and capture its semantic textual features with the emphasis on human interpretability. Furthermore, we present FarSight, a long-term aggregation mechanism intended to detect the onset of disease with the earliest recorded symptoms and infections. We utilize the predictive capabilities of deep neural models for the clinical task of risk stratification through ICD-9 code group prediction. Our experimental validation on MIMIC-III (v1.4) database underlined the efficacy of FarSight with coherence-based topic modeling, in extracting discriminative clinical features from the unstructured nursing notes. The proposed approach achieved a superior predictive performance when benchmarked against the structured EHR data based state-of-the-art model, with an improvement of 11.50% in AUPRC and 1.16% in AUROC.


The Asian Financial Crisis and the Architecture of Global Finance. Edited by Gregory Noble and John Ravenhill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. 310. To write another book on the Asian financial crisis is not an easy task for two reasons: first, given the spread of the crisis across countries in a relatively short time, the crisis itself is a complex subject; and second, many books and studies have already focused on the crisis. Anyone attempting to write another volume on it will find it difficult to give a different explanation and to provide different results. Despite this fact, The Asian Financial Crisis and the Architecture of Global Finance examines both the political and economic aspects of the event extensively. It intends to answer the questions: What went wrong? And what can be done to prevent similar problems from arising in the future? It analyses both the crisis, and the architecture of global finance and the relationship between the two. It is a very well-researched book with papers from the leading scholars on the issue, including Barry Eichengreen and Stephen Grenville. The book comprises three broad topics. It begins with an introduction of the evolving debate on the causes and consequences of the crisis. Next, the strong comparative perspective of the book offers insights into why some economies in Asia were affected more severely than others. The book also looks at the roles played by the regional giants in contributing to the crisis and how they can possibly help in its resolution in future. In the final section, the book seeks to provide an understanding of the key issues that should be kept in mind in reforming and globalizing financial systems. It also explores various policy proposals for the development of an institutional framework. The Asian financial crisis (1997-98) was an unconventional crisis - a capital account crisis characterized by massive capital inflows that surpassed current account deficits. In reviewing the causes and consequences of the Asian crisis, Noble and Ravenhill (Chapter 1) discuss factors that had changed, and thus made some economies in the region more vulnerable to financial crisis. Stephen Grenville (Chapter 2) focuses on the issue of international capital flows and crisis. The authors in the first two chapters indicate that the Asian crisis occurred after a huge upsurge in the mobility of international capital; and yet, the liberalization of capital accounts took place in countries with little political capacity to implement effective systems of prudential regulation. They also argue that if those countries had attempted to isolate their economies from international capital markets, it would have been costly in terms of forgone growth. They criticize Asian economies for exhibiting limited financial restructuring and regulatory reform and the fact that leading financial nations and institutions have not been strongly pressured to promote fundamental change in the global financial architecture. The second part of the book is devoted to the comparison of economies in the region, both those that were crisis hit and those less affected economies. The affected economies in Asia displayed few of the classic warning signs that had preceded financial crises in the past. …


Given rapid sea ice changes in the Arctic Ocean in the context of climate warming, better constraints on the role of sea ice in CO2 cycling are needed to assess the capacity of polar oceans to buffer the rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration. Air-ice CO2 fluxes were measured continuously using automated chambers from the initial freezing of a sea ice cover until its decay during the INTERICE V experiment at the Hamburg Ship Model Basin. Cooling seawater prior to sea ice formation acted as a sink for atmospheric CO2, but as soon as the first ice crystals started to form, sea ice turned to a source of CO2, which lasted throughout the whole ice growth phase. Once ice decay was initiated by warming the atmosphere, the sea ice shifted back again to a sink of CO2. Direct measurements of outward ice-atmosphere CO2 fluxes were consistent with the depletion of dissolved inorganic carbon in the upper half of sea ice. Combining measured air-ice CO2 fluxes with the partial pressure of CO2 in sea ice, we determined strongly different gas transfer coefficients of CO2 at the air-ice interface between the growth and the decay phases (from 2.5 to 0.4 mol m−2 d−1 atm−1). A 1D sea ice carbon cycle model including gas physics and carbon biogeochemistry was used in various configurations in order to interpret the observations. All model simulations correctly predicted the sign of the air-ice flux. By contrast, the amplitude of the flux was much more variable between the different simulations. In none of the simulations was the dissolved gas pathway strong enough to explain the large fluxes during ice growth. This pathway weakness is due to an intrinsic limitation of ice-air fluxes of dissolved CO2 by the slow transport of dissolved inorganic carbon in the ice. The best means we found to explain the high air-ice carbon fluxes during ice growth is an intense yet uncertain gas bubble efflux, requiring sufficient bubble nucleation and upwards rise. We therefore call for further investigation of gas bubble nucleation and transport in sea ice.


This thesis studies the determinants of capital structure in global independent petroleum exploration and production (E&P) firms in the period 1999-2016. I have used two definitions of leverage; (i) Debt-to-Assets, and (ii) Debt-to-Capital. Both definitions are expressed using book and market values, giving four different dependent variables to analyse. The three most popular capital structure theories among academics have been tested; (1) Trade-off theory, (2) Pecking Order theory, and (3) Market Timing theory. Based on multiple regression models using fixed effects estimation I identify six firm-specific factors that reliably determines capital structure in E&P firms; profitability (-), credit rating (+), lagged leverage ratio (+), market-to-book assets ratio (-), asset tangibility (+), and reserve replacement ratio (+). The inclusion of macroeconomic factors does not add any considerable value to the regression models. However, I have identified five macroeconomic factors that tend to determine capital structure for E&P firms; oil (-), MSCI (+), GDP (+), term spread (+), and E&P capital expenditures (+). Furthermore, this thesis is aimed at finding differences in capital structure determinants between oilfield services firms (OFS) and E&P firms. I identify four firm-specific factors that reliably determines capital structure in OFS firms; non-debt tax shield (-), tangibility (+), median industry leverage (+), and lagged leverage ratio (+). Most of the included macroeconomic factors are significant for OFS, although with opposite signs compared to E&P. I hence find evidence that leverage in the E&P sector is pro-cyclical, while it is counter-cyclical in the OFS sector. Based on the empirical evidence, it seems that neither of the main theories are fully able to predict capital structure. However, the results suggest that both the trade-off and pecking order theory are about equally accurate in explaining capital structure decisions for both E&P and OFS firms.


IntroductionOver the past 20 years, increases in opioid prescribing rates and average prescription volumes have been documented in both the United States and Canada. As prescription opioid use and overdose has steadily increased in North America, a dramatic rise in hospitalizations resulting from opioid poisonings has also been witnessed.
Objectives and ApproachTo describe opioid utilization patterns for patients admitted to a tertiary care hospital in Montreal between 2014 and 2016, and to estimate the association between opioid use and risk of adverse health outcomes in the 90-days post discharge. Opioid utilization was measured using medication dispensing data from the provincial healthcare databases (RAMQ) while hospital/ED visits were obtained from RAMQ medical services. Patient characteristics and discharge prescriptions were obtained from the hospital chart. Time-varying utilization of opioids was modeled as: 1) current use, 2) cumulative duration of past use, and 3) duration of use of past 10 days, using Cox models.
ResultsOf the 3,308 included patients mean age was 70 (SD 14), 57% were male and 47% were discharged from surgical units. 856 (26%) patients had a history of opioid use in the 1-year prior to admission, 1528 (46%) were prescribed an opioid at discharge and 1481 (45%) filled an opioid in the 90-days post discharge. Among patients prescribed an opioid at discharge, 79\% filled their prescription post discharge, where opioid naïve patients were less likely to fill their prescriptions compared to those with a history of opioid use (40% vs 81%). Our multivariable Cox models suggested that cumulative duration of opioid exposure in the past 10 days was associated with a 10% increased risk of ED visits and hospitalizations.
Conclusion/ImplicationsPatients with a history of opioid use were more likely to both receive an opioid prescription at hospital discharge and fill their prescription post-discharge. Our findings suggest that longer-term utilization patterns of these medications after hospitalization may increase risk of re-admissions and ED visits.


