BACKGROUND The US Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services outline regulations allowing an exception from informed consent (EFIC) for research conducted in an emergency setting. Acute care clinical trials using EFIC must include community consultation and public disclosure (CC/PD) activities. We describe our experience using social media to facilitate the CC/PD process in two trauma resuscitation clinical trials. METHODS We conducted local CC/PD activities for two multicenter trauma clinical trials, Pragmatic, Randomized Optimal Platelet and Plasma Ratios (PROPPR) and Prehospital Tranexamic Acid Use for Traumatic Brain Injury (ROC-TXA). As part of the CC/PD process, we developed research study advertisements using the social media Web site Facebook. The Facebook advertisements directed users to a regional study Web site that contained trial information. We targeted the advertisements to specific demographic users, in specific geographic areas. We analyzed the data using descriptive statistics. RESULTS During the study periods, the PROPPR Facebook advertisement was displayed 5,001,520 times (12 displays per target population) with 374 individuals selecting the advertisement. The ROC-TXA Facebook advertisement was displayed 3,806,448 times (8 per target population) with 790 individuals selecting the advertisement. Respondents to both Facebook advertisements were mostly male (52.6%), with the highest proportion between the ages 15 years and 24 years (28.2%). Collectively, 26.9% of individuals that clicked on the Facebook advertisement spent more than 3 minutes on the study Web site (3–49 minutes). Commonly accessed Web pages were "contact us" (PROPPR, 5.5%; ROC-TXA, 7.7%), "study-specific FAQs" (PROPPR, 2.4%; ROC-TXA, 6.7%), and "opt out of research" (PROPPR, 2.5%; ROC-TXA, 3.8%). Of 51 total individuals viewing the opt out of research information (PROPPR, 19; ROC-TXA, 32), time spent on that specific page was modest (PROPPR, 62 seconds; ROC-TXA, 55 seconds), with no individuals requesting to opt out of either study participation. CONCLUSIONS In clinical trauma trials using EFIC, social media may provide a viable option for facilitating the CC/PD process.


BACKGROUND
Dens invaginatus is a developmental anomaly that can affect both deciduous and permanent dentition. The anomaly is caused by the invagination of the enamel organ into the dental papilla prior to the calcification of the dental tissues. The treatment option changes according to the classification, from the simple filling of the invaginated enamel area to root canal treatment with or without retrograde surgery, intentional re-implantation, or the extraction of the affected tooth.

CASE REPORT
In this study we report a case of a maxillary lateral incisor invaginatus in a young adult patient. The periapical endoral X-ray showed the presence of a periapical radiolucency in tooth 22, that had a structure similar to a tooth inside it and an immature apex. Cold thermal testing showed that it was not a vital tooth. CBCT confirmed the diagnosis of Oehler Class II dens invaginatus. The treatment plan involved root canal treatment of both the "true" and the "invaginated" canal using calcium hydroxide-based intermediate medication. Then, after removing the hard internal structure with the aid of an operative microscope, MTA was used to close the immature apex. Finally, the large endodontic space was filled with self-etching, self-adhesive, dual curing resin cement. The patient was included in a follow-up programme to monitor and verify the complete healing of the periapical bone of the affected tooth.

CONCLUSION
The use of technology and of special materials allowed an adequate management and resolution of the case reported.


The main motivation of this research is to help reduce the Green House Gases (GHG) emissions of the electricity sector, and counteract the effects on nature and people. Traditional methods of power planning are not optimised to achieve this, and only consider Capital Expenditure (Capex) and Operational Expenditure (Opex) reduction as their main objectives. Minimising GHG emissions is now an additional objective of power planning. One way of achieving this is by optimising the distance of generators to the loads to reduce the transmission losses, and also by harnessing the available regional sources of renewable energies and increasing their integration in the network. Efficient load forecasting methods, capable of describing the regional behaviours of the electricity consumption are developed in this research, and can provide priceless input to electricity planners. Such forecasting methods, known as spatial forecasting, can be used to extract short-term and medium-term information of the electricity consumption of different regions. This work also provides tools for making decisions about the most accurate way of pre-processing consumption data and choosing the most efficient forecasting procedure. Chapter 1 talks about emissions of GHGs and their adverse effect on the nature. It introduces electricity sector as one of the major contributors of human made GHG emissions. It then describes the components of electrical power network and the planning of it. Finally the chapter concludes that an efficient spatial load forecasting method is required to help with spatial planning of power networks. The spatial planning can include more regional components like proximity of generation components to consumers, or the levels of harnessed renewable energy in each area. In such an approach, GHG reduction can be also considered along with Capex and Opex minimisation to plan the future of power networks. Chapter 2 provides definitions on power network components and the load forecasting methods. It starts with definition of power systems and explanation on how electrical energy is superior to all other forms of energy from end user point of view. Electricity generation systems and the sources of energy to produce electricity are described next. Typical generation unit sizes in MW, continuity of the supply, and also its predictability are summarised in a table at the end of this section. Thereafter, transmission lines and distribution systems are described, as other component of electrical power networks. Importance of having an accurate forecast of electricity demand and the common ways to do it are presented next. At the end of this chapter, the deficiencies of current forecasting methods are highlighted and one major goal is defined for this work. It is to overcome the deficiencies of individual forecasting methods by combining them and using them only where it performs efficient. It also mentions that the work is going to closely look at the behaviour of input data to the forecasting method to seek better methods for preparing them. Chapter 3 describes South West Interconnected System (SWIS) as the case study for this work. The reasons for selecting SWIS as the case study are mentioned, followed by a quick history of it and how it has been expanded over the last hundred years. To be able to complete spatial forecasting, the area under study needs to be divided into regions. SWIS is then divided into eight regions for this purpose. A visual presentation of the eight regions on the map is presented at the end of this chapter for more clarity. Chapter 4 performs a short forecasting method on one of the SWIS regions. The selected region is called Metro East. Metro East region is mainly composed of residential consumers. Unlike commercial and industrial consumers, the residential ones are not following a working schedule. That's why it makes them to behave differently and more randomly comparing to the other two. This means more complicated demand to forecast. This is the main reason that Metro East is selected to be studied on this chapter. One of the main components of this chapter is to introduce the methods that have been used for pre-processing of input data. The pre-processing stages include data resolution adjustment, replacement of missing data, removing outliers, clustering and signal reconstruction. A well pre-processed set of data is critical component of any forecasting strategy. The second component of chapter 4 is to generate one day ahead and seven day ahead forecasts of Metro East electricity consumption, using three different training methods. The forecasted results are comparable to other studies done on short term load forecasting. However the author questions the accuracy of classic approach of load forecasting. Classic approach is basically what have been done in the field of load forecasting for decades, which is very similar to the works done in chapter 4. In classic approach, a method gets tested on a case study with an acceptable level of accuracy. Then that method gets introduced as a very accurate tool to be applied on demand forecasting purposes. This work is showing that such accurate method cannot be accurate at all when being applied to other different case studies. Future chapters study this in further details, and come up with some guidelines on how to have accurate load forecast based on the nature of the case study in hand. Chapter 5 applies the methods of load forecasting developed in chapter 4 onto eight different case studies. By doing this, it can be seen that there is no single method of forecasting that can be accurate for all case studies out there. Temperature sensitivity and distribution of the load data of all the regions is closely studied for fifteen years of data. A load type determination criterion is presented in Table 5. By using this table, and preparing Rayleigh, Generalised Pareto, and Generalised Extreme Value distributions of the load data under study, anyone will be able to say whether their load under study is mainly commercial, residential or industrial. The outdoor temperature is one of the main inputs of short term electricity forecasting. Same chapter shows that residential loads are having a greater temperature sensitivity comparing to the other two. The results of one day and seven day ahead forecasts of the eight regions are presented at the end of chapter 5, using two methods of neural networks and decision trees. The results suggest that the two methods need to be used alternatively based on the characteristics of the case study and ambient temperature to achieve the best result. Chapter 6 explains the system based medium term load forecasting. The approach to medium term forecasting is completely different to the one developed for the short term one. Two main differences between Short-Term Load Forecasting (STLF) and Medium-Term Load Forecasting (MTLF) are the availability of weather data and the forecasting objectives. Because of the nature of the weather, temperature forecasts of a year ahead are completely impossible. Also in medium term load forecasting the focus of planners is mainly on peak load and energy consumption forecasts. The forecasting method presented in this chapter is achieved by superimposing annual trend, annual seasonality and forecasted residuals by neural networks and decision trees. Similar to chapter 5, the forecasting strategy is applied to eight different case studies for comparison. It is concluded that based on the case under study, the accuracy of the methods changes. It also provides some advices on the best practices to perform medium load forecasting, considering the characteristics of the load. For instance, it conclude that for industrial regions regression trees performs better than neural network based methods. The same applies to CBD region where commercial load dominates. For some residential areas neural networks behave better. This is because of higher nonlinearity of residential load. The major contributions of this work can be summarised as below: The topic of the study, i.e. spatial load forecasting and the potential of using it in efficient power planning, is relatively a new topic in the electricity market literature. Moreover, many of the known spatial load forecasting methods have not yet been widelyused because of the size, variety, and availability of the data required. The methodology proposed in this study can successfully be appliedto spatial forecasting. While conventional methods are useful for short-term predictions with acceptable accuracy, they fail when medium-to-long term load forecasting is dealt with. The methodology conceived and implemented in this thesis is significantly better than those known as state-of-the-art and can give very satisfactory results for medium-term predictions. The load analysis criterion, particularly using Q-Q (Quantile vs. Quantile) plots is a unique and original finding of this work. While Q-Q plots are largely used in traditional statistics to compare two samples of data, it has never been applied before for electricity load forecasting purposes. Based on its definition and use, an electricity planner can understand which part of the load is the dominating factor (i.e. whether it is residential, commercial or industrial). And then, based on this, he/she can decide how to go ahead with choosing the most effective forecasting method. Based on this, the thesis provides a very useful criterion for decision making in the energy market. One of the major findings of the thesis is that there is no one optimum way of forecasting electricity load in different scenarios. The results presented in the thesis have shown that a method that can accurately forecast the load on a system (3% error for a year ahead) can perform completely different in forecasting another system (observed errors of around 14%). This study demonstrates that a method which is claimed to have a given accuracy


Presentation delivered at the annual LIASA 2019 conference in Durban. Data collected with VULA online Seminar Evaluation for 3 consecutive years, 2017, 2018, 2019 in an Accounting Honours class. Analysis done with NVivo. Recommendations suggested include a Blended Learning model.


