The neutrophils and monocytes of a patient with disseminated candidiasis were found to lack detectable levels of the lysosomal enzyme myeloperoxidase (MPO), although they had normal levels of other granule-associated enzymes. Leukocytes from one of the patient's sisters also lacked detectable MPO; leukocytes from his four sons contained approximately one-third of mean normal peroxidase levels. Neither the patient nor his affected relatives had experienced frequent or unusual bacterial infections. The phagocytic activity of the patient's MPO-deficient neutrophils was intact, and the cells displayed normal morphologic and metabolic responses to phagocytosis. In contrast to normal leukocytes which killed 30.5+/-7.3% of ingested Candida albicans in 1 hr, however, the patient's neutrophils killed virtually none. His leukocytes also failed to kill the strain of C. albicans recovered from his lesions, as well as other Candida species. These MPO-deficient neutrophils killed Serratia marcescens and Staphylococens aureus 502A at an abnormally slow rate, requiring 3-4 hr to achieve the bactericidal effect attained by normal leukocytes after 45 min. No other abnormalities in his cellular or humoral immune responses were demonstrated. These findings suggest that hereditary MPO deficiency is transmitted as an autosomal recessive characteristic, that the homozygous state conveys enhanced susceptibility to disseminated candidiasis, and that MPO is necessary for candidacidal activity in human neutrophils. Although lending support to the suggested bactericidal role of MPO in leukocytes, the data indicate that alternative bactericidal mechanisms, effective in the absence of MPO, are functionally dominant in the human neutrophil.


This paper studies the problem of Anytime-Competitive Markov Decision Process (A-CMDP). Existing works on Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDPs) aim to optimize the expected reward while constraining the expected cost over random dynamics, but the cost in a specific episode can still be unsatisfactorily high. In contrast, the goal of A-CMDP is to optimize the expected reward while guaranteeing a bounded cost in each round of any episode against a policy prior. We propose a new algorithm, called Anytime-Competitive Reinforcement Learning (ACRL), which provably guarantees the anytime cost constraints. The regret analysis shows the policy asymptotically matches the optimal reward achievable under the anytime competitive constraints. Experiments on the application of carbon-intelligent computing verify the reward performance and cost constraint guarantee of ACRL.


The Egyptian Social Fund for Development was established in 1991 with a mandate to reduce poverty. Since its inception, it has disbursed about $2.5 billion, of which nearly two-fifths was devoted to supporting microcredit and financing community development and infrastructure. This paper investigates the size of the impact of the Fund's interventions, whether the benefits have been commensurate with the costs, and whether the programs have been targeted successfully to the poor. The core of the impact evaluation applies propensity-score matching to data from the 2004/2005 national Household Income, Expenditure and Consumption Survey. The authors find that Egypt's Social Fund for Development programs have had clear and measurable effects, in the expected direction, for all of the programs considered: educational interventions have reduced illiteracy, health and potable water programs have lowered household spending on health, sanitation interventions have cut household spending on sanitation and lowered poverty, and road projects have reduced household transportation costs by 20 percent. Microcredit is associated with higher household expenditures in metropolitan areas and urban Upper Egypt, but not elsewhere. The Social Fund for Development's road projects generate benefits that, by some estimates, exceed the costs, as do health and potable water interventions; this is less evident for interventions in education and sanitation. The Fund argues that its mission is primarily social, and so should not be judged using a cost-benefit analysis. The Fund support for microcredit is strongly pro-poor; the other programs analyzed have a more modest pro-poor orientation.


Geographical Indications (GIs) are place-based names that convey the unique environmental, geographical and cultural origins of agricultural products. A GI is designed to protect products by highlighting exclusive features that differentiate tailored and often more 'localised' produce from those which are homogenous and mass produced. GIs are governed by local actors, thus providing a means of control to ensure that production stays in the local area. Yet they also operate within the interface of global to local spheres, providing a 'glocalised' link between people, product and place. GIs can signal messages to extra-local consumers, providing information on the specifics of product production, as well as reflecting quality and standards for ethical consideration. Therefore, GIs and their market labels, are essentially 'markers of origin'; offering a form of certification which virtually guarantees the origin of the product.  The degree to which GIs can protect local, environmental and cultural resources arguably depends on the structure of the GI legislation. In the Pacific region, GI is in its infancy. In Samoa, the Intellectual Property Act of 2012 is in force and contains the foundations of a US influenced GI. Using a commodity chain approach, I compare these two systems; (1) the current US/WTO system and (2) a European (EU) based GI. Developing a theory of factors that contributes to the more sustainable development of the Nonu Industry in Samoa, I argue that the Samoan Nonu product cannot compete in the Pacific region due to the large-scale production of its main competitor, Tahitian Noni. I therefore recommend that the industry may be more sustainably served by adopting a collaborative 'bottom-up' approach, in the form of a European GI, which promotes the niche qualities of local products, by utilising a rigorous narrative codex/certification system, to reduce inter-island and even international competition.


The concept of ecosystem services (ESS) has evolved as a link between society and the environment and is recognized by both natural and social scientists. While this concept is increasingly being developed and applied to various ecological systems, it has not been defined specifically for different kinds of water. As water circulation is crucial for large-scale services, such as climatic and hydrological regulation at global and regional scales, water provides specific ecological and anthropogenic services needed for a myriad of chemical, biological, and social needs. Various scholars mostly deal with one specific kind of water, while efforts at water governance need to understand that water passes through different phases and geographical locations providing different services at multiple scales within social-ecological systems. Hence, this paper addresses the question: what are the ESS of different kinds of freshwater and how are these services linked to human well-being? This paper investigates the literature on the subject to create a taxonomy of the kinds of water and their relations to ESS and human well-being. The paper concludes by identifying the implications for governing different kinds of water in order to enhance the potential for optimizing the ESS provided by water in its different phases.


Polis Bantuan (PB) department is a unit in UiTM Jasin that was formerly known as the Security Unit that serves to create and maintain the ideal atmosphere, peace and security on campus. The mission of this unit is to provide professional service, integrity and accountability. Polis Bantuan (PB) UiTM Jasin given full responsibility for security management around campus. This project is focused on the process to generate fine ticket, which is involved of process to get the vehicle plate number by using image processing technique which is Optical Recognition Character (OCR) and the details of the vehicle including the vehicle's owner details. This system will help the user to search the details through the image of the vehicle plate number that captured by the user. This can help to reduce the process that need to be done and time taken to check for the details. This project is carried out with an aim to implement the Car Plate Number Reader (CPNR) using the three-tier architecture and Mobile Application Development Life Cycle (MADLC) is carried out as methodology to develop the system. However, this project only covers three phases and the phases that involved are Identification, Design and Develop. As a result, a prototype of Car Plate Number Reader (CPNR) is produced together with documentations of Software Requirements Specification (SRS) and Software Design Document (SDD). Thus, for future works this mobile application can be used by all students and staff at all UiTM in Malaysia and hope it can be used by all platforms of mobile application in the world. Besides that, this mobile application can be enhanced in future by adding more features and enhanced the user interface. This will increase the performance and productivity of the mobile application that user can maximize it the usability.