SUMMARY
By plasmid manipulation and by other techniques, forms of non-pathogenic and of enteropathogenic Escherichia coli strains were obtained that possessed different combinations of the genes that control the production of enterotoxin (Ent) and of 88, 99, 987P, polysaccharide K and O antigens and the utilisation of raffinose and lactose. Mixtures of forms derived from the same strain, each resistant to a different antibiotic, together with much larger numbers of non-pathogenic E. coli organisms and lactobacilli were then given orally to colostrum-deprived calves and lambs and to colostrum-deprived piglets that were genetically resistant (R) or genetically susceptible (S) to infection with 88+ strains of E. coli. The concentrations that each form subsequently attained in different parts of the alimentary tract of these animals was then determined by performing bacterial counts on culture media containing appropriate antibiotics. By this procedure it was possible to compare the part played by the different bacterial components in colonising the alimentary tract.
A non-pathogenic 09:K36:H19 strain, but not E. coli K12, was rendered enteropathogenic for 88S piglets by implanting an 88 and an Ent plasmid in it and for calves and lambs by implanting a 99 and an Ent plasmid in it. The 88 + form of this strain and of wild enteropathogenic strains proliferated throughout the small intestine of 88S piglets, but the concentrations they attained in the small intestine of 88R piglets, calves and lambs were, if anything, less than those attained by their 88- counterparts; the small intestines of 88S and 88R piglets appeared equally susceptible to other colonising factors. E. coli 0149:K91,88 strains that had been isolated from sick calves produced neither small-intestinal colonisation nor diarrhoea in calves. The 99+ form of the 09:K36:H19 strain and of all the wild enteropathogenic strains examined proliferated in the small intestine of calves, but only some of them proliferated in the small intestine of piglets. The enteropathogenicity for piglets of a wild 99+ enteropathogenic strain of calf origin was confirmed by producing small-intestinal colonisation and diarrhoea with it in two colostrum-fed conventionally reared piglets. Forms of some wild enteropathogenic strains from which the 99 plasmid had been removed proliferated in the small intestine of calves and piglets to an extent sufficient to cause diarrhoea, but they did not proliferate to the extent shown by the corresponding 99+ form in mixed infections.
The 987P antigen was a potent factor in the colonisation of the small intestine in piglets but not in calves. In piglets and in calves, the polysaccharide K and O antigens enhanced colonisation. The 88+ forms usually proliferated to a similar degree throughout the small intestine, but forms possessing the other colonising factors either proliferated only in the posterior small intestine or to a much greater degree in the posterior than in the anterior small intestine. Forms possessing both the 987P and 88 antigens proliferated throughout the small intestine of 88S piglets; they proliferated only in the posterior small intestine of 88R piglets and to a lesser degree than the corresponding 987P+88- forms. Neither the Ent plasmid, the Raf (raifinose) plasmid nor the ability to utilise lactose influenced small intestinal colonisation. Wild 88-99-987P-
E. coli strains that were enteropathogenic for weaned pigs did not proliferate in the small intestines of piglets.


Attempts to classify living organisms by their physical characteristics are as old as biology itself. The advent of protein and DNA sequencing--most notably the use of 16S ribosomal RNA--defined a new level of classification that now forms our basic understanding of the history of life on earth. High-throughput sequencing currently provides DNA sequences at an unprecedented rate, not only providing a wealth of information but also posing considerable analytical challenges. Here we present comparative genomics-based methods useful for automating evolutionary analysis between any number of species. As a practical example, we applied our method to the well-studied cyanobacterial lineage. The 24 cyanobacterial genomes compared here occupy a wide variety of environmental niches and play major roles in global carbon and nitrogen cycles. By integrating phylogenetic data inferred for upward of 1,000 protein-coding genes common to all or most cyanobacteria, we have reconstructed an evolutionary history of the phylum, establishing a framework for resolving key issues regarding the evolution of their metabolic and phenotypic diversity. Greater resolution on individual branches can be attained by telescoping inward to the larger set of conserved proteins between fewer taxa. The construction of all individual protein phylogenies allows for quantitative tree scoring, providing insight into the evolutionary history of each protein family as well as probing the limits of phylogenetic resolution. The tools incorporated here are fast, computationally tractable, and easily extendable to other phyla and provide a scaleable framework for contrasting and integrating the information present in thousands of protein-coding genes within related genomes.


In the bootstrap approach to integrable quantum field theories in the (1+1)-dimensional Minkowski space, one conjectures the two-particle S-matrix and tries to study local observables. The massless sine-Gordon model is conjectured to be equivalent to the Thirring model, and its breather-breather S-matrix components (where the first breather corresponds to the scalar field of the sine-Gordon model) are closed under fusion. Yet, the residues of the poles in this breather-breather S-matrix have wrong signs and cannot be considered as a separate model. We find CDD factors which adjust the signs, so that the breather-breather S-matrix alone satisfies reasonable assumptions. Then we propose candidates for observables in wedge-shaped regions and prove their commutativity in the weak sense.


This paper reports the first use of a 3-D radar imaging for observing E-region field-aligned plasma irregularities (FAIs) in the midlatitude ionosphere. Five carrier frequencies equally spaced between 46.25 and 46.75 MHz were transmitted alternately with consecutive radar pulses, and 20 receivers were employed for receiving the radar echoes. The experiments were carried out using the middle and upper atmosphere radar (34.85°N, 136.10°E), with the radar beams steered to the geographic north and 6.6° north by east, at the zenith angles of 51.0° and 51.5°, respectively. The 2-D imaging with the echoes collected by the 19 of the 20 receivers revealed that in zonal dimension, the off-beam direction of arrival (DOA) of the echo region changed alternately between positive and negative values, which can be attributed to the highly localized FAIs drifting zonally through the radar beam. On the other hand, the off-beam DOA in meridional dimension was negative and positive, respectively, at higher and lower range locations, which were supposed to be due to the meridional drift component of FAIs. A combination of 5 frequencies and 19 receivers achieved a 3-D imaging of the FAI structures, illustrating small-scale FAI striations and bubblelike plasma structures in the radar volume. Moreover, declination of geomagnetic field line was examined from the imaged 3-D brightness distribution in the radar volume; the estimated declination of geomagnetic field line was in agreement with that computed from the International Geomagnetic Reference Field model in 2011. This paper has demonstrated some capabilities of radar imaging for ionospheric investigation.


The assessment from the world economic forum in the travel and tourism competitiveness index report in 2013, put the competitiveness of Indonesian tourism in the world ranking of 70 out of 140 countries and the ranking of 3 for human resources (HRs). There are many factors that influencing competitiveness of HRs. Chan and Katau (2007) claimed that hotel performance has positive relationship with HR system, however, it did not explore the HR competitiveness yet. While Wang (2013) stated some factors related to technological at small medium enterprises are living condition analysis and evaluation indexes. Those findings did not represent specifically on the HR competitiveness at hotel industry. It is necessary to conduct a study to perform the HR competitiveness model as valuable benefit for the hotel. The research method used descriptive qualitative. The in-depth interview and focus group discussion have been delivered from 43 stars management hotel representatives in Jakarta and Bali. The result shown that beside core competency, there are other influencing factors including emotional quotient, local wisdom, and capabilities to HR competitiveness model for hotel industry. This study brings a significant contribution to the development of HR at hotels for rank-file and top management level. Further, the result improved current HR program to enhance hotel business strategy. This is one of the few research studies crafting the model of HRs competitiveness in hotel industry by taking only stars hotel in two big cities in Indonesia. Aus. Aca. Busi & Eco. Rev Vol  3(2),  April 2017, P 76-87


This paper is aimed to develop a back propagation artificial neural network (ANN) model that could distinguish crop plants from weeds. Although only the color indices associated with image pixels were used as inputs, it was assumed that the ANN model could develop the ability to use other information, such as shapes, implicit in these data. The 756x504 pixel images were taken in the field and were then cropped to 100x100-pixel images depicting only one plant, either a corn plant or weeds. There were 40 images of corn and 40 of weeds. The ability of the ANNs to discriminate weeds from corn was then tested on 20 other images. A total of 10 images of corn plants and weeds were used for training purposes. For some ANNs, the success rate for classifying corn plants was as high as 100%, whereas the highest success rate for weed recognition was 80%. This is considered satisfactory, given the limited amount of training data and the computer hardware limitations. Therefore, it is concluded that an ANN-based weed recognition system can potentially be used in the precision spraying of herbicides in agricultural fields. Keywords: Dyschromatopsia, achromatopsia, blue cone monochromatism, self-organising map (SOM) Cite this Article : Tejesh D, Munakala S, Sumathi P. Finding Color Blindness Using Ishihara Algorithm. Research & Reviews: A Journal of Bioinformatics. 2015; 2(1): 1–14p.


Some self-ascriptions of belief, desire and other attitudes exhibit first-person authority. The aim here is to offer a novel account of this kind of first-person authority. The account is a development of Robert Gordon's ascent routine theory but is framed in terms of our ability to bring it about that others know of our attitudes via speech acts which do not deploy attitudinal vocabulary but which nonetheless 'show' our attitudes to others. Unlike Gordon's ascent routine theory, the theory readily applies to attitudes other than belief, avoids a need to appeal to processes of making up one's mind, and does not rest upon a distinction between 'outward looking' and 'inward looking' processes.


Competition in the Dutch electricity market is stagnating. The market remains concentrated, with relatively high prices. The north-west European market must be further integrated by expanding the available interconnection capacity in order to achieve a structural improvement. That could cut consumers' annual energy bills by several dozen euros per household. Consumers would also benefit indirectly since electricity prices for business would also fall, putting downward pressure on prices of other products. In order to achieve these benefits for consumers, the TSO's must make headway with the expansion of the available interconnection capacity.