We present a novel adaptive cruise control (ACC) system namely SAINT-ACC: {S}afety-{A}ware {Int}elligent {ACC} system (SAINT-ACC) that is designed to achieve simultaneous optimization of traffic efficiency, driving safety, and driving comfort through dynamic adaptation of the inter-vehicle gap based on deep reinforcement learning (RL). A novel dual RL agent-based approach is developed to seek and adapt the optimal balance between traffic efficiency and driving safety/comfort by effectively controlling the driving safety model parameters and inter-vehicle gap based on macroscopic and microscopic traffic information collected from dynamically changing and complex traffic environments. Results obtained through over 12,000 simulation runs with varying traffic scenarios and penetration rates demonstrate that SAINT-ACC significantly enhances traffic flow, driving safety and comfort compared with a state-of-the-art approach.


A mathematical model and heuristic method for solving multi-depot and multi-product vehicle routing problem with heterogeneous vehicle have been proposed in this paper. Customers can order several products and depots must deliver customer's orders before due date with different vehicle. Hence mathematical model of multidepot vehicle routing problem has been developed to represent these conditions. Aim of this model is to minimize total delivery distance or time spent in servicing all customers. As this problem is very complex, we have offered a heuristic method that includes four steps. Grouping, routing and vehicle selection, scheduling and packing of products and improvement are the aforementioned steps. Efficiency of heuristic has been tested by a case study and several numerical examples. Comparing the results of heuristic and optimal solving has revealed that the deviation of heuristic results from optimal answer is lower than eight perce.


A summability method for series, which is called in this paper the generalized Abel-Poisson method, is introduced. For functions in , , it is shown that the rate of approximation of the boundary function by the generalized Abel-Poisson means is equivalent to the modulus of smoothness of fractional order. All estimates are carried out in the .


A rabbit polyclonal antiserum exhibiting a specific recognition pattern for Mycobacterium tuberculosis proteins was used to screen an M. tuberculosis genomic library constructed in the expression vector lambda gt11. One clone, denominated C1:10, expressed M. tuberculosis-specific determinants as part of a large fusion protein with beta-galactosidase. The gene for this protein has been sequenced, and it encodes a protein of 134 amino acids (13.8 kDa) which did not display significant homology with any of the previously reported proteins in the data bases. Hybridization studies with restriction fragments of the cloned sequence revealed that it was not present in the genomes of related mycobacteria, namely, M. bovis, M. bovis BCG, M. flavescens, M. fortuitum, M. phlei, and M. vaccae. These findings suggest that we have detected a gene, or a fragment therefrom, unique for M. tuberculosis whose nucleotide and amino acid sequences could be useful tools in the design of an improved vaccine or a diagnostic method of greater accuracy for tuberculosis.


[1] The World Ocean Circulation Experiment Indian Ocean helium isotope data are mapped and features of intermediate and deep circulation are inferred and discussed. The 3He added to the deep Indian Ocean originates from (1) a strong source on the mid-ocean ridge at about 19°S/65°E, (2) a source located in the Gulf of Aden in the northwestern Indian Ocean, (3) sources located in the convergent margins in the northeastern Indian Ocean, and (4) water imported from the Indonesian Seas. The main circulation features inferred from the 3 He distribution include (1) deep (2000-3000 m) eastward flow in the central Indian Ocean, which overflows into the West Australian Basin through saddles in the Ninetyeast Ridge, (2) a deep (2000-3000 m) southwestward flow in the western Indian Ocean, and (3) influx of Banda Sea Intermediate Waters associated with the deep core (1000-1500 m) of the through flow from the Pacific Ocean. The large-scale 3 He distribution is consonant with the known pathways of deep and bottom water circulation in the Indian Ocean.


This thesis investigates how crisis relates to fascism by taking into account the role of desire and salvation in response to a situation of crisis. This thesis argues that, in desiring salvation, human experience of time, as crisis, resolves itself into two forms of fascism - ideological and molecular - and two forms of crisis - as a temporality of decision or/and as a temporality of indecision. The relation between crisis and fascism is mainly analysed in the light of three historical periods of crisis in Portugal's contemporary history: the advent of the financial dictatorship (1926), the Carnation Revolution (1974 to 1975) and the financial bailout (2011). These historical periods are further contextualized on the macro and micro-levels, dialoguing with other empirical material that goes beyond the spatial and temporal delimitations of Portugal as a nation-state. In methodological terms, the thesis aims at exploring analogical inferences between examples by recovering the concept of signature as its method of analysis. The idea of using the concept of signature as a method entails seeing how examples produce affinities with each other and how they are displaced from one semantic field to another as well as how they create unpredictable analogies between them. Thus, the thesis explores possible analogies between the examples by means of the signatures of sacralization and profanation: while sacralization concerns the move of concepts, objects and bodies from the earthly, profane sphere to the theological and sacred sphere, profanation implies exactly the opposite movement. The two signatures structurally organize the thesis in two parts: while the first part consists in showing how crisis sacralizes the human experience of time, the second part points towards the profanatory praxis of crisis as a salvific temporality.


The requirements for RF Control Systems for the European X-FEL are not only defined in terms of the quality of field control but also with respect to operability, availability, and maintainability of the RF System, and the interfaces to other subsystems. The field control of the vector-sum of many cavities driven by one klystron in pulsed mode at high gradients is a challenging task since severe Lorentz force detuning, microphonics and beam induced field errors must be suppressed by several orders of magnitude. This is accomplished by a combination of local and global feedback and feedforward control. Sensors monitor individual cavity probe signals, and forward and reflected wave as well as the beam properties including beam energy and phase while actuators control the incident wave of the klystron and individual cavity resonance frequencies. The operability of a large llrf system requires a high degree of automation while the high availability requires robust algorithms, redundancy, and extremely reliable hardware. The maintenance of the llrf demands sophisticated on-line diagnostics for the llrf subsystems to minimize downtime.


Author(s): Kubecka, Jana; Strong, Robert; Higginbotham, Billy; Briers, Gary; Pope, Paul | Abstract: Texas has the largest wild pig population in the nation, estimated at 2.6 million animals. Damage to agronomic enterprises was conservatively estimated in 2004 at $52 million annually with total economic damage to agriculture and the environment in urban, suburban, and rural Texas possibly reaching 10 times that figure. In response to damage caused by this invasive exotic species, the Texas AaM AgriLife Extension Service increased educational programming efforts of wild pigs and damage abatement. From 2006-2014, project funding from multiple sources facilitated the development and deployment of Texas AaM AgriLife Extension Service-led landowner education via one-on-one contacts, group meetings, demonstrations, and publications. Website availability and mass media contacts, including television and radio interviews and newspaper and magazine articles, were also utilized to increase public awareness and education on wild pigs and damage abatement. Participants (n = 21,752) attending Extension educational events were surveyed (n = 13,054) to characterize damage and control efforts as well as measure the impacts of education efforts. The most commonly reported negative impacts by landowners were pastures/hay meadows (72%) and owner/employee time (38%), while the most commonly used control technique prior to participation in an educational event was trap and destroy (51%). The average amount of losses attributable to wild pigs in the year prior to attending an educational program was $4,764 each and their predicted loss after participation decreased to $3,565. Over 98% of respondents indicated they increased their knowledge of wild pigs and damage abatement and planned to adopt an average of three new management practices each, with the most commonly cited new practices being using larger traps and pre-baiting wild pigs. A Net Promoter Score of 60.4% indicated that survey respondents were very pleased with the information they received by attending an Extension educational event directed at wild pigs and the abatement of their damage. This educational model can serve as a template for other states dealing with wild pigs as an emerging issue whenever their negative impacts on agriculture, the environment, and human health and safety occur.


This submission presents a small selection of my publications on a theme – the application of biodiversity data to inform both conservation and industry practice. The published work presented here demonstrates my ability to generate new biodiversity data, to interpret how to apply those data to improve conservation outcomes, and to apply the same biodiversity data in different ways to reduce industry impacts. The core biodiversity data I use are related to species' distributions and conservation status, as direct indicators of their irreplaceability and vulnerability.
This thesis comprises five peer-reviewed journal papers and a double-blind peer-reviewed published report. Several of these are well-cited: the submitted publications have cumulatively received in excess of 500 citations.
My submitted publications have extended understanding in my area of specialisation, and had clear impact on scientific and professional practice. This is demonstrated not only by incorporation of these publications' findings into conservation action and policy, but also by the professional advice that I am regularly sought to give as a recognised authority in my field to leading global companies, financial institutions, conservation donors and non-governmental organisations.
My submitted work is the result of collaborations with leaders in my field. It includes the generation of new knowledge that has directly informed applied conservation of highly
iii
threatened species in Asia. It contains substantial scientific advances, such as an innovative approach I developed to resolve the long-standing and intractable problem of 'limits to biodiversity offsets'. In some cases, it has had a clear practical impact on conservation – by guiding substantial donor funding towards, and even greater development investment away from, species and sites of highest global significance to conservation. In other cases, it has demonstrated influence on policy at a global level – such as shaping the International Union for Conservation of Nature's policy on biodiversity offsets.