Detection of insulin secretory bursts in peripheral blood is hampered by hepatic insulin extraction, dilution in the systemic insulin pool, and time-delayed damping of secretory burst amplitude. Previous studies in dogs in vivo and other experiments in vitro have shown that ∼70% of all insulin is released within distinct insulin secretory bursts. To establish a method for detection and quantification of pulsatile insulin release in humans on the basis of peripheral insulin concentration measurements, we used a high-sensitivity, -specificity, and -precision insulin enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and optimized an established deconvolution methodology to quantify the frequency, mass, and amplitude of insulin secretory bursts as well as to estimate the relative contribution of pulsatile insulin release to overall insulin secretion. By use of minutely sampled serum insulin concentrations measured by a highly sensitive insulin ELISA, and insulin kinetics of 2.8 min (first half-life), 5.0 min (second half-life), and a fractional slow component of 0.28, the deconvolved insulin secretion rates in 20 healthy subjects during glucose infusion (4.5 mg ⋅ kg-1 ⋅ min-1) could be resolved into a series (4.7 ± 0.1 min/pulse) of approximately symmetric insulin secretory bursts with a mean mass of 87 ± 12 pmol ⋅ l-1 ⋅ pulse-1and a mean amplitude (maximal release rate) of 35 ± 4.7 pmol ⋅ l-1 ⋅ min-1. The relative contribution of pulsatile to overall insulin secretion was 75 ± 1.6% (range 59-85%). We conclude that in vivo insulin secretion in humans during nominal glucose stimulation consists of a series of punctuated insulin secretory bursts accounting for ≥75% of total insulin secretion.


The gene coding for the brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) has emerged as an interesting candidate for multiple brain and brain disorder-related phenomena. The primary aim of the present investigation was to consider the relationship between the BDNF Val66Met variant and two phenotypes: compulsive hoarding as a symptom dimension of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and body mass index (BMI). We examined the BDNF gene in a large (N=301) clinical sample of probands with OCD. Participants were classified as hoarding or nonhoarding using a strict, multimeasure grouping approach. Results revealed that the Val/Val genotype was linked with hoarding classification and more severe hoarding behaviors, as well as greater BMI levels. Hoarding status was also associated with greater BMI scores, with individuals in the hoarding group being far more likely to be classified as obese compared with the nonhoarding group. Our findings may provide a distinct avenue through which hoarding and BMI could be linked. These findings are suggestive of a complex gene, body weight, and psychopathology relationship wherein a primitive, survival "thrifty gene" strategy may be conserved and represented in a subgroup of humans manifesting severe hoarding symptoms.


An innovative substructure approach is proposed for estimating the structural parameters of shear structures from the acceleration responses of individual substructures. Two parallel methods are created to form single‐degree‐of‐freedom models of each substructure. The behavioral characteristics of these substructure models chiefly depend on the structural parameters of the edges of the component substructure, which is separate from the shear structure. To obtain structural parameters from the substructure accelerations, discrete substructure models with accelerations are generated using Newmark's method and are found similar to the autoregressive moving average with exogenous (ARMAX) inputs models. Sophisticated techniques for solving ARMAX models are used to process the accelerations and to extract the structural parameters of the substructures. A linear relationship among model coefficients of the discrete substructure models and ARMAX models is discovered that provides an accurate and simple way to identify all the substructure parameters. A numerical simulation of a 10‐story shear structure during earthquake is performed to verify this substructure approach, where the factors of the size of the substructure and the noise disturbance are considered. Finally, this substructure approach is used to identify a structural model and reproduce the structural responses of a five‐story three‐dimensional structure in a shaking‐table experiment.


The study reported here aimed to evaluate the impact on parenting and the home environment of community volunteer home visiting offered during or soon after pregnancy to potentially vulnerable mothers. A cluster‐randomised study allocated Home‐Start schemes to intervention or comparison (existing services) conditions. Mothers were screened at routine health checks. Families in intervention and comparison areas were assessed at two and 12 months. The results showed that comparing families receiving support and those in comparison areas, there were few differences. There was a greater reduction in parent‐child relationship difficulties for supported families, but they offered their children fewer healthy foods. There was no evidence of enhanced parenting, organisation of the home environment or more appropriate use of health services. Comparing families receiving support with a second comparison group, living in intervention areas but not receiving support, no differences were found. The article concludes that a more structured approach may be required to make changes in parenting behaviour and the home environment.


Although the rules/discretion distinction has been visited by legal scholars many times, what remains less well-developed is enquiry into the effects of attempts to constrain discretion by imposing rule-based structures in regimes founded on high levels of discretionary activity. In the land-use planning domain, for reasons of technical complexity and informational asymmetry, discretion is given to local authorities to devise solutions allocating appropriate uses of land. The legal framework contains an array of discretionary powers (ranging from the high-level allocation of land uses, to how planning applications are decided), which include in the latter case peripheral (indeed penumbral) forms of bargaining and negotiation that are integral to the statutory scheme. The Planning Act 2008 includes, however, a shift in the form of the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), which attempts to limit an exercise of discretion locally through law. The CIL is a scheme obliging local authorities to impose a 'tax' on new planning development to recoup the cost of infrastructure provision rather than negotiating solutions with individual developers on an ad hoc basis. Not only does this represent a departure from a use of discretion to secure equivalent benefits (which have historically been obtained through negotiation), it provides also an illustration of the effects of attempting to constrain one of the many forms of discretionary activity in the context. The provisions, while ostensibly limiting local discretion, point to a temporal shift in its locus. This paper critiques the provisions of the Act as they relate to the CIL and, by referencing previous strategies adopted for a similar purpose, suggests that an imposition of fixed charging structures may have the effect of displacing rather than eliminating discretionary activity in particular negotiation and bargaining.