Passive ferrite inserts were used to compensate the space charge impedance in high intensity space charge dominated accelerators. We study the narrowband longitudinal impedance of these ferrite inserts. We find that the shunt impedance and the quality factor for ferrite inserts are inversely proportional to the imaginary part of the permeability of ferrite materials. We also provide a recipe for attaining a truly passive space charge impedance compensation and avoiding narrowband microwave instabilities.


The outstanding natural and cultural values of Cape York have been acknowledged for decades, but those decades have been characterised by deep conflict. Non- government organisation intervention in local politics has seen a forceful push for nominating some or all of the Cape York Peninsula as a World Heritage Site. We illuminate the authorised heritage discourse at work in heritage-making, and highlight contested issues of ownership, governance, authenticity, and value. These themes contribute to the possibility of marginalising the voices of local people who wish to contribute to heritage-making in Cape York. Politics infuses all aspects of heritage-making in Cape York, and the specific experiences on Cape York reflect larger political processes occurring in World Heritage discourse. The paper draws on interviews undertaken in May and June 2012.


In many telecommunication network architectures a given set of client nodes must be served by different kinds of facility, which provide different services and have different capabilities. Such facilities must be located and dimensioned in the design phase. We tackle a particular location problem in which two sets of facilities, mid level and high level, have to be located. Different devices can be installed in each mid level facility, providing different capacities at different costs. The assignment of clients to facilities and of facilities to higher level entities must be optimized, as well. We propose a heuristic approach, based on very large scale neighborhood search, to tackle the problem, in which both ad-hoc algorithms and general purpose solvers are applied to explore the search space. We report on experimental results using datasets of instances from the literature. These experiments show that the approach is promising and that Integer Linear Programming based neighborhoods are significantly effective.


Rituximab, a chimeric monoclonal antibody against CD20, induces the depletion of B lymphocytes. It is used for the treatment of lymphoproliferative and autoimmune diseases. Antibody immunodeficiency associated to RTX treatment is a new motif for consultation to our service. We decided to study those patients that having been treated with RTX, consulted for hypogammaglobulinemia or recurrent infections between November 2010 and December 2014. We evaluated eight patients, seven female and one male. The average follow up time was 19.3±18.8 months, range 1 to 54, median 13. Three had a normal electrophoretic proteinogram before receiving RTX, three had hypogammaglobulinemia and in two data was not available. None of them had a quantitative determination of immunoglobulins before receiving RTX. Four received RTX as a treatment of non Hodking lymphoma, two as a treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia, one for immune thrombocytopenic purpura and other for microscopic polyangiitis. Six were diagnosed with hypogammaglobulinemia and one with combined IgM, IgA and IgG2 deficiency. Five presented infections, four of them with good response to intravenous immunoglobulin. RTX related antibody deficiency consultations are increasing. It is important to determine the immunoglobulin levels previously to RTX use in order to establish an etiologic relationship with RTX and a quick diagnosis of antibody deficiency. The substitutive treatment with gammaglobulin seems to be useful in patients with severe or recurrent infections.


INTRODUCTION
Several investigations have been made to determine the level of alpha-synuclein in the peripheral blood of Parkinson's disease patients, but the results were very contradictory and inconclusive. Nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB) was also found to be involved in Parkinson's disease, but there is a lack of studies investigating NF-κB in Parkinson's disease patients. As far as our knowledge goes, no study reported the level of NF-κB in serum of Parkinson's disease patients. In this context, present study was designed to make a baseline study in order to evaluate the levels of total alpha-synuclein and NF-κB in serum of Parkinson's disease patients.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Serum samples were collected from Parkinson's disease patients (n=97) and healthy controls (n=97). Their levels were determined by using Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay.

RESULTS
The levels of total alpha-synuclein (patients=5.79±2.24 ng/ml, controls=6.20±1.61 ng/ml; p=0.14) and NF-κB (patients=1.38±0.99 ng/ml, controls=1.65±1.00 ng/ml; p=0.71) were lower in Parkinson's disease patients than controls, but the differences were not statistically significant. This difference was also failed to reach significance between males (alpha-synuclein (p)=0.70, NF-κB (p)=0.84) and females (alpha-synuclein (p)=0.06, NF-κB (p)=0.77) in both the groups as well as within the groups. The levels of total alpha-synuclein and NF-κB were also not associated with Parkinson's disease severity (alpha-synuclein (p) = 0.84, NF-κB (p) = 0.73).

CONCLUSION
A non-significant difference in the levels of total alpha-synuclein and NF-κB between Parkinson's disease patients and controls suggested that these are not valuable biomarkers for Parkinson's disease, more specifically in Indian population.


Statistical methods for variable selection, prediction, and classification have proven extremely useful in moving personalized genomics medicine forward, in particular, leading to a number of genomic‐based assays now in clinical use for predicting cancer recurrence. Although invaluable in individual cases, the information provided by these assays is limited. Most often, a patient is classified into one of very few groups (e.g., recur or not), limiting the potential for truly personalized treatment. Furthermore, although these assays provide information on which individuals are at most risk (e.g., those for which recurrence is predicted), they provide no information on the aberrant biological pathways that give rise to the increased risk. We have developed an approach to address these limitations. The approach models a time‐to‐event outcome as a function of known biological pathways, identifies important genomic aberrations, and provides pathway‐based patient‐specific assessments of risk. As we demonstrate in a study of ovarian cancer from The Cancer Genome Atlas project, the patient‐specific risk profiles are powerful and efficient characterizations useful in addressing a number of questions related to identifying informative patient subtypes and predicting survival. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Abstract Purpose Multiple sclerosis (MS) often leads to reduced physical activity and exercise participation. Sedentary behaviour is associated with poor health, whereas exercise is effective in managing MS symptoms. This study assessed physical activity, exercise and sedentary sitting time, and identified associations with symptoms. Material and methods Participants of the Australian MS Longitudinal Study completed surveys in 2016. We measured physical activity and sitting time via the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (short-form), and assessed participation in exercise (type and duration). Multivariable regression models assessed associations between physical activity, sitting time and exercise; and demographic characteristics and MS-related symptoms. Results Of the 1216 participants, 53.0% reported moderate-high physical activity levels (71.5% among those with no/mild disability). Median sitting time was 7 h/day. Most (78.4%) participated in aerobic exercise, while only 16.4% participated in strength training. Having a progressive MS onset, more severe symptoms (i.e., cognitive impairment, depression, fatigue, mobility impairment) and being male was indicative of lower physical activity levels and higher sitting time. Conclusions Health promotion efforts should encourage physical activity and exercise, in particular strength training, among people with MS. People with more severe symptoms and progressive disease may require focused exercise promotion from healthcare professionals. Implications for Rehabilitation Comprehensive MS management should include strategies to increase physical activity and exercise participation, with particular focus upon people with higher MS-symptom burden (i.e., depression, fatigue and mobility and cognitive impairment), men, and those with progressive onset MS. Efforts to promote physical activity guidelines for people with MS and address barriers to physical activity must be implemented in standard MS care, with a particular focus on adhering to strength training guidelines. Exercise type and duration varies among people with MS, and it would behove healthcare professionals and researchers to consider promoting activities which align with individuals preferences and abilities when promoting exercise.


This study proposes trenching piezoelectric (PZT) material in a thicker PZT pyroelectric cell to improve the temperature variation rate to enhance the efficiency of thermal energy-harvesting conversion by pyroelectricity. A thicker pyroelectric cell is beneficial in generating electricity pyroelectrically, but it hinders rapid temperature variations. Therefore, the PZT sheet was fabricated to produce deeper trenches to cause lateral temperature gradients induced by the trenched electrode, enhancing the temperature variation rate under homogeneous heat irradiation. When the trenched electrode type with an electrode width of 200 μm and a cutting depth of 150 μm was used to fabricate a PZT pyroelectric cell with a 200 μm thick PZT sheet, the temperature variation rate was improved by about 55%. Therefore, the trenched electrode design did indeed enhance the temperature variation rate and the efficiency of pyroelectric energy converters.


Durum wheat is the second most important Triticum species next to bread wheat. Ethiopia is one of the centers of diversity for durum wheat. The aim of this study was to assess variability, heritability and genetic advance for some yield and yield-related traits. A total of 97 durum wheat accessions along with 3 improved varieties were evaluated in 10 x 10 simple lattice designs during the 2018 main cropping season at Mata Subsite of Haro Sabu Agricultural Research Center. Twenty parameters were collected and analyzed. Statistically significant (p≤0.01) variation was observed among materials tested for important quantitative and qualitative traits. Genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) ranged from 3.77 to 44.81% for days to maturity and grain yield (tons ha-1), respectively. Broad sense heritability ranged from 72.33 to 99.95% for plant height and number of kernels per spike, respectively. The highest genetic advance as percent of mean recorded for grain yield (88.80%) and the least for moisture (5.22%). Generally, the magnitude of genetic variability among the studied durum wheat accessions showed great variations for desirable traits and thus confident enough to expect genetic progress if further breeding activities are carried out.