Abstract The genomes of 262 Bacillus cereus isolates were analyzed including 69 isolates sampled from equipment, raw milk and dairy products from Brazil. The population structure of isolates showed strains belonging to known phylogenetic groups II, III, IV, V and VI. Almost all the isolates obtained from dairy products belonged to group III. Investigation of specific alleles revealed high numbers of isolates carrying toxin‐associated genes including cytK (53.62%), hblA (59.42%), hblC (44.93%), hblD (53.62%), nheA (84.06%), nheB (89.86%) and nheC (84.06%) with isolates belonging to groups IV and V having significant higher prevalence of hblACD and group IV of CytK genes. Strains from dairy products had significantly lower prevalence of CytK and hblACD genes compared to isolates from equipment and raw milk/bulk tanks. Genes related to sucrose metabolism were detected at higher frequency in isolates obtained from raw milk compared to strains from equipment and utensils. The population genomic analysis demonstrated the diversity of strains and variability of putative function among B. cereus group isolates in Brazilian dairy production, with large numbers of strains potentially able to cause foodborne illness. This detailed information will contribute to targeted interventions to reduce milk contamination and spoilage associated with B. cereus in Brazil. Figure. No Caption available.


The rise and decline of China's collectively-owned enterprises, a hybrid of public and private ownership, has led to intensive debates about the costs and benefits of government ownership. It has been argued that government ownership may help firms gain access to production inputs and infrastructural services, but government officials may use public enterprises to pursue private benefits. From a panel dataset of 13,733 China's collectively-owned enterprises for the period of 1998-2003, it is found that collectively-owned enterprises, once privatized, encountered an increase in the cost of goods sold to sales ratio but had a decrease in the managerial expenses to sales ratio. These changes in the costs and benefits of government ownership are found to be most significant in the first privatization and take place immediately after the privatization. JEL classification codes: L33, P31, D23


We investigate a class of first-order temporal-epistemic logics for reasoning about multiagent systems. We encode typical properties of systems including perfect recall, synchronicity, no learning, and having a unique initial state in terms of variants of quantified interpreted systems, a first-order extension of interpreted systems. We identify several monodic fragments of first-order temporal-epistemic logic and show their completeness with respect to their corresponding classes of quantified interpreted systems.


A soil productivity score card has been designed so that any careful agricultural worker can obtain reasonably reliable ratings for individual fields and farms in Wisconsin. The only tools required are a soil sampling tool, leveling device to approximate slopes in percent, sampling bags, and the Soil Productivity Score Card. The ratings indicate relative current capacities of fields to produce crops, and are adjusted to a possible high score of 100, the sum of 11 optimum figures which include 10 ratings for soil and land characteristics and one for length of frost-free season. The score card offers a choice of four ratings — low to high — for each characteristic. The user of the card is not asked to recognize and map soil types. Rather, he rates soils by fields. Soil samples are taken from each field for pH, and available phosphorus and potassium quick tests. A total farm score may be derived from the field ratings. The score card has been tested on a variety of soils in Wisconsin and the results have been compared with the U. S. Soil Conservation Service land use capability classification of the same fields, and with soil survey productivity ratings. The comparison shows substantial agreement between the three methods of evaluation. On farms which are without any soil map, the score card helps to provide essential information for the guidance of workers in farm planning and rental programs. Admittedly, there are certain inherent defects in a rating scheme of this kind, such as interdependence of soil factors and differential productivity of a given soil for different crops.


Femtocell concept has emerged as a cost-effective solution to manage indoor environment coverage and increasing capacity requirements. Compare to the conventional control macrocell deployment, femtocells are spread in the uncontrolled manner as they are deployed in network by customers themselves. This paper discusses multi-distance spatial analysis, Ripley's K function, to describe distribution of femtocells in a macrocell. In our study, we investigate various femtocell distributions and various numbers of femtocells in the macrocell.


Recent developments in turbomachinery design require an improved prediction accuracy of blade vibrations in order to maintain safe operations. This paper aims to investigate the accuracy of numerical aeroelastic approaches for the calculation of blade vibrations. For validation, extensive aerodynamic and forced response measurements in an 1.5-stage axial compressor with a blade integrated disk (Blisk) are presented. The excitation intensity of the vibration is controlled by varying the stagger angle of the Inlet Guide Vane (IGV). Additionally, a second engine order is imposed by a nonsymmetric circumferential vane angle distribution to simulate a multistage behavior. Experimental validated Reynoldsaveraged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulations in both, the frequency and the time domain, are compared to assess the prediction accuracy of the numerical approaches. The numerical results agree with the experiments for low and intermediate vane angles. However, at high IGV stagger angles and when exciting multiple engine orders, the inaccuracy in the prediction of flow separation by the RANS simulations leads to an over prediction of vibration amplitudes. This exaggeration becomes even more pronounced in the frequency domain simulations. Time domain methods with a time lag formulation tend to be efficient and more accurate approaches for large separated flow regimes.


With an efficient methodology, a novel chloromethylated polystyrene-g-2-mercapto-1,3,4-thiadiazole chelating resin (MTR resin) was prepared via a one-step reaction. The structure of MTR resin was characterized by elements analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, and scanning electron microscopy. Meanwhile, the adsorption properties of the resin for Hg(II) were investigated by batch and column experiments. The results showed that the resin possessed much better adsorption capability for Hg(II) than for other metal ions. The statically and the dynamic saturated adsorption capacities were 343.8 mg/g and 475.1 mg/g. The adsorption kinetic and equilibrium data were well fitted to the second-order model and the Langmuir isotherm model, respectively. Desorption of mercury from the resin can be achieved using 30 mL of 2 mol/L HCl-5% thiourea solution with a desorption ratio of 92.3%. Compared with other absorbents, MTR resin was greatly conserve natural resources and reduce the cost.


Viral bronchiolitis is the most common lower respiratory tract infection in infants and children under the age of 2. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the infecting agent in more than 50% of the cases. Usually the clinical course is uneventful and complications are uncommon. Secondary air leaks are a recognized rare complication of bronchiolitis, although the real incidence remains unknown. We report a case of a 21-month-old female that developed a spontaneous pneumothorax (PNO) with subcutaneous emphysema (SE) late in the course of RSV acute bronchiolitis. Additional investigation ruled out any underlying disease predisposing to spontaneous PNO. Physicians, especially those who work with small children, must be aware of this uncommon complication of bronchiolitis that may appear late in the course of the disease despite an initial clinical improvement.


Presents a framework for three-dimensional model-based tracking. Graphical rendering technology is combined with constrained active contour tracking to create a robust wire-frame tracking system. It operates in real time at video frame rate (25 Hz) on standard hardware. It is based on an internal CAD model of the object to be tracked which is rendered using a binary space partition tree to perform hidden line removal. A Lie group formalism is used to cast the motion computation problem into simple geometric terms so that tracking becomes a simple optimization problem solved by means of iterative reweighted least squares. A visual servoing system constructed using this framework is presented together with results showing the accuracy of the tracker. The paper then describes how this tracking system has been extended to provide a general framework for tracking in complex configurations. The adjoint representation of the group is used to transform measurements into common coordinate frames. The constraints are then imposed by means of Lagrange multipliers. Results from a number of experiments performed using this framework are presented and discussed.


The current study focuses on the protection of daidzein on nerves, as daidzein was demonstrated to have a protective effect on neurons of the central nervous system in a glutamate excitotoxicity and oxygen/glucose deprivation model. However, the effect of daidzein on the abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) remains unclear. The angiotensin II-induced AAA mouse model was utilized in the present study to determine the effect of daidzein on AAA. The results demonstrated that daidzein significantly attenuated incidence of AAA, max aortic aneurysm and mortality in the angiotensin II‑induced AAA mice. Daidzein had an anti‑inflammatory effect by inhibiting tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), interleukin 1β (IL‑1β) and nuclear factor κB (NF‑κB) protein expression. In addition, daidzein strongly suppressed the gene expression of cyclooxygenase (COX)‑2, matrix metalloproteinase 2 (MMP‑2), tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase 1 (TIMP-1), transforming growth factor β1 (TGF‑β1), and inhibited inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) protein expression in angiotensin II‑induced AAA mice. It also inhibited phosphorylation of the p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway. These results demonstrate, to the best of our knowledge for the first time, that the anti‑inflammatory effects and inhibitory mechanism of daidzein attenuates AAA in angiotensin II‑induced mice. Daidzein contains strong anti‑inflammatory activity and affects various mechanism pathways including the NF‑κB, p38MAPK and TGF-β1 pathway.


Software architecture evaluation is an effective means of addressing quality related issues quite early in the software development lifecycle. Scenario-based approaches to evaluate architecture usually involve a large number of stakeholders, who need to be collocated for evaluation sessions. Collocating a large number of stakeholders is an expensive and time-consuming exercise, which may prove to be a hurdle in the wide-spread adoption of architectural evaluation practices. Drawing upon the successful introduction of groupware applications to support geographically distributed teams in software inspection, and requirements engineering disciplines, we propose the concept of distributed architectural evaluation using Internet-based collaborative technologies. This paper illustrates the methodology of a pilot study to assess the viability of a larger experiment intended to investigate the feasibility of groupware support for distributed software architecture evaluation. In addition, the results of the pilot study provide some interesting findings on the viability of groupware-supported software architectural evaluation process.