Background/Context In light of increasingly common, non-traditional pathways to college enrollment and potential importance of post-secondary education for family wellbeing, this article examines maternal college enrollment. I employ a sociological application of rational action theory in which costs of reentry, probability of success, and utility of education influence enrollment. Objective Recently available longitudinal data provide the opportunity to (a) describe maternal college enrollment during the first 9 years after giving birth and (b) consider the influence of demographic (race, nativity, age), economic (poverty level, employment status, occupation) and social (informal social support, public assistance receipt, household composition, maternal health status) covariates on maternal enrollment. Research Design The analysis uses secondary data, the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS), to examine how college enrollment evolves over the child's first 9 years (n = 2,330 mothers, n = 7,808 observations). Data Collection and Analysis The FFCWS is a longitudinal survey of 4,898 children born in 1998–2000 to mostly unmarried, low-income mothers (the sample is comprised of 75% unmarried mothers and a 25% married comparison group). Through a stratified random sampling design, U.S. cities with populations of 200,000 or more were selected, followed by hospitals within the cities, and, finally, beds within hospitals. Using multilevel models of change, the analysis considers social and economic factors that influence college enrollment, and examines how the influences of covariates change over time. Findings One-third of mothers enrolled in college at least once during their child's first 9 years and college enrollment increased as children aged. Mothers' enrollment levels largely reflected rational action theory such that enrollment costs and probability for success influenced enrollment. Models illuminated differential rates of change. Safety net access and marital status at the child's birth became more important in differentiating students as children aged. Conclusions/Recommendations Mothers' interest coupled with the short- and long-term benefits of college enrollment suggest that mothers should receive additional support to finance their educations. Findings indicate the need for policies, including welfare policy reform, to support the growing number of student mothers enrolling in college discontinuously and their high levels of disadvantage.


Further develops the arguments of anthropologist and activist David Graeber's article 'On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs'. Graeber has argued that, contrary to Keynes's prediction that by the end of the twentieth century we would all be working 15 hour weeks, technology has in fact been used to devise ways to make us work ever harder. A surprising and depressing number of contemporary jobs are of the 'bullshit' variety, in that they contribute virtually nothing of use or value to society. This article takes Graeber's insight as a starting point, using the concept of 'bullshit jobs' to draw out a central contradiction in neoliberal rhetoric. On the one hand, austerity and capitalism alike call for competitive efficiency. On the other, economic growth demands the creation of jobs seemingly for their own sake. This incoherent contrast between leanness and expansiveness has the potential to undermine the logic of the neoliberal imposition of work culture. The article also examines what we mean by meaningful and useful work, and marshals recent research on anti-work in order to review the prospects for resisting work as an arbitrary and pointless imperative.


A 73-year-old man was admitted to the University of California Davis Medical Center for treatment of a pleural effusion and congestive heart failure. His hospital course was complicated by asymptomatic sustained ventricular tachycardia requiring placement of an implantable cardiac defibrillator. The patient was treated with vancomycin and cefazolin during the procedure. After 3 days he developed tense vesicles over the dorsal aspect of the hands. Perilesional skin biopsy showed subepidermal cleavage with a neutrophilic infiltrate. Direct immunofluorescence revealed granular IgA and C3 deposition along the dermal epidermal junction. A diagnosis of drug-induced linear IgA bullous dermatosis secondary to vancomycin was established. Linear IgA bullous dermatosis is a rare autoimmune blistering disorder with clinical features that can overlap with bullous pemphigoid and dermatitis herpetiformis. Drug-induced linear IgA bullous dermatosis is a less common variant that is correspondingly less well characterized. Although a variety of medications have been implicated, vancomycin is the most common associated drug.


This paper presents a measurement method set up to quickly evaluate the quality of the universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) mobile communications. The method is based on the use of a time-frequency representation of the UMTS QPSK modulated signal, suitably down-converted and digitized. Starting from the method, a virtual instrument has been developed and tested on the first Italian UMTS experimental network supplied by Ericsson to TIM on the premises of the Centro Studi e Laboratori Telecomunicazioni (CSELT), Torino, Italy. The results of the field measurement campaign, carried out in order to evaluate the capabilities of this new communication system, have also been used to evaluate the method capability in confirming the results of complex and expensive test benches.


This communication presents the design and measurement results of aperture-coupled stripline-fed wideband patch antennas for nanosatellite applications. The low-profile requirements lead to a strong back radiation from the coupling aperture. Instead of suppressing the resulting electric field in the feeding stripline, an advantageous field distribution is used to boost the electromagnetic coupling to the radiating element. This effect is achieved by enclosing the stripline feeding structure with vertical conductive walls, effectively creating a cavity. The obtained antenna has a low profile of $0.08~\lambda 0$ at 2 GHz and exhibits 3 dB gain and axial ratio bandwidths of 27% and 32%, respectively. The effect of cavity resonances is analyzed in detail and we show how it is used to reduce the interference in adjacent frequency bands. This communication also proposes an elegant method of integrating this type of antennas into the satellite chassis, which reduces the antenna extrusion on the satellite surface. The two proposed methods are demonstrated through another antenna prototype mounted on a low-cost CubeSat mock-up.


The G-8 Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) is the next step of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC). There are two reasons why the MDRI is unlikely to help poor countries. First, the amount of money at stake is trivial. The roughly $2 billion of annual debt payments to be relieved under MDRI amounts to roughly 0.01 percent of the GDP of the OECD countries - a mere one-seventieth (1/70) of the quantity of official development assistance agreed to by world leaders on at least three separate occasions (1970, 1992, 2002). Second, the existence of debt overhang is a necessary condition for debt relief to generate economic gains. Since the world's poorest countries do not suffer from debt overhang, debt relief is unlikely to stimulate their investment and growth. The principal obstacle to investment and growth in the world's poorest countries is the fundamental inadequacy in these countries of the basic institutions that provide the foundation for profitable economic activity. In light of these facts, the MDRI may amount to a Pyrrhic victory: A symbolic win for advocates of debt relief that clears the conscience of the rich countries but leaves the real problems of the poor countries unaddressed.


The increased age diversity in society challenges organizations to rethink the purpose and structuring of learning. This article proposes that an intergenerational learning (IL) approach can be useful for addressing the emergent needs, since IL implies a reciprocal process of learning and knowledge development. Taking an IL approach involves a shift from "succession of knowledge" to "co-creation of knowledge" in knowledge-sharing efforts. This shift becomes crucial as the digital generation enters the workforce. This paper presents insights from a case where students and entrepreneurs were engaged in an IL project to learn about business advantages and social media.