 Key words: Coefficient of variation, durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L.), genetic advance, heritability.


A growing body of research interrogates the implementation of communication infrastructures such as broadband connectivity in rural areas, but little has been undertaken into the potential for collaborative production of 'local news' to generate Habermasian public spheres supportive of sustainability. European and US media organizations are developing such 'hyper-local news sites' to serve small rural and urban communities. This article uses a case study of a rural hyper-local project launched by a major regional media company in England's most sparsely-populated county, Northumberland, to help establish 'more sustainable communities'. Such sites are usually conceived of as 'town criers' but being web based, they position communities both locally and globally, a process which has been conceptualized as 'glocalization'. The article is informed by theoretical understandings of communicative spaces and places, monitorial citizenship and 'liquid life' and journalism developed by Jurgen Habermas, Michael Schudson, Zygmunt Bauman, Mark Deuze and Manuel Castells.


This paper attempts to investigate the effect of technology on employment based on skill groups in developing countries using data from 23 countries between 1990 and 2019. We use the macroeconomic framework to split employment in developing countries into high-skilled and low-skilled and examine how these two groups are affected by progress in technology. Pedroni's (1999, 2004) and Kao's (1999) cointegration methods reveal the statistically significant relationship among variables in the long run. Coefficients estimated in cointegration highlight that technology is among the factors that increase unemployment in developing countries. In addition, our baseline models document that inflation and real interest rates have a positive impact on unemployment. Finally, both high-skilled and lowskilled employment in developing countries are negatively affected by technology, and the negative impact is greater on low-skill employment.


While measurement error arising from the interaction between respondent and interviewer during the survey interview has been the focus of much research, the impact of the interaction during the introductory request for participation on subsequent data quality has received less attention. This article attempts to link these two sets of interactions using data from the 1990 National Election Study. At the end of each contact with a sample person, interviewers completed a series of structured items, providing information on what was said by the sample person and interviewer, and other characteristics of the contact. These data, combined with the substantive data for the interviewed cases, allow us to explore the relationship between respondent statements during the introduction and the content and quality of information provided by them during the interview. We find that the statements made by respondents during the introduction are associated with differences in both data quality and substantive responses. We discuss the implications of these findings for both nonresponse and for response error.


Learner centred design (LCD)focuses on creating an e-learning system that can fulfil individual needs through personalization, nevertheless ther e are still many technical challenges. Besides, losing balanced focus on both of the learners and the instructorsdoes not help to create a successfule-learning system. User-centred design helps to improve the usability of a system as it integrates requirements and user interface designs based on users' needs. The findings of this research prove that even the users are provided with the same LMS, not everyone has the same perception s or tolerance levels of the seven design factors that may cause frustrations to the users, and not everyone has the same satisfaction level of navigation experience and interface design.It is important for the LMS developers to understand that the variations between roles, genders, experiences and ages exist and should not be i gnored when designing the system.


Cordylite-(La), (Na,Ca)2Ba2(La3Sr)∑4(CO3)8F2, is a new mineral species (IMA2010–058) from the Biraya Fe–REE deposit, Irkutsk district, Russia. It occurs in direct association with barite, biraite-(Ce), niobium-rich chevkinite-(Ce), fergusonite-(Nd), ancylite-(Ce) and ancylite-(La), daqingshanite-(Ce) and daqingshanite-(La), bastnasite-(Ce), hydroxylbastnasite-(Ce), carbocernaite, monazite-(Ce), talc, humite, thorite, pyrite, and pyrrhotite in carbonate veins composed of aragonite, strontianite, calcite, dolomite, and cordylite-(Ce). Cordylite-(La) forms as colorless, honey-yellow, or pinkish yellow, irregularly-shaped, tabular, or short-prismatic hexagonal crystals up to about 3 mm across. The only forms observed are {1010} and {0001} and crystals have perfect cleavage on {0001}. Crystals have a greasy to vitreous luster, a brittle tenacity, a conchoidal to uneven fracture, and a hardness of 4 on the Mohs scale. Crystals are uniaxial (−), ɛ = 1.573–1.574, and ω = 1.749–1.751. The empirical formula for two different crystals gave: (Na1.24Ca0.78)∑2.02Ba2.10[(La1.54Ce1.31Nd0.17Pr0.04)∑3.06Sr0.89]∑3.95(C1.01O3)8(F1.78OH0.05)∑1.83 and(Na1.23Ca0.79)∑2.02Ba1.98[(La1.43Ce1.33Nd0.25Pr0.10)∑3.11Sr0.94]∑4.05(C1.01O3)8(F1.51OH0.38)∑1.89. The crystal structure, solved on the same two crystals ( R 1 = 0.0246 and 0.0205) gave the unit cell parameters in P 63/ mcc: a = 5.1182(5) and c = 23.1785(16) A and V = 525.84(16) A3 and a = 5.1196(3) and c = 23.1784(16) A and V = 525.13(5) A3 with Z = 1, and confirms that the mineral is isostructural with cordylite-(Ce). We also discuss new heterovalent substitution mechanisms found in the cordylite group minerals and the effect they have during the formation of crystals.


Objective To determine whether metabolic bone disease plays a role in the cause of femoral neck stress fractures. Study Design Twenty-three patients with femoral neck stress fractures were enrolled prospectively in the study. Examination included computed tomography bone densitometry, trace mineral analysis, and histomorphometric analysis of the iliac crest in thirteen patients who underwent surgical treatment of their stress fractures. A control group of fifteen patients undergoing iliac crest bone grafting for scaphoid nonunions underwent similar examinations. Setting Tertiary military medical center. Results Patients with femoral neck stress fractures had lower bone mineral density than did control patients (p = 0.010), but no trace mineral deficiencies or consistent histomorphometric differences were noted. Conclusions Bone mineral density is decreased in patients with femoral neck stress fractures. Despite observations of decreased bone mineral density in the stress fracture group, osteoporosis, as determined by histomorphometry, is not a consistent finding.


Aim Bronchopulmonary dysplasia, which occurs most frequently in extremely prematurely born infants, can be complicated by pulmonary hypertension due to dysregulation of angiogenesis and increased muscularisation of the pulmonary arteries. (1) Our aim study was to assess, whether at school age, pulmonary artery pressures differed between children born very prematurely and those born at term. Methods Transthoracic echocardiography was performed at 11–14 years in children born extremely prematurely (<29 weeks of gestation) who had been entered into the United Kingdom Oscillation Study and in term born children. Measurements were performed according to the American Society of Echocardiography guidelines. Tricuspid regurgitation (TR) was assessed in the apical four-chamber view and parasternal right ventricular inflow. A minimum of three sequential complexes were recorded. Continuous-wave Doppler of the peak regurgitant jet velocity was used to estimate the right-ventricular-to-right-atrial (RV-RA) systolic pressure gradient with the use of the modified Bernoulli equation. The mean RV-RA gradient was calculated by tracing the TR time-velocity integral. (2) Pulmonary hypertension was defined as a peak TR jet velocity ≥ 2.5 m per second. The difference in the echocardiographic results between term and preterm children were examined using mixed models, which allowed for clustering due to multiple births. The p-values reported are based on unadjusted models. Results Echocardiographic results were analysed from 191 preterm and 45 term born children. The preterm compared to the term born children had higher mean TR peak velocity (2.21 vs. 1.89, p < 0.001), systolic RV-RA gradient (19.9 vs. 14.5, p < 0.001) and mean RV-RA gradient (14.0 vs. 11.3, p < 0.001). TR velocity was measurable in 78% of term born and 69% of preterm children; 13% of preterm children, but no term born child had a peak TR velocity of >2.5 m/s (p = 0.011). Conclusion Extremely prematurely born children have higher pulmonary artery pressures at school age than those born at term. References Mourani PM et al, Pulmonary vascular effects of inhaled nitric oxide and oxygen tension in bronchopulmonary dysplasia. Am J Respir Care Med 2004;170:1006–1013 Fikret E. et al, Accuracy of Doppler-Echocardiographic Mean Pulmonary Artery Pressure for Diagnosis of Pulmonary Hypertension, www.plosone.org, Dec2010, Volume 5, Issue 12


Abstract : This program was conducted by Vought Aircraft Company, Dallas, Texas, to perform technical studies to aid in the development of a probabilistic design methodology. The foundation of the probabilistic design approach, applied to composite structure, is to base design criteria and objectives on reliability targets instead of factors of safety. Control of the process, in terms of how much it differs from the traditional approach, is maintained by the "Probability of Structural Failure." The key technical issues addressed in this contract were the overall assessment of the accuracy of the methodology, current reliability experience, definition of appropriate goals, and database development. The overall assessment of the accuracy of the methodology was done by reviewing current published documents and papers in the probabilistic design field. This review focused on similarities and differences between approaches. The database development was done by visiting airline maintenance depots and naval aviation depots to collect data on structural failures. The analyses of such data produced historical values for aircraft structural reliability. Current structural reliability issues and reliability goals were addressed by analyzing the wing box of the Lear Fan aircraft using Vought's Probabilistic Design Model. Measures of structural reliability such as single flight hour probability of failure for the whole wing box, including upper skin, lower skin, and substructure were produced.