In an electronic publication released before print from The Lancet on August 16, 2016, Su et al . (1) presented the results of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in which a dexmedetomidine infusion markedly decreased the incidence of delirium in elderly patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) after non-cardiac surgery. The data are compelling and novel, in that the dexmedetomidine infusion consisted of a low, sub-sedative dose. This two-center study, which included 700 patients, was well-powered to demonstrate the clinical effectiveness of a prophylactic dexmedetomidine infusion to reduce delirium.


In this paper, formation of wrinkling in bimetal deep drawing process has been investigated by the analytical, numerical and experimental methods. The effects of width of flange, fillet radii of matrix and punch, clearance of blank holder, contact conditions and relative thickness of two sheets on the number and height of wrinkle waves are studied. Clearance and contact conditions have the greatest impact on the number of waves while only clearance has significant effects on the height of waves. Increasing of the mandrel edge radius and relative thickness of tougher metal increase significantly the forming force. Variation of holder's clearance and matrix edge radius have a little effects on the punching force.


Whereas its intent is clear, the text in the C standard that concerns atomics has several consistency problems. There are contradictions and the standard vocabulary is not always applied correctly.-This document is a follow up of the series of documents N1955, N2064, and N2329. It contains an update on the non-normative changes that WG14 has agreed to during the London 2019 meeting.


The Low Latency Fault Tolerance (LLFT) middleware provides fault tolerance for distributed applications deployed within a cloud computing or data center environment, using the leader/follower replication approach. The LLFT middleware consists of a Low Latency Messaging Protocol, a Leader-Determined Membership Protocol, and a Virtual Determinizer Framework. The Messaging Protocol provides are liable, totally ordered message delivery service by employing a direct group-to-group multicast where the ordering is determined by the primary replica in the group. The Membership Protocol provides a fast reconfiguration and recovery service when a replica becomes faulty and when a replica joins or leaves a group. The Virtual Determinizer Framework captures ordering information at the primary replica and enforces the same ordering at the backup replicas for major sources of non-determinism. The LLFT middleware maintains strong replica consistency, offers application transparency, and achieves low end-to-end latency.


How can Government and the Treasury reconcile two often contradictory aspects of the commercial property tax model in England? On the one hand, commercial property tax is required to be responsive to economic conditions, promoting investment in property and business. On the other hand, local commercial property tax, in part, is required to fund local public services. This situation reveals a contradiction in government tax policy that has a direct impact upon local, regional and national economic activity. This Viewpoint article considers the nature of commercial property tax in England, the business rate system, the competing pressures upon the business rate system before considering the main alternative on offer in England, land value tax. Despite the undoubted economic elegance of this instrument, any move towards land value tax should be approached with caution. Any solution to the current business rates impasse should not be led by a pragmatic focus on tax collection. Nor should prevalent issues, the high street, the need for digital tax or public finance demands be considered in isolation – they should be tackled together because they are part of the same complex situation.


This article reports empirical evidence of the bond risk premium in the JGB market and applies its findings to both duration-active and duration-neutral bond investment strategies in the JGB market. In the empirical study, an existence of the bond risk premium is proved, but it is also found that the magnitude of the risk premium is time-varying. This time–varying aspect of the bond risk premium is applied in a dynamic strategy that takes an active duration position based on a bind's excess return forecasts. Then, a rolling yield maximization strategy is backtested that takes a positive carry position in a duration–neutral environment relative to a benchmark.


A method of generating solid models of terrain involves the conversion of topographical data into a form useable by a rapid-prototyping (RP) machine. The method was developed to enable the use of the RP machine to make solid models of Martian terrain from Mars Orbiter laser-altimeter topographical data. The method is equally applicable to the generation of models of the terrains of other astronomical bodies, including other planets, asteroids, and Earth. Topographical data describe a terrain in terms of a set of three-dimensional coordinates [e.g., Cartesian (x,y,z) or polar (latitude, longitude, radius) coordinates] of points or nodes on the terrain surface. The input data for the RP machines are required to provide a three-dimensional description, not of a single surface, but of a volume in this case, a ground volume that underlies the terrain surface. The description is required to be in the form of triangular elements that connect the nodes of all the surfaces and that completely bound the volume, with no open areas, no overlap of triangles, and no extraneous geometric elements. The software used in the present model-generation method was written in IDL - an advanced programming language that affords a number of tools, including subroutines that triangularize surfaces. The software creates a volume from the topographical surface data by adding sides to the edges of the terrain surface and joining the sides with a bottom surface. Each of the sides is triangularized by use of IDL subroutines, and then the software searches for extraneous elements and removes them. Topographical data are usually presented in a grid corresponding to polar coordinates, so that a model generated from such data is equivalent to a topographical map in Mercator projection. However an RP machine is fully capable of including the curvature of a planetary body in a model that it makes. Therefore, the software also offers a capability to transform the topographical data to a projection onto a surface having a curvature corresponding to that of the surface of the modeled planet.


Aim: To determine the knowledge of periodontal disease, the influence of periodontal disease on systemic disease and the attitude towards treatment for periodontal disease among non-medical professionals.Objectives: The objective of the above study is to determine the knowledge of periodontal disease, its influence on systemic health and disease and to evaluate the knowledge and attitude towards the treatment for periodontal disease.Materials and Method: A cross-sectional survey using self-administered questionnaire was conducted among the non-medical professionals during 2016 – 2017. Participants visiting the outpatient of the department were selected by simple random sampling. A total of 282 subjects participated in the study.Amongst these 267 were selected. The included subjects were 39 medical professionals', 228 non-medical professionals. The subjects were introduced to the questionnaire and requested to fill their socio-demographic details and also to answer the questionnaire related to the effect of periodontal disease on the systemic health and disease. The scores that were obtained was considered adequate if the participants answered atleast 50% of the questions correctly.Results: Out of the 282 questionnaires distributed a total of 267 were selected. 15 questionnaire were improperly filled and so were excluded. The 267 questionnaires included were filled by 39 medical professionals' and 228 non-medical professionals. The medical professionals have better knowledge about periodontal disease compared to other groups. The non-medical professionals' knowledge was inadequate compared to all the other parameters.Conclusion: The overall results of the study showed the knowledge of the influence of the systemic disease on periodontitis and also about the treatments available for this disease was inadequate among the nonmedical professionals compared to that of the medical professionals


OBJECTIVE
To quantify the impact of two approaches (directed and query-based) to health information exchange (HIE) on potentially avoidable use of health care services.

DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING
Data on ambulatory care providers' adoption of HIE were merged with Medicare fee-for-service claims from 2008 to 2014. Providers were from 13 counties in New York served by the Rochester Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO).

STUDY DESIGN
Linear regression models with provider and year fixed effects were used to estimate changes in the probability of utilization outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries attributed to providers adopting directed and/or query-based HIE compared with beneficiaries attributed to providers who had not adopted HIE.

DATA COLLECTION
Providers' HIE adoption status was determined through Rochester RHIO registration records. RHIO and claims data were linked via National Provider Identifiers.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS
Query-based HIE adoption was associated with a 0.2 percentage point reduction in the probability of an ambulatory care sensitive hospitalization and a 1.1 percentage point decrease in the likelihood of an unplanned readmission. Directed HIE adoption was not associated with any outcome.

CONCLUSIONS
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) EHR certification criteria includes requirements for directed HIE, but not query-based HIE. Pending further research, certification criteria should place equal weight on facilitating query-based and directed exchange.


We have characterized cDNAs coding for three Na,K-ATPase alpha subunit isoforms from the rat, a species resistant to ouabain. Northern blot and S1-nuclease mapping analyses revealed that these alpha subunit mRNAs are expressed in a tissue-specific and developmentally regulated fashion. The mRNA for the alpha 1 isoform, approximately equal to 4.5 kb long, is expressed in all fetal and adult rat tissues examined. The alpha 2 mRNA, also approximately equal to 4.5 kb long, is expressed predominantly in brain and fetal heart. The alpha 3 cDNA detected two mRNA species: a approximately equal to 4.5 kb mRNA present in most tissues and a approximately equal to 6 kb mRNA, found only in fetal brain, adult brain, heart, and skeletal muscle. The deduced amino acid sequences of these isoforms are highly conserved. However, significant differences in codon usage and patterns of genomic DNA hybridization indicate that the alpha subunits are encoded by a multigene family. Structural analysis of the alpha subunits from rat and other species predicts a polytopic protein with seven membrane-spanning regions. Isoform diversity of the alpha subunit may provide a biochemical basis for Na,K-ATPase functional diversity.


Flexible phased arrays potentially enable diverse applications not permitted by rigid systems; however, they introduce ambiguity in antenna element positions. If this position ambiguity can be overcome, flexible arrays can perform the full suite of array functions: beam steering, wavefront engineering, and beam focusing. Furthermore, shape reconstructions of arrays can be used for applications beyond beamforming. We propose a framework to reconstruct the shape of a flexible array that only uses mutual coupling measurements and does not require additional sensors or functionalities in the system. We discuss the approach, a two-step algorithm, which is highly modular and can be implemented in a variety of phased array systems. To demonstrate the accuracy of the approach, we present results from two passive 2.5-GHz phased array setups using dipole and patch antennas, as well as a 10-GHz (active) integrated circuit flexible phased array, and demonstrate the accuracy of the approach in this system. In all cases, the algorithm reconstructs the antenna shape accurately, with average position errors of approximately 6% of the wavelength. This article can serve as the beginning of the broad study of shape reconstruction algorithms and their applications.