A study of aerodynamic loadings on a NACA 0012 airfoil with a static and an oscillating trailing-edge Gurney flap was made. The focus is on the experimental measurement of the static and dynamic-pressure distributions on the airfoil surface. The experimental results are also correlated with theoretical results obtained using the Navier-Stokes code INS2D, developed by NASA. A Reynolds number of 348,000, a flow velocity of 20 m/s (65.6 ft/s), and a reduced frequency from 0 to 0.4 based upon half-chord b and freestream velocity U are used. The experimental results show that the effect of the static and oscillating strips located near the trailing edge of the airfoil is to enhance the maximum lift and pitching-moment coefficients for both unstalled and stalled angles of attack. An increase of the oscillating frequency also enhances the aerodynamic loading. Reasonably good agreement between the experiment and theory is obtained. The experimental results confirm the idea that an oscillating small strip located near the trailing edge can be a useful tool for active aerodynamic flow control for a wing.


In China, gas hydrates in onshore permafrost areas have so far only been found in the Juhugeng Mine of the Qilian Mountains. However, their subsurface distribution remains unclear. Electrical resistivity logs have revealed that zones containing gas hydrates have higher resistivity than surrounding zones, which makes electromagnetic methods viable for detecting gas-hydrate deposits. We have deployed a natural-source audio-magnetotelluric (AMT) survey at the Juhugeng Mine. AMT data were collected at 176 sites along five profiles, and resistivity models were derived from 2D inversions after detailed data analysis. After the available geologic and geophysical observations were combined, the inversion results from profile 1 suggested that permafrost near the surface with high resistivity and thickness is essential for underlying gas hydrates to be present. The decrease in resistivity and/or thickness of permafrost due to climate change may lead to gas-hydrate dissociation. The other four AMT transects suggested three prospective gas-hydrate sites. Our results indicate that the AMT survey technique is suitable for exploring gas hydrates in permafrost areas and analyzing the impact of permafrost characteristics on gas-hydrate occurrence.


Past research results indicate a strong relationship between oral reading fluency (ORF) and reading comprehension for native English speaking (EL1) students; however, little is known about the relationship between ORF and comprehension for English Language Learners (ELLs). The current study examined differences in comprehension monitoring behaviors for ELL (n = 31) and EL1 (n = 29) elementary students who were matched on ORF scores. Eye tracking technology was utilized to examine underlying reading behaviors as students read sentences that were either consistent or inconsistent in meaning. Results indicated that comprehension monitoring techniques did not differ between ELL and EL1 participants; however, students did engage in disrupted reading when they encountered inconsistent information while reading. Finally, ELL students performed at a lower level than EL1 students on a comprehension question that followed each sentence.


Abstract. Using the analytical model presented in Part 1 of this two-part paper, a new conceptual understanding of anticrack nucleation in weak layers is proposed. To obtain a sufficient condition for onset of failure, two necessary conditions must be satisfied simultaneously: (i) the weak layer must be overloaded in terms of stress and (ii) the initiating crack must release enough energy for the formation of new surfaces. This so-called coupled criterion was proposed by Leguillon ( 2002 ) . No assumptions on initial defects within the weak layer are needed. Instead, the failure criterion provides both critical loading and the size of initiating cracks. It only requires the fundamental material properties strength and fracture toughness as inputs. Crack initiation and subsequent propagation are covered by a single criterion containing both a strength-of-materials and a fracture mechanics condition. Analyses of skier-loaded snowpacks show the impact of slab thickness and slope angle on critical loading and crack initiation length. In the limit cases of very thick slabs and very steep slopes, we obtain natural avalanche release. A discussion of different mixed-mode stress and energy criteria reveals that a wrong choice of mixed-mode hypotheses can yield unphysical results. The effect of material parameters such as density and compliance on weak-layer collapse is illustrated. The framework presented in this two-part series harnesses the efficiency of closed-form solutions to provide fast and physically sound predictions of critical snowpack loads using a new conceptual understanding of mixed-mode weak-layer failure. It emphasized the importance of both stress and energy in avalanche release.


A non-selected sample of 117 common whiplash patients was examined shortly after experiencing trauma (mean = 7.4 days, SD = 4.2) and six months later with regard to neuropsychological performance and psychosocial stress. Neuropsychological examination comprised an assessment of various levels of complexity of attentional processes. Further, subjective complaints, subjective headache and neck pain intensity, utilized medication and self-ratings of well-being and cognitive impairment were recorded. In addition, patients were assessed with regard to personal history of psychosocial stress and personality traits (e.g. neuroticism, depression). At six-month examination, 81 patients subjectively were fully recovered, whereas 36 patients reported persisting symptoms. Symptomatic patients were older, showed more symptoms at baseline and a higher intensity of headache and neck pain, and had a higher subjective cognitive impairment. At both, baseline and six-month examination, no significant statistical differences between the asymptomatic and symptomatic patients were found with regard to cognitive performance. However, performance of symptomatic group in a test of divided attention was pathological at baseline. Additionally, symptomatic group showed a delayed recovery of cognitive functioning, which could be explained--at least in part--by utilized medication and the higher age. This change of cognitive equilibrium could account for these patients' cognitive problems in daily life.


The infectious haematopoietic necrosis (IHN) is beside the viral haemorrhagic septicemia (VHS) one of the viral fish diseases that have a considerable economic impact on German aquaculture. The measures actually in force are focused on control and spread prevention of the disease within the borders of the European Union (EU). The detection and confirmation of an outbreak is performed according to the pertinent EU legislation which allow the application of methods like the virus neutralisation test (VNT), the immunofluorescence test (IFT) and the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Besides the classic virological serology methods, further tests for the identification and confirmation of the fish pathogen like i.e. PCR and DNA probe techniques are recommended by the OIE. To compare diagnostic methods as ELISA, cell cultivation and RT-PCR, rainbow trout of the strain "Isle of Man" were infected with six IHNV strains. Samples were taken on day 7 (viraemia period) and at the day 28 of the trial. The ground organs were inoculated into EPC cells (Epithelioma papulosum Cyprini cells) and examined by ELISA as well as after RNA extraction by RT-PCR. Besides the determination of the isolate as well as the virulence for 20 g trout, significant differences in the demonstration of the viruses were observed. While the RT-PCR demonstrated to be the most sensitive method, antigen ELISA and virus cultivation results showed in dependence of the IHNV isolate that not all viruses were identifiable under the chosen experimental condition in the same manner.