The main goal of this thesis is to provide a description of the articulatory and temporal interaction between stops spanning the word boundary in the four sequence types VC#CV, VC#CCV, VCC#CV, and VCC#CCV in Tripolitanian Libyan Arabic. A general aim of the study is to contribute to the Phonetic description of Libyan Arabic and to provide a better understanding of speech production and the temporal organisation of articulatory gestures. One of the principal objectives of this study is to investigate what effect an increase in the number of stops in a sequence will have on the timing of stop gestures. Furthermore, the study aims to identify the different patterns of gestural coordination and the types of inter-consonantal intervals occurring between stops in the four sequence types. Another aim of the study is to investigate the nature of the resulting inter-consonantal intervals occurring between these stops in order to understand the patterns of epenthesis. Factors affecting gestural coordination such as the order of place of articulation of stops and speech rate are also an objective of this study. Voice assimilation across the word boundary is also investigated in addition to the influence of inter-consonantal intervals on the process.
The study adopts Articulatory Phonology as a theoretical framework to carry out the investigations. The data was collected through recordings of participants' speech and was subjected to EPG and acoustic analysis. Ten native speakers of Tripolitanian Libyan Arabic took part in the acoustic part of the study. Two of the speakers also took part in the EPG part of the study.
Results show that the effect of the number of stops in a sequence on gestural timing is not limited to within syllable-initial and final clusters but also spreads across the word boundary. The timing of syllable-final and syllable-initial stops decreases as a result of the increase in the number of stops across the word boundary. The results also show that the timing of syllable-final clusters is more variable than syllable-initial clusters in across word boundary sequences.
Different sequences types exhibit different degrees of gestural coordination and epenthesis patterns between adjacent stops. Inter-consonantal intervals occurring as a result of lag durations between adjacent stop gestures fall into two types. The first type are typical of transitional excrescent vowels with a mean duration ranging from 14ms-20ms and their voice values exhibit more variation as a result of the voice context in which they occur. Inter-consonantal intervals of the second type are typical of epenthetic vowels with a mean duration ranging from 43ms-51ms and are usually specified as voiced. The patterns of epenthesis also show that Tripolitanian Libyan Arabic belongs to the VC type of languages where sequences of three stops CCC are broken up by epenthesis occurring between C1 and C2 of the sequence.
Statistical tests show a significant effect for order place of articulation on gestural coordination across the word boundary in TLA in the C#C sequence where gestures are more closely coordinated in the coronal-dorsal order. Regressive voice assimilation is more frequent and the voice context of the stops involved plays a major role in determining the direction of voice assimilation spreading. Progressive voice assimilation is limited to the –V+V voice context and whereas regressive assimilation of voicelessness occurs in both. Furthermore, excrescent vowels are found to be transparent to voice assimilation and are dependent on the voicing of the trigger segment. On the other hand, epenthetic vowels block voice assimilation and are more dependent usually specified as voiced.


This text provides readers with the analytic skills and resources they need to evaluate research findings in political research, as well as the practical skills for conducting their own independent inquiry. It shows that empirical research and normative research are not independent of each other and explains the distinction between positivism and interpretivism, and between quantitative and qualitative research. Part 1 of this edition discusses key issues in the philosophy of social science, while Part 2 presents a 'nuts and bolts' or 'how to' guide to research design, such as how to find and formulate a research question. Part 3 evaluates different methods of data collection and analysis that can be used to answer research questions, along with the variety of considerations and decisions that researchers must confront when using different methods.


In this article we find lexicographical reflections on the German (and Polish) dictionaries primarily in the context of the amount and structure of the contained therein lexemes. The author weaves considerations about the type of dictionary entries and how they can be lemmatised, eg. putting in dictionaries often only parts of compound words (eg. Affen-, Hunde-, -frei, -hungrig) to productively contribute to the development of vocabulary (eg. Affenschnell, Hundehitze, sozialversicherungsfrei, sexhungrig). The article also touched upon the issue of online dictionaries (digitized) and the increasingly important issue of foreign words, particularly English. The object of the considerations are mainly the Duden dictionaries, and also Wordbooks from Adelung, Klappenbach / Steinitz, Doroszewski, Zgolkowa, Żmigrodzki et al.


Recent studies have identified a family of proteins called cyclins that control cell cycle. Among these proteins, cyclin B synthesis and degradation are necessary and sufficient to cause a Xenopus egg cell-free system to oscillate between S and M. To understand the link between hormonal regulation of cell growth and the expression of B-type cyclins, we studied the effect of estradiol on cyclin BI mRNA in a hormone-responsive breast cancer cell line, MCF-7. Cells were synchronized at GI by isoleucine starvation, and estradioi was added along with the removal of cell cycle block. Flow cytometric analysis showed 81 + 7% cells in G~ after 30 h of isoleucine starvation. Significant population of cells progressed to S by 16 h after the addition ofestradiol, whereas a comparable transition occurred in control cells by 36 h only. In cells progressing from Gj~S--*Gz--*M under the influence of estradioi, there was a significant increase in cyclin B1 mRNA at 30 and 36 h, consistent with the accumulation of this cyclin in Gz/M. In addition, we found that cyclin BI mRNA degradation occurred early in G~, and this process was accelerated by estradiol. At 2 h after removal of the isoleucine block, there was a 40% reduction in the level of cyclin B1 mRNA in estradiol-treated cells compared to untreated controls. Cyclin B1 protein degradation followed a similar pattern, as determined by Western blots using a monoclonal anti-cyclin BI antibody. Since previous studies suggested a polyamine pathway in the mechanism of action of estradiol, we questioned whether polyamines are important in controlling the level of cyclin B1 mRNA. Treatment of synchronized cells with the polyamine biosynthetic inhibitor, difluoromethylornithine attenuated cyclin B1 mRNA degradation in the presence of estradiol. This process was mostly reversed by exogenous putrescine and spermidine but not by putrescine homologues. Collectively, these data suggest that the mechanism of cell growth regulation by estradiol in MCF-7 cells includes alterations in cyclin B1 mRNA. Our data also indicate molecular pathways for the action of polyamines in estrogenic control of cell cycle.


This paper presents a theoretical model of political support for the public provision of day care. In an economy where there are high taxes on wage income, selfish taxpayers with no children in the day care system may favor substantial public subsidies to day care because such subsidies induce mothers to join the labor force and hence pay income tax. Our model makes explicit quantitative predictions of the relation between the distribution of wages, the income tax rate, and the subsidy rate for day care that maximizes net tax revenue from parents of small children. Applying parameter values from Sweden and the United States, we find that our model predicts a subsidy rate of between 50% and 100% for Sweden with its high tax rate on wages and between 15% and 30% for the U.S. with its lower tax rate on wages.


Background Pityriasis versicolor (PV) is a ubiquitous superficial skin mycosis that often affects young adults. It is often effectively treated with local or oral antifungal agents. Cases of PV resistance to antifungal agents have been reported rarely. We report a case of antifungal resistant PV. Observation. A 22-year-old patient was followed since the age of 17 years in a dermatology outpatient clinic for hyperpigmented scaly macular lesions of the trunk and upper limbs. The clinical diagnosis of PV was retained. The patient was treated by fluconazole 300 mg/week before being lost to follow-up. He was seen again in 2019 (about 2 years later) for the same symptomatology and treated again by fluconazole and ciclopirox olamine cream without improvement. He was again lost to follow-up and seen again six months later. A mycological sample was taken and Aspergillus niger was isolated. The patient was treated by itraconazole for 6 weeks. The evolution was marked by a clinical status quo. The patient was again put on salicylated petroleum jelly 10% associated with terbinafine cream and then lost to follow-up. Conclusion The emergence of fungal resistance to antifungal drugs does not spare PV. It can therefore be resistant to several antifungal drugs, leaving clinicians and patients in despair.


BACKGROUND
The surgical management of tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) has continued to evolve and there are now generally excellent early and long-term results following complete repair.

OBJECTIVE
To investigate the early results of the authors' current surgical management of TOF by assessing the perioperative and early to intermediate follow-up period. The authors paid particular attention to the post-operative ratio of right ventricular to left ventricular systolic pressure (RVSP/LVSP), focusing on the presence of low cardiac output, intensive care unit (ICU) stay, prolonged of inotropic support and ventilation support time.

STUDY DESIGN
Retrospective study.