We examined the role played by temperature in the duration of incubation and sex ratio of green turtle hatchlings at Ascension Island, one of the most important green turtle rookeries in the Atlantic. Temperature at control sites at nest depth and in 39 green turtle nests was measured using small temperature recording devices. The sex ratio of hatchlings was ascertained in a sub-sample of monitored nests allowing the description of the relationship between intranest temperature and hatchling sex ratio, demonstrating a pivotal incubation temperature of 28.8°C. The seasonal profile in sex ratio of hatchlings produced on all nesting beaches at Ascension Island was estimated, showing that a female-biased sex ratio would be expected with a female:male ratio of the order of 3:1. The use of nest temperature, air temperature, sand temperature at control sites, and incubation duration as proxies to estimate hatchling sex ratio are discussed.


This paper examines the challenges and opportunities for integrating peer support in mental health. After reviewing the contemporary literature, it considers how the findings of a recent qualitative case study, which examined the perspectives of mental health service users (n = 11) on service-user participation and evidence-based practice, might inform the introduction of a peer support program into a mental health service provided by a large Australian non-government organisation. While there is little empirical evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of peer support, the study revealed that service users valued the expertise of their peers and offered guidance for translating evidence into service models.


Our experience with intravenous fluorescein involved 38 administrations in 29 patients. In all, 24 percent were associated with a drop in blood pressure of 20 mmHg or more and 8 percent with a blood pressure fall of 60 mmHg or more. We believe that physicians using fluorescein in bolus form should be aware of the problem of blood pressure reduction and be prepared to take restorative measures when necessary.


This paper mainly introduces the Wideband 5-bit MMIC digital attenuator with high precision. Firstly, the theories of basic GaAs digital attenuator MMICâ??s configurations are searched. Secondly, every possible configuration is contrasted, subsequently, appropriate topology is selected for each stage. This attenuator has been realized by 0.5µm GaAs pHEMT process. Simulation results of the digital attenuator has 0.25dB resolution and 7.75dB dynamic attenuation range, Input Voltage Standing Wave Ratio(VSWRIN) was less than 1.55 and Output Voltage Standing Wave Ratio(VSWROUT) was less than 1.6 for all attenuation states, high attenuation accuracy is less than ±0.26dB; insertion loss is less than 1.3dB; The layout of the digital attenuator with a chip size is 0.93 mmA?1.45 mm


Background Unit-dose drug distribution is a medication management system, promoted by ISMETT clinical pharmacy, for optimal pharmaceutical patient care. Suitable software was fundamental to controlling the therapeutic process from prescription to the administration to patients in the care unit. Purpose The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the efficiency of the software in 2 areas: helping pharmacists do their job and preventing failure of drug administration. Materials and methods The software used by the pharmacy processes all information about the patient and the injectable medicines prescribed in the electronic clinical chart. A label is generated for each preparation and all information (patient's name, date of birth, identification code, unit, room, drug, dose, dilution, expiry date, rate of administration and storage conditions) is printed. A barcode is used for the last check before administration. Then technician prepares the daily batch of injections under pharmacist supervision. Results From January to September 2011, 75000 preparations were made (average of 275 per day). 31% were continuous infusions and 69% were bolus including antibiotics (46%), gastroprotectives (12%), cardiac stimulants (9%), antihypertensives (5%), antiarrhythmics (1.5%), hypoglycaemics (7%), anaesthetics (6%), antithrombotics (5%), antifungals (2%), antivirals (1%), other (8.5%). This software supports the pharmacist in providing the right drug to the right patient in the right dose and dosage form by means of the electronic interface with the clinical chart data. Moreover the time taken for preparation was reduced by 40% and no errors were found in label data. Batch preparation also reduced waste. Conclusions The system adopted increased the overall quality level enabling patients' treatment to be matched to their real needs. Software provides a fundamental support for drug management and allows the elimination of labelling errors. This leads to better drug monitoring (several reports are generated) and reduced costs (reduction of the time spent on management).


Several papers have proven that the institutional environment of the receiving country can influence the choice to establish an FDI. Property rights theory suggests that contract enforcement matters differentially across sectors. This paper is the first attempt to test whether institutions matter differentially across different sectors in FDI decision. Using data on U.S. Direct Investment Abroad, I find that institutional characteristics of the country and the industry positively affect the volume of offshoring between U.S. companies and their affiliates. The suggested argument is stronger for the intermediate products, while the evidence is weak for products ready for sale.


The effect of vanadium on the bainite transformation of medium carbon high silicon steel during air cooling was studied by using Optical Microscopy (OM) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). The mechanical properties of the test steels subjected to heat treatment were measured by tensile, hardness and impact tests. The results showed that, through the same heat treatment process, the microstructure of the V-alloyed steel was comprised of Carbide-Free Bainite (CFB, bainite + retained austenite) and martensite while the microstructure of the V-free steel was composed of ferrite/pearlite, which made the V-alloyed steels exhibit superior combination of strength, hardness and toughness to the V-free steel, but the elongation of the V-alloyed steel was worse than that of the V-free steel somewhat. Vanadium was helpful for the transformation of bainite in the tested medium carbon high silicon steel under air cooling condition. The carbon-enriched retained austenite films in the CFB enhanced the toughness of the V-alloyed steel.


In An Account of My Hut, a 13th-century classic of Japanese literature, Kamo no Chōmei honors the Buddhist practice of non-attachment, of stripping down to the basics and releasing one's illusions that physical comforts, especially a large home with servants and multiple rooms, will bring permanent happiness. Whirlwinds and earthquakes remind Chōmei of the fragility of the world, and in beautiful prose he tells of his retreat from the planet's material lures. At last, at the age of 60, he leaves virtually everything and everyone behind to build a simple mountainside hut, a human "cocoon," a place where he is less afraid to face unpredictable natural disasters and a constant lack of solidity. He asks for nothing; nor does he want for anything. Centuries later, another great Japanese author, Haruki Murakami, also offers counsel to a nation in the wake of disaster, the earthquake that struck the city of Kobe in 1995, killing over 6000 human beings. Though it is fiction, Murakami's After the Quake is as well an attempt to provide real-life Japanese with a way forward, though his argument seems contrary to Chōmei's sense that since nothing beneath our feet is solid, all must be forsaken. In fact, Murakami worries that Japan has lived for far too long in the Chōmei-like spirit of distrust (however understandable) and isolation; he counsels a new beginning, one steeped in the hope of community and in the beauty of family.


CONTEXT
Adequate uterine volume and ovarian reserve are essential for reproductive health. Antenatal events such as restricted fetal growth and maternal tobacco smoking are hypothesized to impact on reproductive function in later life, although not studied in a large prospective normal pregnancy population to date.

OBJECTIVE
The objective of the study was to determine the relationship between intrauterine growth, birth weight, and maternal tobacco smoking on uterine volume and ovarian reserve in adolescence.

DESIGN AND SETTING
This was a prospective study in which half the cohort underwent intensive ultrasound monitoring in utero.

PARTICIPANTS
Intrauterine growth was measured using ultrasound at 18, 24, 28, and 34/36 wk gestation (n = 115 girls). Maternal smoking data were prospectively collected at 18 and 34/36 wk from the whole cohort. Uterine (n = 229) and early follicular ovarian volume and antral follicle count (n = 225) were measured using transabdominal ultrasound (n = 230). Ovarian reserve was estimated using early follicular phase anti-Mullerian hormone, inhibin B, and FSH (n = 213).

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
The relationship between maternal tobacco smoking, intrauterine growth trajectories, and markers of ovarian reserve and uterine size in adolescence was measured.

RESULTS
Linear regression showed that daughters of mothers who smoked had a significantly smaller uterus compared with nonsmokers (P = 0.019). No significant relationship between maternal tobacco smoking and ovarian volume (P = 0.164) or markers of ovarian reserve (antral follicle count, plasma FSH, anti-Mullerian hormone, and inhibin B) in adolescence was determined.

CONCLUSIONS
Our findings indicate that maternal smoking, but not variations in fetal growth, may lead to a reduction in uterine volume and does not appear to impact ovarian reserve.


OBJECTIVE To investigate the haemodynamic effects of varying the angle of head up tilt. METHODS 20 healthy subjects (12 female, eight male; mean (SD) age 33.6 (8.4) years) underwent head up tilt for five minutes to each of four angles of tilt in random order, with a five minute rest period at the horizontal between each angle. Forearm blood flow was measured using intermittent occlusion mercury strain gauge plethysmography at two and five minutes. Subjects underwent continuous monitoring of heart rate, systolic blood pressure (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) by Finapres and cardiac output and stroke volume by impedance cardiography. Each variable was measured at two and five minutes, averaged over the period of blood flow measurement. RESULTS Every haemodynamic variable at each angle was significantly different from supine values. Head up tilt produced progressive increases in heart rate (11–21%), SBP (12–21%), and DBP (20–33%) with increasing tilt angle. However, although 45° produced significantly less haemodynamic effect, there were no significant differences for angles between 60° and 90°. Cardiac output fell on head up tilt by 17–20% and stroke volume by 28–34%, but increasing tilt angle produced no significant additional reduction in cardiac output and stroke volume because of increases in heart rate and vasoconstriction. CONCLUSIONS Angles < 60° produce significantly less haemodynamic effects than steeper angles. Increasing tilt angle beyond 60° produces no apparent additional effect on cardiac output or sympathetic tone. Increasing tilt angle beyond 60° confers no additional orthostatic stress and may not affect the sensitivity and specificity of head up tilt testing as previously thought. Sixty degrees of tilt is a more practical angle for support of a syncopal patient and is recommended.