The aim of this study was to examine the possibility of using results of
 metabolic profile test in the prediction and diagnosis of fatty liver in
 Holstein cows. Forty dry cows, 5 to 7 days before calving, were chosen from
 the commercial dairy herd and included in the study. Four blood samples were
 taken by jugular venipuncture from each animal: 5 to 7 days before expected
 calving (dry period), as well as on day 12, 30 and 60 of lactation.
 Concentrations of glucose, β-hydroxybutyrate (BHBA), total protein, albumin,
 urea, total bilirubin, calcium and phosphorus concentrations were measured
 in all blood samples. On day 12 after calving, liver percutaneous biopsies
 were obtained using a biopsy instrument. Liver tissue lipid content was
 determined by pathohistological determination. Cows were divided into two
 groups of equal size based on the degree of lipid accumulation in the liver:
 healthy cows (0.00 fat, n = 20) and cows with fatty liver syndrome (>20%
 fat, n = 20). Milking was measured each day from day 7 to day 60 of
 lactation. Results showed that 5 to 7 days before calving, as well as 12
 days after calving, BHBA concentrations were significantly higher (p<0.001,
 respectively) in diseased cows than in healthy cows. Additionally, the
 concentration of glucose was significantly lower (p<0.01) and the
 concentration of total bilirubin significantly higher (p<0.001) in diseased
 compared to healthy cows, at day 12 of lactation. Thirty days after calving,
 concentrations of albumin, glucose, BHBA and Ca were significantly lower in
 diseased compared to healthy cows (p<0.05, p<0.01, p<0.01 and p<0.001,
 respectively). At day 60 after calving, concentrations of biochemical
 parameters did not differ between diseased and healthy cows. The lactation
 curve differed in diseased compared to healthy cows, starting from day 26 of
 lactation. Starting form that day until day 60 of lactation average daily
 milk production was significantly higher in healthy than in diseased cows,
 except on day 32 of lactation when the difference was not significant. Based
 on these results it can be concluded that the metabolic profile test may be
 a reliable tool for the prediction and diagnosis of fatty liver in Holstein
 cows.


This article explores of the diverse ways through which organised religion, personal spiritual convictions, culture and the law shape, challenge and potentially transform the sexualities of African peoples. I argue that, through the intersection of religion, statutory law and reinterpreted traditional customs, the complexity of African sexualities (particularly those of women) is instrumentalised, controlled and regulated by the patriarchal state. As sources of power, the institutions of culture, religion and law structure sexual morality in such a way that it congeals into states of domination. Attempts to assert sexual citizenship have spawned social movements on the continent, challenging the dominant sexual discourses and demanding increased sexual autonomy and freedom. These movements have the potential to profoundly reshape our understanding of the links between sexualities and religion.


The Canary Islands are witnessing a new cycle of intense migratory influx by sea, coinciding in time with the progression of the current coronavirus pandemic. Irregular arrivals have increased, and, after a decade of low arrivals through this Atlantic route, the archipelago's reception system was initially insufficient and highly debilitated. This system now takes on renewed prominence as the always perilous crossings bring with them a more diverse range of vulnerable migrants. The institutional response has had to deal with greater complexity, conditioning the constant urgency to adopt incomplete and inappropriate solutions in certain cases, according to many of the evaluations carried out. The migratory process continues its course and more and more voices are demanding that a suitable reception strategy be defined, one based on a model that also integrates the principles of interculturality and is built with input from all the stakeholders involved


This paper investigates the stability domain of ferroresonance in asymmetric three-phase three-leg transformers considering magnetic couplings and hysteresis effects of the core. A newly developed and accurate time-domain transformer model capable of simulating dynamic and transient operating conditions is implemented in this study. The model is based on electromagnetic circuit theory and considers dynamic hysteresis effects (major and minor loops) as well as core topology, asymmetry, and magnetic flux cross-coupling interactions of the core legs. Unbalanced switching with series and shunt capacitances, which is known to increase the risk of ferroresonance, is studied with the developed model. The validity of the model under ferroresonant conditions is confirmed by comparisons with extensive experimental data. The main contribution is a new analysis of (a)symmetric three-phase transformer ferroresonance behavior with an accurate core model capable of predicting ferroresonance modes.


BARNARD, B.J.H. & PAWESKA, J.T. 1993. Prevalence of antibodies against some equine viruses in zebra (Zebra burchelli) in the Kruger National Park. Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research, 60: 175-179 The presence of antibodies against equine encephalosis virus (EEV) and equid herpesvirus 1 and 4 in zebra in the Kruger National Park (KNP) was demonstrated. The ability of zebra to maintain immunity against EEV is illustrated by the appearance of neutralizing antibodies in most zebra foals within months of losing their maternal immunity. This occurs in every month of the year, even in winter. The high proportion of serologically positive foals in winter is ascribed to the presence of large numbers of susceptible foals and sufficient numbers of Culicoides vectors even at that time of the year. The high prevalence of antibodies against both herpesviruses is similar to the situation in horses and suggests that herpesvirus infection is endemic among zebra in the KNP. No evidence of infection with either Nequine/H3N8 or equine arteritisvirus could be found.


BACKGROUND
Telepresence is emerging in clinical and educational settings as a potential modality to provide expert guidance during remote airway management. This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of telepresent versus in-person supervision of tracheal intubation.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A randomized, crossover study was performed in a university medical simulation center with 48 first- and second-year medical students with no formal procedural training in tracheal intubation. Each participant was assigned to receive each of four study arms in random sequence: (1) direct laryngoscopy (DL) with in-person supervision, (2) DL with telepresent supervision, (3) videolaryngoscopy (VL) with in-person supervision, and (4) VL with telepresent supervision. Telepresence was established with a smartphone (Apple [Cupertino, CA] iPhone(®)) via FaceTime(®) connection. The primary outcome measure was the time to successful intubation. Secondary outcome measures included first pass success rate and the number of blade and tube attempts.

RESULTS
There was no significant difference between in-person and telepresent supervision for any of the outcomes. The median difference (in-person versus telepresent) for time to intubation was -3 s (95% confidence interval [CI], -20 to 14 s). The odds ratio for first attempt success was 0.7 (95% CI, 0.3-1.3), and the rate ratio for extra number of blade attempts (i.e., attempts in addition to first) was 1.1 (95% CI, 0.7-1.7) and 1.4 (95% CI, 0.9-2.2) for extra number of tube attempts.

CONCLUSIONS
In this study population of procedurally naive medical students, telepresent supervision was as effective as in-person supervision for tracheal intubation.