MATERIAL AND METHOD
Between June 2002 and August 2004, 31 consecutive patients underwent complete repair of TOF. Their mean age was 7.7 +/- 5.1 years (range, 2.9 to 25.3). A previous palliative shunt had been performed in 14 (45.2%) patients. Twenty-three patients (74.2%) were in NYHA FC II. Mean hematocrit and oxygen saturation were 50.9 +/- 10.25% and 80.5 +/- 8.6%, respectively. Mean preoperative ratio of RVSP/LVSP was 1.1 +/- 0.15. The operative approach was transatrial/transpulmonary, and 17 (54.8%) patients required a transannular patch. An extracardiac valve conduit was necessary in 3 (9.7%) patients with pulmonary atresia.

RESULTS
There were no operative or late deaths. Two cases were reoperated from cardiac tamponade. Mean postoperative ratio of RVSP/LVSP was 0.53 +/- 0.16. Median ICU and hospital stays were 2.2 and 11 days, respectively. Presence of low cardiac output and prolonged inotropic support were significantly (P < 0.05) related to a RVSP/LVSP ratio of more than 0.5. At median follow-up of 6 months, 29 (93.5%) patients were asymptomatic and all patients were free of significant residual lesion.

CONCLUSION
The authors' early results in complete repair of TOF patients are acceptable with a low incidence of morbidity. A postoperative RVSP/LVSP ratio of more than 0.5 was significantly associated to adverse outcome. Late complications may, however, develop, and long term follow-up for early detection of any such complications is essential.


The study aimed to determine the relationship of capability and quality of products in relation to sustainability of subcontract electronics manufacturing companies in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The respondents' profile such as plant location and years of operations were considered as moderator variables. Data from 46 subcontract electronics manufacturing companies were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics.  Furthermore, bootstrapping procedure was used due to the limited number of electronics subcontract manufacturing companies who participated in this study. The study shows that the subcontract electronics manufacturing companies were all capable in terms of the control processes and packages classification; and highly capable in terms of production capacity. The quality of products in terms of goods and services was all perceived to be good.  Company respondents were perceived to be high in economic and social sustainability and very high in terms of environmental sustainability.  Further results revealed that packaging, production capacity, consumer specification, and reliability testing are significant predictors of the economic sustainability. It also shows that control processes, reliability testing, and inspection and quality were significant predictors of social sustainability. Customer specification and reliability testing are significant predictors of environmental sustainability.  Overall, the result showed that production capacity, consumer specification, and inspection and quality are the significant predictors of the sustainability.  CAPAQUALISUS model for sustainable subcontract electronics manufacturing companies was developed from this study.


Background: Thymus fontanesii is one of the importance Algerian plant, used traditionally to treat the cough and cold. In addition, it may help to protect the people against lipid peroxidation and oxidative stress and can be used as an antioxidant agent for the preservation of processed food. Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the chemical composition of Algerian Thymus fontanesii essential oil and to test its antioxidant activity. Method: The oil was extracted by electromagnetic induction (EMI) heating assisted extraction and by hydrodistillation, and was analysed by gas chromatography with flame ionization detector (GC/FID) and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). The antioxidant activity was evaluated by three assays mainly: DPPH assay, reducing power and β-carotene/linoleic acid. Results: The yield of the essential oil was varied from 2.1 ± 0.3 to 3.1 ± 0.1% (w/w), and from 1.8 ± 0.01 to 2.6 ± 0.02% (w/w), for the electromagnetic induction heating assisted extraction and hydrodistillation, respectively. Twenty seven components were identified representing 95.6 99.9% of the oil. Carvacrol (54.7 ± 1.2 63.9 ± 1.9%) was the major compound followed by p-cymene (9.2 ± 1.2 17.5 ± 1.2%) and γ-terpinene (8.8 ± 0.9 14.9 ± 0.8%). The Thymus fontanesii essential oil was found as a significant antioxidant with IC50 values were ranging from 57.3 ± 1.4 to 236.7 ± 1.4 μg/mL, which were higher than that of butylated hydroxyl toluene (BHT) choosing as reference (9.1 ± 1.2 to 67.8 ± 0.1 μg/mL). Conclusion: The obtained results encourage the use of Thymus species with bioactive compounds for further food applications.


The purpose of this work is to provide theoretical foundations of, as well as some computational aspects on, a theory for analysing decisions under risk, when the available information is vague and imprecise. Many approaches to model unprecise information, e.g., by using interval methods, have prevailed. However, such representation models are unnecessarily restrictive since they do not admit discrimination between beliefs in different values, i.e., the epistemologically possible values have equal weights. In many situations, for instance, when the underlying information results from learning techniques based on variance analyses of statistical data, the expressibility must be extended for a more perceptive treatment of the decision situation. Our contribution herein is an approach for enabling a refinement of the representation model, allowing for an elaborated discrimination of possible values by using belief distributions with weak restrictions. We show how to derive admissible classes of local distributions from sets of global distributions and introduce measures expressing into which extent explicit local distributions can be used for modelling decision situations. As will turn out, this results in a theory that has very attractive features from a computational viewpoint.


The PATCOOL is a NASA sponsored, University of Florida developed 3U CubeSat meant to investigate the feasibility of using a cryogenic selective surface coating as a new, more efficient way of passively cooling components in space. Initial tests on the ground demonstrate that this coating should provide a much higher reflectance of the Sun's irradiant power than any existing coating, while still providing far-infrared power emission. The ultimate validation of this technology requires on-orbit testing. PATCOOL hosts a 4-sample housing, with the samples shaped as thin cylinders (coin-like). Two samples are coated with stateof-the-art material, while the other pair uses the new coating to be evaluated. The temperatures of all samples during the mission (minimum 72 hours of data collection) are measured via thermistors. The samples are connected via thin Kevlar strings to the housing, to minimize heat transfer. The housing is designed to shield the samples from Earth's thermal radiation, and the CubeSat is attitude stabilized and controlled via a gravity gradient boom, magnetorquers and a reaction wheel set. Thermal Desktop simulations show PATCOOL's ability to thermally isolate the samples from heat exchanges other than with Sun and deep space, thanks to its thermal design and the chosen attitude profile.


In the WELDOX study a statistical model of the exposure to respirable manganese (Mn) in welders, based on the applied welding technique, the material and its manganese content, the room conditions and the ventilation was estimated. Using this model, prediction and prediction intervals (PI) of exposure were calculated and made available in an easy to use web tool for industrial hygienists in order to estimate the airborne concentration. Between 2007 and 2009 personal sampling of respirable Mn was carried out in 241 welders during shift and information about the working conditions was gathered. The determinants of exposure concentrations were estimated with a multiple regression model that explained 72% of the variance. Prediction and 50%-, 80%- and 95%-PIs of Mn exposure were calculated and the results were graphically visualised. The predictions are valid for work places that are similar to the work places in the WELDOX study. A web tool was programmed and made available on a website. The user selects the applied welding technique, type of material and Mn content, room condition and the efficiency of the ventilation system. Then he receives the prognosed respirable Mn concentration with PIs. For example a welder applying tungsten inert gas welding with stainless steel with a Mn content of the material below 1.7% under normal room conditions without an efficient ventilation system has a prognosed concentration of 5.8 µg/m³ with 95%-PI 0.6 – 53 µg/m³. The presented web tool allows a fast prognosis of the respirable Mn exposure. It allows a quantitative prediction of the change of exposure concentrations when workplace characteristics are changed. Mn concentrations compiled in exposure databases may be helpful to validate the estimates.


It is well known all over the world that the class instructor is the most forceful factor that impacts students' progress and achievement other than their parents, friends and general environment. Many studies and researchers have attempted to uncover factors that may facilitate and enhance the learning procedure, including the special characteristics that render a teacher more effective than another. However, over the last few years, studies have proven that instructors, who try hard to improve relationships, while serving related and sometimes sophisticated instruction, demonstrate greater student achievement. This study is addressed to educational institutions in general, educators in particular, counselors, supervisors, trainers, and whoever interested in flourishing the learning process. The target of this study is to examine the influence of emotional intelligence level on students' Academic achievement in general elective courses, through implementing distributed standardized questionnaires at LIU Nabatieh and Saida. The study employed a descriptive quantitative methodology to answer research questions. The sample contained 549 participants, divided as 14 instructors and 535 undergraduates. Data from the selected participants were collected during Spring 2017 and Fall 2017/2018. The findings revealed the positive impact emotional intelligence imposes on university students. They show a significant relationship between both variables through observing the instructors' emotional intelligence level and the students' academic performance. The research recommends that teachers adopt new strategies and classroom activities to increase the students' emotional intelligence level, besides providing a chance to let them express their feelings and emotional experiences. By following strategies to highlight the emotional aspect of learning, students' emotional intelligence level will increase and thus their performance will be better.