Thalassemia major is a recessively inherited haematological disorder, which involves a
complete lack or reduction of beta protein in the hemoglobin, causing life-threatening anemia.
Management requires patients to have life-long access to a treatment regimen of fortnightly
blood transfusions and daily chelation therapy, imposing major demands on children and their
families. Much of the research in the area of paediatric, chronic illnesses such as thalassemia
major has investigated psychosocial impact and adjustment to the illness. However, the lived
experiences of children and their families and the meanings assigned to these experiences
have received little empirical attention. Additionally, the experiences of specialist healthcare
professionals have been particularly neglected. Despite the high prevalence of thalassemia in
Pakistan, the majority of existing research has been conducted in Western countries.
Therefore, the present research adopted a multi-perspective approach, to explore the
experiences of key people involved in thalassemia in Pakistan, namely, children, their mothers
and healthcare professionals. Study 1 explored the experiences of 12 children (aged 8-12
years) living with thalassemia, viewing them as active agents (Prout & James, 1997). Studies
2 and 3 explored the experiences of their mothers (N=12) and healthcare professionals (N=4)
as the primary and professional caregivers, respectively. All of the participants were recruited
from a treatment centre in Multan, Pakistan. Each of these groups were studied in two phases;
in phase 1, five focus groups and two role-plays (with children only) were conducted and
analysed using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The purpose of phase 1 was to
obtain an understanding of the participants' core concerns in order to develop the interview
guide for phase 2, which aimed to provide an in-depth understanding of these experiences. In
phase 2, 28 in-depth individual interviews were conducted with each participant in all three
groups and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA).
For study 1, the findings consisted of three superordinate themes: 'Loss of normal childhood',
'Minimizing differences', and 'Redefining self'. These themes were interrelated and reflected
the burden of living with thalassemia and the wide array of coping strategies used by children
living with thalassemia.
Study 2 (mothers) resulted in four superordinate themes. Across the first two themes; 'Living
with a chronic heartache' and 'Child becomes the focal point', mothers shared the difficulties
associated with being a primary caregiver. The remaining two themes; 'Focus on
normalization' and 'Vigilant parenting' were reflective of the coping strategies adopted by
mothers to deal with caregiving stress.
The findings of study 3 with healthcare professionals were composed of four superordinate
themes where the first two themes; 'Making sense of work-related frustrations', and 'Blurring
of boundaries' shed light on the frustrations, helplessness, emotional distress and dilemmas of
professional caregiving. In particular, the healthcare professionals related the tension between
empathetic behaviour and distress. The latter two themes; 'Seeking satisfaction', and
'Ascertaining and re-ascertaining boundaries' illustrated the coping efforts of the healthcare
professionals to address the stress of professional caregiving.
The current research provides unique insights and expands our understanding of the experiences of the main people directly involved with the illness. The findings of all three
studies revealed a complex interplay of themes, which highlight the fluctuating and dynamic
nature of attempts to manage the condition and caregiving, and which is in contrast to the
progressive, linear approaches of adjustment often employed in the chronic illness literature.
Participants vacillated between feeling overwhelmed by the burden of illness/caregiving and
adaptation. This vacillation was influenced by their personal and social setting; any change in
these contexts could potentially disrupt the coping process. The findings also elucidate the
paradoxes of coping efforts since, at times, coping itself contributed towards the burden
associated with thalassemia major/caregiving. Moreover, the coping strategies of the
participants in all three groups remained vulnerable.
The multi-perspective account was achieved by comparing the the experiences of children,
mothers and the healthcare professionals at the group level. It highlighted various similarities
as well as differences in the accounts of the participants in the three groups. It revealed a
complex interaction between their experiences and described how coping strategies/stress of
one group was sometimes perceived as stress-inducing by the other group. Such insights
highlight the importance of a multi-perspective approach, which allowed the identification of
areas for improvement in healthcare provision. The theoretical, methodological and practical
implications of the current research are discussed.


Mothers and children from impoverished families discuss the continuous sacrifices related to food insecurity. Sacrifices like trade-offs can lead to attention of a family's immediate needs like food but these often come with the cost or sacrifice of other long term needs such as a means of income. Working with children and their families in attending to the underlying causes for their food insecurity may not only help to alleviate their immediate but also their long term needs in maintaining a standard of living. This systematic literature review was designed to investigate the research question: What interventions are being taken by social workers in schools to improve nutritional education and food accessibility among school-aged children from disadvantaged families? The literature review was set up using peerreviewed and scholarly articles published after 2000. The PsycINFO database was systematically searched using the terms; "nutrition" and "school" and "social work" or "social services". From this search five articles satisfied criteria for inclusion but only four were available in full text and used in the final review. Five underlying themes emerged from the research synthesis regarding areas in which social workers could apply interventions for improve childhood nutrition; 1) policies, programs, and basic human rights, 2) deterrents and barriers to acquiring nutrition, 3) the school setting, 4) food quantity isn't enough, and 5) duties of the social worker. These five themes were them applied to the three levels of the ecological perspective; macro, mezzo, and micro. Moving forward, additional research is highly required regarding childhood nutrition and the role of the social worker in order to better understand other areas for potential interventions and improvement. Exploration of empowerment approaches should also be taken into consideration, especially those that align with parents and emphasize the point that food insecurity is not their fault, but a fault of society. This could potentially be an important therapeutic strategy as well as an area for further study.


Background and aims: Patient safety is one of the main factors in quality of services provided by a health system. Patient safety culture plays a key role in improvement of patient safety, reduction of medical errors, and prevention of adverse events in health care organizations. Thereby, the present study is aimed to survey patient safety culture in hospitals of Neyshabur University of Medical Sciences. Methods: This research was a cross sectional study that conducted on all qualified staff of hospitals affiliated with Neyshabur University of Medical Sciences in 2013. Hospital Survey of Patient Safety Culture (HSOPSC) questionnaire was used to assess patient safety culture. The collected data were analyzed in SPSS (16), using Chi-Square test and logistic regression model. Results: Total score average of patient safety culture was 25.50±9.52. The results showed that among the twelve dimensions the highest and lowest scores were obtained by the supervisor/ manager expectations & actions promoting patient safety (score rate 45) and the reporting frequency of adverse events (score rate 15) respectively According to logistic regression model there was also significant relationship between the patient safety culture and direct contact with the patient, employment duration in hospital, and current unit (p<0.05). Conclusion: Total average of patient safety culture and scores of all twelve dimensions were lower than the acceptable criteria. Patient safety culture in the studied hospitals urgently needs enhancement and improvement. So, creating policies to institutionalize and enhance patient safety culture among the staffs are recommended.


: The causes of death in a rural hospital in Bophuthatswana were recorded in 1983, 1984 and 1985. Several preventable conditions were found to be the most common causes of death in adults and in children.


A reflection on research methods is an essential part of any project related to design Today we are facing a new era of industrial automation and interconnection which drives the transition of human workplaces. New technologies but also novel business processes lead to a shift of worker related requirements at the data-intensive manufacturing workplace on the shop floor or in knowledge-intensive maintenance field operations. HCI research is already dealing with these new challenges by developing and providing practical assistance solutions which bring together again the power of industrial automation with the flexibility of human intelligence. We wish you an interesting reading with the four papers collected in this special issue on ""Human Computer Interaction Perspectives on Industry 4.0". They all shed a different light on ongoing HCI research in this exciting interdisciplinary field. The paper "Mobile Service Technician 4.0 – Knowledge-Sharing Solutions for Industrial Field Maintenance" by Kaasinen et al. describe a human-centered design process for future workplaces of mobile service technicians. The paper demonstrates nicely the transformation of traditional workplaces through new technologies and the implications on human-centered design processes. In particular knowledge sharing will be affected but also time savings from avoiding useless waiting periods for technicians. The paper "University-industry Interoperability Framework for Developing the Future Competences of Industry 4.0" by Kusmin et al. is a good example for the changing nature of higher education in preparing students for future workplaces. It proposes a dynamic work-integrated curriculum where competency-related feedback loops can be established between higher education institutes, industry and students with the goal to develop work-integrated learning models. The paper "Teaching Styles of Virtual Training Systems for Industrial Applications – A Review of the Literature" by Loch et al. is a review of existing virtual training systems for industry 4.0. It reviews almost 50 papers along the dimensions instruction (concrete, abstract, overview, structure), presentation (output modality/device, realism, feedback), interaction (input device, activity) and adaptation (adaptivity, contextual factors, adaptability). The conclusions are that the systems are very similar in teaching but limited in the adaptation dimension. Murauer and Pflanz present a field study with "A full shift field study to evaluate userand process-oriented aspects of smart glasses in automotive order picking processes". One of the major current limitations is the lacking full shift capabilities of AR devices. In this study, health oriented aspects as well as performance aspects are researched using smart glasses in order picking processes.