Case summary A 6-year-old female neutered domestic shorthair cat from Cyprus was presented with multiple ulcerated skin nodules. Cytology and histopathology of the lesions revealed granulomatous dermatitis with intracytoplasmic organisms, consistent with amastigotes of Leishmania species. Biochemistry identified a mild hyperproteinaemia. Blood extraction and PCR detected Leishmania species, Hepatozoon species and 'Candidatus Mycoplasma haemominutum' (CMhm) DNA. Subsequent sequencing identified Hepatozoon felis. Additionally, the rRNA internal transcribed spacer 1 locus of Leishmania infantum was partially sequenced and phylogeny showed it to cluster with species derived from dogs in Italy and Uzbekistan, and a human in France. Allopurinol treatment was administered for 6 months. Clinical signs resolved in the second month of treatment with no deterioration 8 months post-treatment cessation. Quantitative PCR and ELISA were used to monitor L infantum blood DNA and antibody levels. The cat had high L infantum DNA levels pretreatment that gradually declined during treatment but increased 8 months post-treatment cessation. Similarly, ELISA revealed high levels of antibodies pretreatment, which gradually declined during treatment and increased slightly 8 months post-treatment cessation. The cat remained PCR positive for CMhm and Hepatozoon species throughout the study. There was no clinical evidence of relapse 24 months post-treatment. Relevance and novel information To our knowledge, this is the first clinical report of a cat with leishmaniosis with H felis and CMhm coinfections. The high L infantum DNA levels post-treatment cessation might indicate that although the lesions had resolved, prolonged or an alternative treatment could have been considered.


The aim of the paper is to use computer simulation models of an entire industry's distribution channel as instruments of theory development. The major phenomena to be explained center around recent developments in distribution systems, resulting from advancing technology in the logistics of distribution as well as in communications between the various levels of the channel. Dynamic instabilities and various adaptive response patterns are found to be explainable more immediately by the hierarchical nature of the feedback-control relationships prevailing between various levels of the distribution channel than by environmental changes reflected in demand patterns.


Exemplary embodiments provide automated nuclear fission reactors and methods for their operation. Exemplary embodiments and aspects include, without limitation, re-use of nuclear fission fuel, alternate fuels and fuel geometries, modular fuel cores, fast fluid cooling, variable burn-up, programmable nuclear thermostats, fast flux irradiation, temperature-driven surface area/volume ratio neutron absorption, low coolant temperature cores, refueling, and the like. ® KIPO & WIPO 2009


Bacterial n~acromolecules have often been used successfully as estimates of bacterial biomass in environmental samples. Less is known about the relationship between macromolecular content and rates of growth and activity. The ratio of RNA to DNA in bacteria has long been thought to be proportional to levels of metabolic activity and growth. We have used the nucleic acid fluorochrome thiazole orange combined with specific nuclease digestions to determine RNA:DNA ratios and compared these data to more standard measures of bacterial growth and activity. More than 100 samples from a wide variety of estuarine and marine environments were examined and the average RNA, DNA, and protein content per bacterial cell was found to be 9.44 + 6.25 fg, 5.75 * 2.35 fg, and 29.29 i 11.57 fg, respectively. Initial experiments demonstrated a strong correlation of RNA:DNA ratios with growth rates for a laboratory organism. We then compared RNA:DNA ratios to cell specific rates of 3H-thymidine and '"C-leucine incorporation as estimates of growth rates for naturally occurring bacterioplankton communities in whole water and the <0.8 pm size fraction in estuarine and coastal waters in the Northern Gulf of Mexico. Nucleic acid ratios were generally very low in the natural communities, usually below those determined for late stationary phase pure cultures. No significant or consistent relationship was observed between RNA:DNA ratios and rates of 3H-thymidine and I4C-leucine Incorporation in naturally occurring bacterioplankton comn~unities. No relationship could be ascertained whether compared against location or water temperature. Thymidine incorporation rates were found to be completely independent of cellular protein content wh~le leucine incorporation rates were more related to protein content. Our data suggest that while RNA, DNA, and protein content are strongly correlated with bacterial numbers in our environmental samples, the low metabolic activity and the heterogeneous composition of bacterioplankton communities may preclude the use of these parameters as biochemical indicators of activity in the environment.


Prompted by the suicides of Jean Amery and Primo Levi, Harold Kaplan sought to find out what the Holocaust can be said to affirm even in the face of its overwhelming negation of meaning. "I wrote this book," he explains, "to translate the Holocaust out of the moral and intellectual shock which contemplates the alienation of humanity from itself. I wished to understand the "crime against humanity" as a viable category of the moral reason. And I wished to respond to the written testimony of Holocaust victims and survivors as if the issue of their survival were present to us today." Kaplan simulates the response to a long visit to the new Holocaust museum in Washington, DC, which, crucially for Kaplan, is sited in direct view of the Jefferson and Lincoln monuments, powerful symbols of humanist democracy. He insists the Holocaust be viewed not only in terms of personal ethics but modern political ethics as well: for Kaplan the affirmative legacy of the Holocaust is its focus on the dangers of nationalism, racism and all forms of separatist group identities. It challenges the historicism, cults of power and scientistic politics of modernity. And it challenges the moral passivity and relativism of mass politics in Western and Eastern societies. The opening of the Holocaust museum has sparked a debate that reflects a larger debate over the Holocaust's "meaning," its translatability for ordinary understanding. Some deny any possible response except that of overwhelming grief and horror. For others, the "lesson" of the Holocaust implies, in the words of Robert Nozick, that "mankind has fallen...Humanity has lost its claim to continue." The moral life and political institutions will remain endlessly tormented by the Holocaust. That, Kaplan tells us, is the ultimate content of its "meaning", and is what makes the discussion of "meaning" much more than a mourner's symposium. The museum itself, according to Kaplan, has become an impressive memorial to the principle of humanism, instructing the collective memory of this democracy and that of nations everywhere which aspire to civil existence. Out of its awful darkness the Holocaust throws the light of conscience for those capable of receiving it.


BACKGROUND & AIM
Hyperhomocysteimemia is a cardiovascular risk factor even among children. Supplementation of oral folic acid may reduce homocysteine levels to normal. However, data is limited at this point for healthy children and adolescents.

METHODS
Five hundre and twenty four children participated in the study; Twenty six of them were found to be hyperho mocysteinemic(>95(th) percentile for age). Twenty of them received 5 mg of folic acid twice per week for two consecutive months while the other six received a diet rich in dietary folate.

RESULTS
Serum homocysteine levels were statistically significantly decreased from 13.1 (10-24.2 micromol/L ) to 7.7 (4.9- 15.2 micromol/L), p<0.001. Serum folate levels were significantly rose from 4.3 (3-20 ng/mL) to 16.8 (7-20 ng/mL), p<0.001. On the contrary, no important changes were observed in the above parameters in children to whom a diet rich in folic acid was recommended. Homocysteine levels were found to be positively associated with age (r=0.314, p<0.001), BMI (r=0.192, p<0.001), WC (r = 0.215, p<0.001), simple sugars (r= 0.182, p<0.001 ) and negatively associated with folic acid (r = -0.331, p<0.001), vitamin B12 (r = -0.214, p<0.001) and dietary folic acid (r= -0.228, p=0.003).