The collecting duct endothelin-1 (ET-1), endothelin B (ETB) receptor, and nitric oxide synthase-1 (NOS1) pathways are critical for regulation of fluid-electrolyte balance and blood pressure control during high-salt feeding. ET-1, ETB receptor, and NOS1 are highly expressed in the inner medullary collecting duct (IMCD) and vasa recta, suggesting that there may be cross talk or paracrine signaling between the vasa recta and IMCD. The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that endothelial cell-derived ET-1 (paracrine) and collecting duct-derived ET-1 (autocrine) promote IMCD nitric oxide (NO) production through activation of the ETB receptor during high-salt feeding. We determined that after 7 days of a high-salt diet (HS7), there was a shift to 100% ETB expression in IMCDs, as well as a twofold increase in nitrite production (a metabolite of NO), and this increase could be prevented by acute inhibition of the ETB receptor. ETB receptor blockade or NOS1 inhibition also prevented the ET-1-dependent decrease in ion transport from primary IMCDs, as determined by transepithelial resistance. IMCD were also isolated from vascular endothelial ET-1 knockout mice (VEETKO), collecting duct ET-1 KO (CDET-1KO), and flox controls. Nitrite production by IMCD from VEETKO and flox mice was similarly increased twofold with HS7. However, IMCD NO production from CDET-1KO mice was significantly blunted with HS7 compared with flox control. Taken together, these data indicate that during high-salt feeding, the autocrine actions of ET-1 via upregulation of the ETB receptor are critical for IMCD NO production, facilitating inhibition of ion reabsorption.


A key question in reinforcement learning is how an intelligent agent can generalize knowledge across different inputs. By generalizing across different inputs, information learned for one input can be immediately reused for improving predictions for another input. Reusing information allows an agent to compute an optimal decision-making strategy using less data. State representation is a key element of the generalization process, compressing a high-dimensional input space into a low-dimensional latent state space. This article analyzes properties of different latent state spaces, leading to new connections between model-based and model-free reinforcement learning. Successor features, which predict frequencies of future observations, form a link between model-based and model-free learning: Learning to predict future expected reward outcomes, a key characteristic of model-based agents, is equivalent to learning successor features. Learning successor features is a form of temporal difference learning and is equivalent to learning to predict a single policy's utility, which is a characteristic of model-free agents. Drawing on the connection between model-based reinforcement learning and successor features, we demonstrate that representations that are predictive of future reward outcomes generalize across variations in both transitions and rewards. This result extends previous work on successor features, which is constrained to fixed transitions and assumes re-learning of the transferred state representation.


 An area of great importance to resource management and conservation biology in the Klamath Basin is balancing water usage against the life history requirements of threatened Coho Salmon. One tool for addressing this topic is a freshwater dynamics model to forecast Coho Salmon productivity based on environmental inputs. Constructing such a forecasting tool requires local data to quantify the unique life history processes of Coho Salmon inhabiting this region. Here, we describe analytical methods for estimating a series of sub-models, each capturing a different life history process, which will eventually be synchronized as part of a freshwater dynamics model for Klamath River Coho Salmon. Specifically, we draw upon extensive population monitoring data collected in the basin to estimate models of freshwater productivity, overwinter survival, and migration patterns. Our models of freshwater productivity indicated that high summer temperatures and high winter flows can both adversely affect smolt production and that such relationships Arcata Fisheries Technical Report TR 2018-33 2 are more likely in tributaries with naturally regulated flows due to substantial intraannual environmental variation. Our models of overwinter survival demonstrated extensive variability in survival among years, but not among rearing locations, and demonstrated that a substantial proportion (~ 20%) of age-0+ fish emigrate from some rearing sites in the winter. Our models of migration patterns indicated that many age-0+ fish redistribute in the basin during the summer and winter. Further, we observed that these redistributions can entail long migrations in the mainstem where environmental stressors likely play a role in cueing refuge entry. Finally, our models of migration patterns indicated that changes in discharge are important in cueing the seaward migration of smolts, but that the nature of this behavioral response can differ dramatically between tributaries with naturally and artificially regulated flows. Collectively, these analyses demonstrate that environmental variation interacts with most phases of the freshwater life history of Klamath River Coho Salmon and that anthropogenic environmental variation can have a particularly large bearing on productivity.


&NA; The integrated wholeness of the organism must be reemphasized. We should not take a localizable, somatic, partial drive as paradigm for motivation theory. The study of motivation should stress ultimate rather than partial goals, ends rather than means to ends. a) not only conscious but also unconscious motivations must be accounted for in a theory of motivation. There are, customarily, different cultural paths to the same goal. Therefore, conscious, specific, local desires are not so useful for motivation theory as fundamental, unconscious goals. Motivated behavior, either preparatory or consummatory, must be understood to be a channel through which many needs may be expressed or satisfied. Usually acts have more than one motivation. Practically all organismic states are to be understood as motivated. Man is a perpetually wanting animal; the appearance of a need rests on prior situations, on other prepotent needs; needs or desires must be arranged in hierarchies of prepotency. Lists of drives will get us no place for various reasons. Any classification of motivations must deal with the problem of level or specificity of classification. Classifications of motivations must be based upon goals rather than upon instigating drives. Motivation theory must be anthropocentric, not animalcentric. The situation or the field in which the organism reacts must be taken into account but it must be done with a dynamic interpretation of the situation or the field. Not only the integration of the organism must be taken into account but also the possibility of isolated, specific, partial or segmental responses must also be included.12


BACKGROUND
The objective of this study was to investigate the study design characteristics of Post-Authorisation Studies (PAS) requested by the European Medicines Agency which were recorded on the European Union (EU) PAS Register held by the European Network of Centres for Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacovigilance (ENCePP).

METHODS
We undertook a cross-sectional descriptive analysis of all studies registered on the EU PAS Register as of 18 th October 2016.

RESULTS
We identified a total of 314 studies on the EU PAS Register, including 81 (26%) finalised, 160 (51%) ongoing and 73 (23%) planned. Of those studies identified, 205 (65%) included risk assessment in their scope, 133 (42%) included drug utilisation and 94 (30%) included effectiveness evaluation. Just over half of the studies (175; 56%) used primary data capture, 135 (43%) used secondary data and 4 (1%) used a hybrid design combining both approaches. Risk assessment and effectiveness studies were more likely to use primary data capture (60% and 85% respectively as compared to 39% and 14% respectively for secondary). The converse was true for drug utilisation studies where 59% were secondary vs. 39% for primary. For type 2 diabetes mellitus, database studies were more commonly used (80% vs 3% chart review, 3% hybrid and 13% primary data capture study designs) whereas for studies in oncology, primary data capture were more likely to be used (85% vs 4% chart review, and 11% database study designs).

CONCLUSIONS
Results of this analysis show that study objectives and therapeutic area influence PAS design in terms of type of data capture used.


– The company in Lamongan, East Java is a company focusing on repair and ship building. Based on observations and interviews, it was found that CNC Flame Plasma Cutting is has a high breakdown rate over a period of time. Therefore, this research to identify critical components, determine the appropriate types of treatment and determine the interval of maintenance critical components. In this research, qualitative analysis involves RCM II Decision Worksheet, FBD, FMEA and RPN.Quantitative analysis to determine maintenance interval. The results showed that 19 failure mode and 7 critical components UPS, operating panel, THC (torch height control) plasma, Cutting Nozzle Flame, Nozzle Torch Plasma 1, X axis motor servo, and Y Axis motor servo. For this type of maintenance on Restoration is treated on cutting nozle flame and Y axis motor servo. Discard task on, UPS, THC Plasma, nozzle torch plasma, X axis servo motor. The maintenance Interval 1199,67 hours for UPS components, 1269,85 hours for operating panel, 1646,13 hours for Cutting Nozzle Flame, 1277,51 hours for THC Plasma, 1725,98 hours for Nozzle Torch Plasma, 1125,28 hours for X axis servo motor, and 1106,91 hours for Y Axis servo motor.


The study of the genetic structure of cultivated plant populations maintained by farmers is of great importance for evolutionary and conservation biology. Such studies help understand the bases of crop evolution and conservation in relation to farmers' practices. In this study, we assessed the genetic structure underlying landrace diversity of dry-season sorghum. This crop constitutes a historical model of innovation developed by farmers to extend sorghum cultivation to the dry season. Two types of dry-season sorghum are cultivated. We aimed to assess the link between farmers' taxonomy and molecular genetic structure. We collected both types of dry-season sorghum in two villages of northern Cameroon which represented 20 landraces. These landraces were genotyped using eight polymorphic microsatellite markers. This study compared two clustering methods: a Bayesian method (STRUCTURE) which is based on explicit genetic assumptions and the discriminant analysis of principal component method. The latter, more recently proposed, is based on the combination of principal component analysis and discriminant analysis. We noticed a general congruence between these two methods. We also used both methods to infer the genetic structure of our sample. Our results showed strong genetic structuring of the landraces, with K= 14 genetic clusters. We then analysed the fit between farmers' taxonomy and genetic structure. The data suggested that each type and each landrace corresponds to a given genetic entity. This pattern was robust across both villages, despite differences in cultural practices.