Abstract 2 Heme, a complex of iron and protoporphyrin IX, is ubiquitous in aerobic cells, serving as the prosthetic group for essential hemoproteins. However, an excess of intracellular "free" heme is toxic to cells, promoting lipid peroxidation, membrane injury, reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, and ultimately apoptosis, necessitating tight regulation. FLVCR is a human erythroid progenitor cell membrane transporter that exports heme from the cytosol, thereby protecting cells from heme toxicity (Quigley et al. Cell, 2004). It is also highly expressed at sites of heme trafficking including the liver, gut, kidney and erythrophagocytic macrophages. In accordance with its function and expression pattern, our knockout mouse model demonstrates that FLVCR is important both for erythropoiesis and for systemic iron homeostasis (Keel et al. Science 2008). Female mosquitoes ingest ∼10 times their weight in blood in a single meal, thus large quantities of heme are released into the midgut lumen, a source of toxic ROS. Notably, hematophagy also represents a major bottleneck in the Plasmodium lifecycle. Gametes egressing from disintegrating RBCs are fertilized within the midgut lumen, forming small numbers of ookinetes that are susceptible to ROS as they traverse the mosquito midgut epithelial cells (to develop into oocysts). Indeed, numerous studies demonstrate that mosquitoes with increased midgut oxidative stress are resistant to Plasmodium transmission. We hypothesize that dysregulation of anopheline FLVCR–mediated heme export by the mosquito midgut epithelium will increase epithelial cell oxidative stress and impact Plasmodium transmission at its weakest point. Using genomic approaches, we isolated anopheline orthologs of FLVCR from the prevalent malaria transmission vectors, Anopheles gambiae and A. stephensi . The AgFLVCR cDNA predicts a 51kDa protein of 474 aa; the sequence of AsFLVCR (474 aa) is 97% identical. Like FLVCR, both genes are predicted to encode Major Facilitator Superfamily transporter proteins containing 12 TM domains, with the N– and C–termini in the cytosol. Overexpression of AgFLVCR cDNA in (rat) NRK cells results in an increase in export of ZnMP (a fluorescent heme analog) comparable to that observed with NRK cells overexpressing human FLVCR—a rate significantly greater (∼2–fold) than that of control NRK cells, as measured by quantitative microscopy (n=4, p Asflvcr or Agflvcr and ZnMP export analyzed using flow cytometry. The increase is blocked by specific siRNA against Asflvcr or Agflvcr . As expected, incubation with exogenous heme (20 μ M) reduces viability of NRK cells. However, overexpression of AsFLVCR in NRK cells, by reducing intracellular ROS levels by ∼ 40%, improves their viability 3–fold (n=3, p A. stephensi mosquitoes, we demonstrate robust upregulation of AsFLVCR mRNA (Fig. A, left) and protein (right) at 24 h after hematophagy, while confocal fluorescence immunolocalization studies with an antibody (Ab) generated against an intracellular epitope of AsFLVCR show cell membrane targeting in midgut epithelial cells following a blood meal (Fig. B; blue, DAPI; green, AsFLVCR). Importantly, dsRNA-mediated knockdown of AsFLVCR in mosquitoes decreases midgut Asflvcr mRNA by 85%, resulting in a 30% reduction in protein levels post-hematophagy. A polyclonal Ab (α-AsFLVCR) was also generated against an extracellular epitope. Preliminary studies indicate it impairs heme export from Sf9 cells overexpressing AsFLVCR. At present we are evaluating the effects of α-AsFLVCR– or dsRNA–mediated blockade of AsFLVCR heme export function on Plasmodium oocyst survival, salivary gland sporozoite development, mosquito midgut ROS production and mosquito fecundity. If these results validate our hypothesis, modulation of anopheline FLVCR–like proteins may serve as a means of controlling malaria. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


The massive penetration of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) will unavoidably change the fundamental principles of Power System operation. Modern grid codes define specific capabilities and protections of DERs, mostly focused on the behaviour of the units to abrupt voltage and frequency excursions. In this paper, we use the Cyprus power system to analyze the impact of DER protections and capabilities on the bulk power system dynamic behaviour for different RES penetration levels on a low-inertia islanded system. It is demonstrated that the DER capabilities positively affect the power system frequency stability by providing active power support. On the contrary, protection mechanisms of DERs can have a negative impact on frequency stability during severe events with high RES penetrations, but the impact is significantly affected by their settings.


Tilapia has become one of the major species of aquatic products in close link with both domestic and international markets. Nowadays, the demand for fish and fisheries product has being exacerbated by the continued increase in human population the world over. This was due to the fact that global captured fishery was declining following the increased human exploitation for the commercially important fishes. Aquaculture or fish farming has become one of the solutions to maintaining the continuous supply of fish to commercial markets. China was by far the largest producer and exporter of tilapia products irrespective of some constraints such as soaring production costs, price and weather fluctuations. In the country, tilapia production was mostly carried out in the southern and southeastern coastal areas where subtropical conditions favored the growth and reproduction of the species. This paper reports on production and marketing systems of tilapia in China. Tilapia products produced in China had to pass through different channels before reaching their final consumers. Major international markets for tilapia products produced in China included among others, the United State, European


Silica monolith column having mixed-mode i.e., hydrophobic (C18) and anion exchange interaction was successfully synthesized by on-column modification of the hybrid tetramethoxysilanes (TMOS) and methyltrimethoxysilanes (MTMS) using octadecyldimethyl-(N-N-diethylamino)silane (ODS) and ion exchange monomer of N-[3-(dimethylamino)propyl]acrylamide (DMAPAA-Q) methyl chloride-quaternary salt, for the surface modification. The preparation of the ODS/DMAPAA-Q silica monolith column was carried out in a fused silica capillary column of 75 µm internal diameter. At each modification stage, the ODS/DMAPAA-Q silica monolith column was chromatographically characterized with micro liquid chromatography (µLC) and produced separation efficiencies of up to 43000 plates/min at the optimum velocity using the test mixture of alkylbenzenes, and 41800 plates/min for selected nucleotides. The ODS/DMAPAA-Q silica monolith column was also characterized physically with scanning electron microscope (SEM), and showed to have an average through-pore size and skeleton size of 2.2 µm and 2.0 µm, respectively. The ODS/DMAPAA-Q silica monolith column was then characterized in capillary electrochromatography (CEC) for the separation of inorganic and organic ions using a 50 mM phosphate pH 6.9 background electrolyte. The inorganic anions and organic ions were separated within 10 mins with column efficiency up to 114900 plates/min. The results suggest that modifying a silica monolith capillary column through in-situ polymerization of a monomer carrying a functional group can yield high efficiency columns for the ion-exchange-mode separation as well as for reversed-phased separations. The analysis of the porous silica monolith columns with CEC yields higher performance than CZE analysis for the separation of anions.


The transfer from the current power grid to the power grid of the future implicates major changes for all stakeholders participating in the smart grid. Hence, utilities have to face several novel problems in terms of service provision. In this contribution, we examine two complementary views in the overall context of smart grids. We argue for a combination of those two views, based on ontology mappings. We explain a generic top-down and EA-related view, focused on intra-enterprise communication as well as a very domain-specific, technical bottom-up view, focused on inter-enterprise communication. The top-down view supports architects in reorganizing and developing enterprise SOA, whereas the bottom-up view takes into account the CIM (IEC 61970/61968), OPC UA (IEC 62541) and semantic web services to cope with technical interoperability in an utility domain-specific SOA. The combination of those two views results in the capability for smart grid stakeholders to realize seamless information exchange among field and IT.


"Genetic erosion in animal genetic resources (AnGR) is of concern where livelihoods of the poor are affected and option values for society are being lost. The poor often live in marginal areas and their livestock maintain adaptive characteristics. However, processes leading to genetic erosion do not precipitate adaptation through natural selection. This paper explores how local property rights systems in poor communities for AnGR are organized. The dynamism and dialectical aspects of these systems are considered and the impact of their breakdown assessed in terms of AnGR diversity. The conservation of AnGR option values through livestock husbandry by the poor is a hitherto unrecognized and unrewarded service to society." Author's Abstract


Failure to appear (FTA) rates in the U.S. can be as high as 25-30% depending on jurisdiction and type of offense. These failures to appear are costly for the criminal justice system as they can lead to inefficient use of time and resources, and FTA can also be costly for defendants by leading to additional court dates, enhanced penalties, and even collateral consequences such as suddenly missing work while detained on the FTA charge (even though the original offense did not result in a detention). What's more, minorities are more likely to fail to appear than Whites, raising a race justice situation. Might it be possible to reduce FTA via a simple intervention?


A new method of designing x-ray supermirrors with broad angular or energy response for use as coatings in x-ray optics is presented. The design is based on an analytical method with oversimplified analytical and semi-empirical formulae, and an extensive numerical method is used in the optimization design. A better initial multilayer is obtained with the former method and optimized with the latter method. In the optimization, a good design is achieved with much less computing time. In addition, the saturation effect due to the interracial roughness in multilayer also emerges in the design of x-ray supermirrors with definite performances. The reflectivity of C/W x-ray supermirrors as a function of photon energy at the fixed grazing incident angle 0.5° is presented.


Biogeographers have tried to explain the geographic patterns of biodiversity for more than two centuries. As early as the 18th Century differences in climate were the first cause invoked to explain why the composition of species and their forms vary in space. The large amount of evidence in favor of a covariation between climatic and biodiversity gradients supports the use of contemporary factors as the main predictor of species distribution ranges. However, although it is clear that current environmental conditions affect species distributions, this ahistorical view may neglect the role played by other processes. Species distributions are also the result of many other factors related with the evolutionary history of the species, their dispersal ability and/or the history of land and climate. The different aspects of this historical view have been also largely studied and acknowledged. Here we discuss how these historical factors can produce spatial patterns of diversity that correlate with contemporary climatic gradients. We review recent advances that synthesize a more complex conceptualization of the factors affecting species distributions, highlighting the differences between potential and realized distributions. We discuss how can non-contemporary factors be partly taken into account in Species Distribution Modelling (SDM) through (i) an informed choice of the extent of the analysis – that restricts it to the areas where no historical processes have limited the range of the species; and (ii) a good choice of the evaluation dataset – that allows to determine the success of the model in describing the particular aspect of the distribution of the species that is being studied. We recommend a thoughtful approach to SDMs, based on a careful design of the analyses that ensures that they are the most adequate to help answering the particular questions of each study.


abstract:Sea travel was both uncomfortable and hazardous in the late sixteenth century, and even more so for women. Shakespeare's shipwrecked twins in Twelfth Night (1602) grace the stage at a time when sea travel for women was both uncommon and fraught with danger. Seafaring women faced captivity, slavery, and enforced marriage as passengers or the rare sailor aboard captured vessels, and this danger served to actively discourage sea travel for women. Viola, however, is not the first woman literary traveler to shipwreck on the shores of Illyria. Harmonia, wife of Cadmus in Ovid'sMetamorphoses, arrives first. These female travelers' mobility and metamorphosis within their respective tales resist the anticipated resolutions of romance and, in Twelfth Night, festival. Like Harmonia, Viola's Illyrian shipwreck transforms her gender, her shape, and ultimately her identity. Ancient and early modern knowledge of Illyria, the geographic and cultural region, also underscores thematic emphasis on travel and mobility within Twelfth Night. The shipwreck, the cross-dressing, and the lover's complaints all frame Viola as a character from romance. However, by 1602, the maritime might of the English and the rapidly growing seafaring infrastructure also infuse this text. Viola the page-errant is also the early modern woman voyager, a less explored aspect of Viola's crisis of identity on the shores of Illyria.