CONCLUSIONS
Oral folic acid 5 mg twice per week may efficiently reduce serum homocysteine levels and increase serum folic acid levels in healthy children with increased homocysteine levels (>95(th) percentile for age). Hyperhomocysteinemia in childhood may be a predictive factor of cardiovascular disease. In addition, these results may offer more help to health practioners in order to establish more prospective studies to elucidate the relationship between homocysteine, folic acid and heart disease in children.


Time series of satellite sensor data have been used to quantify mangrove cover changes at regional and global levels. Although mangrove forests have been monitored using remote sensing techniques, the use of time series to quantify the regeneration of these forests still remains limited. In this study, we focus on the Matang Mangrove Forest Reserve (MMFR) located in Peninsular Malaysia, which has been under silvicultural management since 1902 and provided the opportunity to investigate the use of Landsat annual time series (1988–2015) for (i) detecting clear-felling events that take place in the reserve as part of the local management, and (ii) tracing back and quantifying the early regeneration of mangrove forest patches after clear-felling. Clear-felling events were detected for each year using the Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI) derived from single date (cloud-free) or multi-date composites of Landsat sensor data. From this series, we found that the average period for the NDMI to recover to values observed prior to the clear-felling event between 1988 and 2015 was 5.9 ± 2.7 years. The maps created in this study can be used to guide the replantation strategies, the clear-felling planning, and the management and monitoring activities of the MMFR.


In the context of a plant modernization, developing digital I&C technology is a crucial challenge to improve nuclear plants safety and reliability. Digital technology is usually oriented to achieve functions such as plant control, monitoring, simulation and protection in a user-friendly way. On the other hand, the analogue instrumentation implemented in the so-called "old generation consoles" is often essential and not immediately or completely replaceable. As a consequence, the interaction between the analogue and digital data seems to be a necessary step before starting the digital I&C licensing process. The fundamental difference between analogue and digital technologies relies on the fact that digital logic is based on processors, hence it can be customized by programming its software. However, introducing new code can result in a new set of potential failure modes to be accounted for. As a consequence, original analogue systems mostly assure a higher level of protection with respect to digital systems. In this scenario, a benefit could arise from the use of Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), based on a hardware architecture whose routing is made via software, thus resulting in a variety of possible tasks. FPGAs' employment ranges from automotive and industrial applications, ASIC prototyping, software defined radios, radar, image and DSP. In this work a critical analysis of FPGA fundamental features and potentialities in nuclear plant I&C design is achieved in conjunction with some practical applications. Troubles arising from coping with processor-based system are presented and compared to benefits and potentialities offered by FPGA real-time architectures: indeed, FPGAs comprise a higher number of logic blocks and functions able to manage parallel processes with self triggering, and provided into a "non-frozen" structure but easily reconfigurable. This characteristics of being in-system programmable (ISP), i.e. a device capable of being programmed while remaining resident in a high-level system, can be considered as the main advantage of using FPGA. The employment on a large scale is also justified by its high determinism and testability, leading to high performance in terms of reliability. As a case-study, we propose a supervisory full-digital system that has been designed, realized, tested and validated implementing a FPGA architecture to be used in parallel to the TRIGA nuclear reactor RC-1 analogue console at the ENEA Casaccia Research Centre in Rome. We report on the design choices, and on pros and cons of using FPGA instead of the classical processor-based architectures. This preliminary apparatus has been developed using the LABVIEW environment and FPGA-based technology, an appropriate tool to get across simulation to Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) technique allowing to move on production from prototyping.Copyright © 2012 by ASME


Detailed knowledge of the physical properties of the sediments filling the Mississippi Embayment has proven critical to both unravel the tectonic frame-work operating in the region and assess the seismic hazards posed by the New Madrid Seismic Zone. In this article we show that independent geotechnical estimates for P - and S -wave velocities are compatible with a sedimentary model of K-feldspar clasts embeded in water, and we test its validity by modeling receiver functions at a number of broadband stations. By constraining the bulk sediment thicknesses beneath each station from independent reflection profiling estimates, we have been able to recover the depth to the top of the Cretaceous from the receiver function data at individual stations. Our receiver function modeling thus provides confidence in the velocity and density structures extrapolated from in situ geotechnical measurements in the Upper Mississippi Embayment.


There are no official statistics on international online trade in goods so far. This paper uses a consumer survey to construct a unique matrix of online B2C domestic and cross-border trade in goods between the 27 EU Member States. We compare online and offline trade patterns for similar goods. We find that the standard gravity model performs well in explaining online cross-border trade flows. The model confirms the strong reduction in geographical distance-related trade costs, compared to offline trade. However, the trade costs associated with crossing language barriers increase when moving from offline to online trade. Institutional variables such as online payments facilities and cost-efficiency of parcel delivery systems might play a significant role in cross-border trade and our analysis confirms this. In a linguistically segmented market like the EU, online home market bias remains high compared to bias in offline cross-border trade. We conclude that it is hard to predict at this stage whether regulators could boost online cross-border trade through improvements in legal and financial systems, and parcel delivery infrastructure.


"Vienna in the Age of Uncertainty" traces the vital and varied roles of science through the story of three generations of the eminent Exner family, whose members included Nobel Prize - winning biologist Karl Frisch, the teachers of Freud and of physicist Erwin Schrodinger, artists of the Vienna Secession, and a leader of Vienna's women's movement. Training her critical eye on the Exners through the rise and fall of Austrian liberalism and into the rise of the Third Reich, Deborah R. Coen demonstrates the interdependence of the family's scientific and domestic lives, exploring the ways in which public notions of rationality, objectivity, and autonomy were formed in the private sphere. "Vienna in the Age of Uncertainty" presents the story of the Exners as a microcosm of the larger achievements and tragedies of Austrian political and scientific life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.


l am grateful for the exceptionally strong support of my position expressed in your recent editorial1 but you have seriously misjudged Dr Angell's role and thus inappropriately vilified her. In the aftermath of my firing by the Massachusetts Medical Society, Dr Angell refused to negotiate with the officers of the society to become the interim editor until they agreed to restore the editor's authority over the use of the New England Journal of Medicine's name and logo and the authority over the location of the journal's editorial personnel. These were the two most contentious issues and the ones about which I cared most. At a subsequent meeting of the Society's House of Delegates, the president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, in a speech worthy or our most contemptuous demagogues, persuaded the delegates to 'take back' their journal from the putatively possessive editors. Dr Angell rose almost single-handedly to defend future editors' dominion over the name and logo of the journal, but she was virtually shouted down and the House unanimously rejected her plea. Dr Angell and the other editors have vociferously defended the integrity of the New England Journal of Medicine. There are villains, but they are not among the journal's editors.