Triplet cables are the basic cable element of CICC cables, and understanding their electromechanical behaviors under transverse loads is of critical importance to evaluate the electromagnetic behaviors of large cables. This paper describes a new compact experimental device to characterize electromechanically single strand and triplet cable samples as well as HTS tapes under transverse loads. The device has been built and tested with significant reduction of the cost of the experiment compared to a previously used hairpin sample device. Critical current measurements as a function of transverse mechanical load at 12 T were successfully performed on triplets using ITER Nb3Sn wire. The transversely loaded section of the samples is 110 mm in length, longer than the typical twist pitch lengths of first-stage triplets of CICC. The load is applied by using a gear system driven by a 1/2 HP motor. A wedge, vertically displaced by the motor, moves other pressing components transversely. Those parts ultimately apply transverse compression on the cable. A load cell and an extensometer are used to measure the absolute vertical load and displacement, respectively. Limitations and challenges of this compact transverse load device design are discussed together with some experimental results.


Knowledge of the diurnal cycle of precipitable water vapor (PWV) is very limited owing to the lack of data with sufficient temporal resolution. Currently, GPS receivers have proven to be a suitable technique to determine PWV diurnal variations. In this study, the annual and seasonal diurnal cycles of PWV have been obtained from GPS data for 10 locations over Spain. The minimum value of PWV is reached approximately at the same time at all the stations, ∼0430–0530 UTC, whereas the maximum is reached in the second half of the day, but with a larger dispersion of its occurrence between stations. The annual sub‐daily variability ranges from 0.41 to 1.35 mm (3–7%). The highest values are recorded at the stations on the Mediterranean coast, with a doubling of the values of the stations on the Atlantic coast or inland. The winter cycle is quite similar at all locations, whereas in summer local effects are felt strongly, making the diurnal cycle quite different between stations. The PWV mean diurnal cycle is strongest in summer and weakest in spring, with a sub‐daily variability of 1.34 and 0.66 mm respectively. Harmonic analysis shows that the first two harmonics can explain 97% of the variance. The diurnal (24 h) harmonic explains 85% of the variance, has mean amplitude of 0.40 mm, and the peak time is from early afternoon to evening. The semi‐diurnal (12 h) harmonic is weaker, with an amplitude of 0.13 mm, and peak time between 0400 and 1000 UTC. The diurnal cycle of temperature alone would be a proxy for PWV cycle during the night, but not during the daytime. The breeze regime is the main factor responsible for the phase lag between PWV and temperature cycles during daytime. No clear correlation between the daily cycle of precipitation and PWV has been found. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society


Heart development in the chicken embryo is regulated by a concert of cardiogenic morphogens and signaling molecules, but the physiological signal molecule nitric oxide(NO) has not been studied in the context of heart formation. A dynamic investigation of endoderm NO formation demonstrates for the first time a correlation with the established development events of the cardiac heart fields and heart tube. Manipulation of endoderm NO signaling demonstrate a role of NO signaling in the differentiation and proliferation of cardiac progenitors for heart tube formation and cardiac heart field development. To investigate NO in the proliferation of myocardial cells in the heart tube embryos, a computer vision based artificial intelligence approach is followed to automate the long and tedious job of counting cells in a large image dataset. We document NO as an important signaling molecule in the regulation of nascent embryonic cardiogenesis whose effects on other early cardiogenic morphogens is unknown.


We propose a dynamical reference generator equipped with an augmented transient "replanning" subsystem that modulates a feedback controller's efforts to force a mechanical plant to track the reference signal. The replanner alters the reference generator's output in the face of unanticipated disturbances that drive up the tracking error. We demonstrate that the new reference generator cannot destabilize the tracker, that tracking errors converge in the absence of disturbance, and that the overall coupled reference-tracker system cannot be destabilized by disturbances of bounded energy. We report the results of simulation studies exploring the performance of this new design applied to a two dimensional point mass particle interacting with fixed but unknown terrain obstacles.


A new matrix method for the distributed nondepleted pump wave approximation and its extension to include pump wave depletion are proposed for the analysis of optical wave interactions through layered nonlinear media, which takes internal multiple reflections into account and, hence, can lead to a precise analysis for both forward and backward nonlinear interactions. Using this method, several calculation results are presented for difference frequency generation and second-harmonic generation in periodically layered quasi-phase-matched media composed of Al/sub 0.2/Ga/sub 0.8/As and Al/sub 0.38/Ga/sub 0.62/As. In addition, the multiple reflection effect in quasi-phase-matched media is discussed.


Since its popularization in the mid 1990s, the Internet has impacted nearly every aspect of our cultural and personal lives. Over the course of two decades, the Internet remained an unregulated medium whose characteristic openness allowed numerous applications, services, and websites to flourish. By 2005, Internet Service Providers began to explore alternative methods of network management that would permit them to discriminate the quality and speed of access to online content as they saw fit. In response, the Federal Communications Commission sought to enshrine net neutrality in regulatory policy as a means of preserving the Internets open, nondiscriminatory characteristics. Although the FCC established a net neutrality policy in 2010, debate continues as to who ultimately should have authority to shape and maintain the Internets structure. Regulating the Web brings together a diverse collection of scholars who examine the net neutrality policy and surrounding debates from a variety of perspectives. In doing so, the book contributes to the ongoing discourse about net neutrality in the hopes that we may continue to work toward preserving a truly open Internet structure in the United States.


Summary form only given. We propose a scheme for a parametric image amplifier consisting of a parametric medium enclosed in a confocal resonator. In a ideal confocal resonator an infinite number of transverse modes, having a definite parity with respect to the inversion of the spatial transverse coordinates, are degenerate in frequency. As a consequence we show that a confocal parametric oscillator operating below threshold is capable of amplifying a coherent optical image as a whole, provided the input image has an even (odd) distribution in the transverse plane.


Insects have a remarkably sensitive and sophisticated olfactory system providing information regarding the surrounding chemical world. The insect odorant receptors (ORs) are the most sensitive olfactory receptors recorded. Studying the molecular mechanism involved in insect olfaction provides insights into how olfactory input is translated into behavior. The present study was aimed at understanding the fundamental questions about 'function and regulation of insect olfactory signaling'. To address our questions we employed pharmacological, molecular and physiological approaches on heterologously expressed insect olfactory receptors. The insect ORs form heteromeric complexes composed of a ligand binding protein (OrX) and a highly conserved ubiquitous coreceptor Orco. But the actual stoichiometry of this complex is unknown. Recent reports also suggest the presence of homomeric interactions between Orco proteins. In order to understand the function of Orco channel as an oligomer, we artificially engineered a minimal oligomeric construct, Orco dimer (Orco di) and expressed it in CHO (Chinese Hamster Ovary cells). With calcium imaging and patch clamp experiments we show that Orco di forms a functional ion channel and shows similar properties to those channels formed by Orco wt proteins. In addition to functional studies, this thesis provides insights on the regulation of insect olfactory receptor activity. In order to understand how intracellular calcium influx is regulated in the insects ORs we investigated the role of the ubiquitous Ca2+ binding protein calmodulin (CaM) in insect OR function. We identified a conserved putative CaM binding motif 336SAIKYWVER344 in the second intracellular loop of Orco protein indicating an important functional role. Pharmacological inhibition and overexpression of CaM mutants in heterologously expressed insect ORs showed that inhibition of CaM activity affects Ca2+ response of Orco channel, but with heteromeric ORs, CaM inhibition affected the response of ORs in OrX specific manner. Our results give ample evidence for CaM activity in modulating the function of insect odorant receptors. In a further study, where we replicated the process of sensitization event in heterologously expressed insect ORs, we observed that inhibition of CaM abolished this event. These results suggests a role of CaM in the Orco-mediated OR sensitization.


Growth and decolorization performance of bacterial grown on azodyes-containing-medium is influenced by various concentrations of carbon sources and azodyes. The optimum level of glucose and Orange II concentration for growth and Orange II decolorization by Enterococcus faecalis ID6017 are reported in this paper. The experiments were carried out in liquid static culture as batch experiments. Glucose and Orange II concentrations used in these experiments were 0.45, 0.90, 1.80 g l-1, and 40, 80, 120 mg l-1, respectively. The specific growth rate and decolorization rate of Orange II by E. faecalis were highest on the medium which contained at least 0.90 g l-1 glucose. It is necessary to note that glucose above 0.90 g l-1 gave no significant difference. On the medium containing 0.90 g l-1 glucose and 80 mg l-1 Orange II, E. faecalis grew with the highest specific growth rate (0.28 h-1) and Orange II decolorization rate (0.47 h-1). The maximum specific growth rate of biomass (μ max ) and the halfsaturation coefficient ( KS ) under optimal conditions were 0.25 h-1 and 1.5 g.l-1, respectively. The kinetics of decolorization indicated that the process followed first order kinetics with respect to the initial concentration of Orange II. The inhibition constant ( KI ) was found to be 750 mg l-1 Orange II, indicating that Orange II concentration at e" 750 mg l-1 would inhibit bacterial growth to decolorize Orange II..