The fundamental processes of genetics have been captured with synthetic molecules. Genetics provides a mechanism for molecular memory and thus the basis for Darwinian evolution. It involves the storage and propagation of molecular information and the refinement of that information through experience and differential survival. Heretofore, the only molecules known to be capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution were RNA and DNA, the genetic molecules of biology. But on page 341 of this issue, Pinheiro et al. (1) expand the palette considerably. They report six alternative genetic polymers that can be used to store and propagate information; one of these was made to undergo Darwinian evolution in response to imposed selection constraints. The work heralds the era of synthetic genetics, with implications for exobiology, biotechnology, and understanding of life itself.


The structural and optical properties of virgin and gamma rays irradiation on aromatic polymers (PET, PES and Kapton) at various doses varying from 16 to 300kGy. The optical and Structural studies have been observed by using UV-VIS Spectroscopy and Powder X- Ray Diffration techniques. The diffraction pattern of virgin samples shows that polymers are semi crystalline in nature. But due to irradiation, the overall crystalline peak intensity and crystallite size is found to be increased with increasing dose. The UV-Visible absorption spectra show the existence of the maximum absorption, their shifting and broadening as a result of gamma irradiation has been discussed. Finally the value of direct and indirect band gap in virgin and gamma irradiated on aromatic polymers has been decreased.


In recent years, much has been written about motors concerning efficiencies, vibration, and resonance conditions as they relate to the American Petroleum Institutes Standard 541 and motor diagnostics. Most of these papers and articles assume that the reader has significant knowledge of motor theory and operation. However, this assumption is overly optimistic, considering that only a few colleges teach motor theory today and that application experience at motor-user locations has been reduced in recent years


A possible mechanism for intercellular invasion is that the strength of adhesion between host and invading cells is greater than the average of the strengths of homotypic adhesions. This hypothesis has been examined by a study of the kinetics of aggregation of dispersed populations of an invasive cell type (the rabbit peritoneal neutrophil granulocyte) and a host cell type (the chick embryo heart fibroblast) in shaken suspension culture. Since aggregation in mixed populations of the 2 cell types demonstrated tissue specificity, the hypothesis is not supported by these studies, heterotypic adhesions seem in fact to be weaker than homotypic adhesions.


Abstract. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is commonly used to make high-resolution future projections of regional climate by downscaling global climate model (GCM) outputs. Because the GCM fields are typically at a much coarser spatial resolution than the target regional downscaled fields, lakes are often poorly resolved in the driving global fields, if they are resolved at all. In such an application, using WRF's default interpolation methods can result in unrealistic lake temperatures and ice cover at inland water points. Prior studies have shown that lake temperatures and ice cover impact the simulation of other surface variables, such as air temperatures and precipitation, two fields that are often used in regional climate applications to understand the impacts of climate change on human health and the environment. Here, alternative methods for setting lake surface variables in WRF for downscaling simulations are presented and contrasted.


We report on the composition of the Halley-family comet (HFC) 8P/Tuttle investigated with high-dispersion near-infrared spectroscopic observations. The observations were carried out at the ESO VLT (Very Large Telescope) with the CRIRES instrument as part of a multi-wavelength observation campaign of 8P/Tuttle performed in late January and early February 2008. Radar observations suggested that 8P/Tuttle is a contact binary, and it was proposed that these components might be heterogeneous in chemistry. We determined mixing ratios of organic volatiles with respect to H2O and found that mixing ratios were consistent with previous near infrared spectroscopic observations obtained in late December 2007 and in late January 2008. It has been suggested that because 8P/Tuttle is a contact binary, it might be chemically heterogeneous. However, we find no evidence for chemical heterogeneity within the nucleus of 8P/Tuttle. We also compared the mixing ratios of organic molecules in 8P/Tuttle with those of both other HFCs and long period comets (LPCs) and found that HCN, C2H2 ,a nd C 2H6 are depleted whereas CH4 and CH3OH have normal abundances. This may indicate that 8P/Tuttle was formed in a different region of the early solar nebula than other HFCs and LPCs. We estimated the conversion efficiency from C2H2 to C2H6 by hydrogen addition reactions on cold grains by employing the C2H6/(C2H6+C2H2) ratio. The C2H6/(C2H6+C2H2) ratio in 8P/Tuttle is consistent with the ratios found in other HFCs and LPCs within the error bars. We also discuss the source of C2 and CN based on our observations and conclude that the abundances of C2H2 and C2H6 are insufficient to explain the C2 abundances in comet 8P/Tuttle and that the abundance of HCN is insufficient to explain the CN abundances in the comet, so at least one additional parent is needed for each species, as pointed out in previous study.


Miraculin is a promising protein with taste-modifying properties. Focusing on the unique function and potential of miraculin, recombinant miraculin production has been explored with the use of heterologous expression systems, but the activities of recombinant miraculins were much lower than those of native miraculin, probably due to the difference in post-translational modification, especially N-glycosylation. For practical use therefore, the differences between N-glycan of recombinant miraculin compared to that of native miraculin should be minimized. Here, to establish the platform for functional miraculin production, we expressed miraculin in tomato plants with the same taste-modifying activity as native miraculin purified from miracle fruit, and we compared the N-glycan structures with those of native miraculin. Our N-glycan structural analysis using purified miraculin, followed by hydrazynolysis, 2-pyridylamine (PA)-labeling, high-performance liquid chromatography, and a liquid chromatography tandem-mass spectrometry analysis revealed that both the native and recombinant miraculins carried an M3 structure as a predominant structure and that most of the N-glycan structures on the miraculins were pauci-mannosidic structures with a smaller amount of plant-specific α1,3-fucosylated and/or β1,2-xylosylated N-glycans and without a Lewis a epitope. These results indicate that the N-glycoform of native miraculin from miracle fruit and recombinant miraculin expressed in tomato plants are almost identical to each other with similar ratios and that, therefore, plant-specific N-glycans are essential for showing the full taste-modifying activity of miraculin.


Lidocaine has been used as a local anesthetic by injection. The controlled release of lidocaine loaded into nanospheres is necessary to reduce the onset time of the anesthetic effect or increase the anesthetic analgesia duration. In this study, mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) with a large specific surface area were prepared by a sol-gel method, and the interfacial interaction between MSNs and lidocaine positively charged in aqueous solutions at different concentrations was investigated by adsorption tests, Fourier-transformed infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetry-differential thermal analysis, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) measurements. The electrostatic interaction between Si-OH on MSNs and lidocaine-NH+ was of importance for the adsorption phenomenon in aqueous solutions, indicating the monolayer adsorption of lidocaine. BET measurements also supported the decrease of pore volumes, and the hysteresis loop of the isotherm curve was not closed since the condensation of lidocaine in the mesopores formed micropores of less than 1.5 nm in size. The release profiles in phosphate buffered saline containing calcium and magnesium ions showed a rapid and higher release of lidocaine compared with that in phosphate buffered saline without divalent cations. The released lidocaine concentrations were sufficient for the expression of the anesthetic effect in dental anesthesia.


Offshore wind farm developments may impact protected marine mammal populations, requiring appropriate assessment under the EU Habitats Directive. We describe a framework developed to assess population level impacts of disturbance from piling noise on a protected harbour seal population in the vicinity of proposed wind farm developments in NE Scotland. Spatial patterns of seal distribution and received noise levels are integrated with available data on the potential impacts of noise to predict how many individuals are displaced or experience auditory injury. Expert judgement is used to link these impacts to changes in vital rates and applied to population models that compare population changes under baseline and construction scenarios over a 25 year period. We use published data and hypothetical piling scenarios to illustrate how the assessment framework has been used to support environmental assessments, explore the sensitivity of the framework to key assumptions, and discuss its potential application to other populations of marine mammals.


Preserving the trust of bond markets is crucial for the world's many indebted countries, but it is still unclear when and how national or international actors can contribute to this goal. We present a set of arguments addressing this question and test them on the case of the eurozone debt crisis. Distinguishing between actors' capacity and willingness to avoid defaults, we argue that the crisis was marked by a lack of capacity at the national level, and limited or uncertain willingness at the European level. Accordingly, we find that European†level efforts to reassure markets had considerably stronger effects than similar efforts at the national level. Furthermore, national efforts appear to have mattered the least in countries with the least capacity. These findings are based on a comprehensive new dataset of political events and relevant news, and they hold across a number of robustness checks and placebo tests.