This paper addresses the problem of beamforming for antenna arrays in the presence of mismatches between the true and nominal steering vectors. A new method for robust beamforming is proposed by minimizing the array output power while controlling the array mainlobe response. Due to the presence of the non-convex response constraints, a new approach based on iteratively linearizing the non-convex constraints is proposed to reformulate the non-convex problem to a series of second-order cone programming (SOCP) subproblems, each of which can be optimally solved by wellestablished convex optimization techniques. Simulation results show that the proposed method offers better performance than conventional methods tested.


Greenway as an underlying element in environmental sustainability has a variety of species and leavers different environmental, physical, tourism-economic, and social effects on the neighborhood and city. The presence of river valleys and greenways in Northern Tehran are important environmental capabilities, which are not mostly supported by the efficient policy-making processes of urban management, and have been ignored in urbanization studies. In the greenway of Nezami Ganjavi Neighborhood, some environmental qualities show no adequate responsiveness based on initial field analyses. In this field, the present study has discussed the relationship between the satisfaction of neighborhood residents with the environmental indicators of greenway and has also estimated the satisfaction rate. This study aimed in investigating types of greenways and their characteristics, and providing efficient suggestions to improve the status of environmental indicators of neighborhood greenway based on measurement of study neighborhood. The method used in this study was the qualitative-quantitative method, and this is applied research in terms of purpose. To analyze the correlation between independent variables and dependent variables, multivariate regression was used in SPSS. The results showed that satisfaction was affected significantly by indicators including the existence of park and recreational green space, clean and pollution-free air in the greenway axis, soothing and non-disturbing sounds, presence of urban animals and birds, and beautiful view at the confidence level of 95%. However, satisfaction was not significantly affected by indicators including clean and pollution-free air in the immediate vicinity, cleanliness of the soil cover and durability, and connection between green zones. According to the obtained adjusted coefficient of determination, 75% of changes in satisfaction were associated with the defined indicators and can be estimated. Finally, the study provided suggestions due to the measurement of the existing situation to promote environmental conditions of the greenway.


Problem Statement: Since the 1970s, scientific literacy has been a major goal of national educational systems throughout the world, and thus reform movements in science education call for all students to be scientifically literate. Despite some good curricular changes and developments across the globe, much remains to be achieved. Given that textbooks play a critical role in the teaching/learning process at all educational levels, their analysis is crucially important to support the recent science education reforms. Purpose of Study: In this study, the four upper primary level science textbooks were analyzed to determine the inclusion of four themes of scientific literacy: (a) science as a body of knowledge, (b) science as a way of investigating, (c) science as a way of thinking, and (d) the interaction among science, technology, and society (STS). Methods: The method used in this study was content analysis. Textbook analyses were conducted based on the procedures described by Chiapetta, Fillman and Sethna (1991a, revised 2004). The four science textbooks that were selected for content analysis were those approved by the Turkish Ministry of National Education (MEB) to be used in grades 4 and 5 for the 2011-2012 academic year. The content to be analyzed from the textbooks was selected in two different ways; the units 'the electricity,' 'human body,' and 'matter' from each textbook and systematic sampling of almost 20 percent of each textbook. Two raters independently coded each unit of analysis. There was good intercoder agreement with Cohen's kappa values, ranging from 0.61 to 0.79. Findings and Results: The findings revealed that the Turkish science textbooks do not provide a balanced coverage of scientific literacy themes. Almost half of the textual material in the four science textbooks appears to emphasize science as a body of knowledge. The textbooks appear to devote approximately one-third of their presentation to teaching science through investigation, and about onefifth of their coverage is devoted to the interaction among science, technology, and society. However, science as a way of thinking was an almost non-existent paradigm in the four textbooks analyzed. Although there are no big differences between the four textbooks, the MEB upper primary level science textbooks have a slightly better balance of the four themes of scientific literacy, compared to the Lider and Semih Ofset publications, especially with regard to STS. Conclusions and Recommendations: These results do not adhere to the discourse in the 2004 National Science Education Reform documents, which often accentuates the importance of scientific literacy. It is hoped that, in the light of the findings of this study, the imbalanced coverage of scientific literacy themes – especially inadequate treatment of scientific thinking in Turkish upper primary level science textbooks – will be improved in subsequent editions so that students are helped in their efforts to become scientifically literate.


Simulated learning environments provide an efficient means for improving individual skills in specific problem solving and learning situations. One crucial aspect of an optimal system for simulated training environments is its capability to keep track of the improvements of the user along the whole training process. In this paper we present a set-theoretical formal framework that can be applied for the efficient assessment of the skills of an individual in a simulated learning environment. The basic concept underlying our approach is that of a functional skill mapping of the simulated learning environment through problem spaces.


Background and Objectives: Recurrent Spontaneous Abortions (RSA) is defined as the repeated occurrence of 2 or more miscarriages before 20th week of gestation. RSA is a multifactorial disorder and genetic defects are considered as one of the major risk factors for recurrent miscarriage. It seems the progesterone receptor gene polymorphisms to be one of the genetic factors involved in the occurrence of recurrent miscarriage. The aim of this study was investigating the relationship between the progesterone receptor gene polymorphisms and RSA. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, a total of 50 women with at least two repeated abortions as patients group and 50 women without abortion history and with at least two successful pregnancy as control group were screened for two functional single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP), G1031C and G1978T, in progesterone receptor gene using PCR-ARMS technique. Data was analyzed by chi-square and Fisher's exact tests. Results: In SNP G1031C, the frequencies of GG, CC and GC alleles in the control group were 72%, 6% and 22%, respectively and in the patients were respectively 54%, 16% and 30% (P =0.008) in which the difference was statistically significant. In SNP G1978T, the frequencies of GG, TT and GT alleles in the controlgroup were 76%, 0% and 24%, respectively and in the patients were respectively 70%, 2% and 28% (P =0.510) in which the difference in two groups was not statistically significant. Conclusion: The results of this study showed that the polymorphism G1031C is significantly higher in the patients with idiopathic recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) than in the control subjects. However the association between the polymorphism G1978T and RSA is not significant. Therefore, the same study in a larger population may suggest the G1031C as a diagnostic marker for susceptibility to recurrent miscarriage. Key words: Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP), Polymorphism, Progesterone receptor gene, Recurrent spontaneous abortions (RSA) Funding: There was no funding for this article. This article did not have any sponsor. Conflict of interest: None declared. Ethical approval: The Ethics Committee of the Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences approved the study. How to cite this article: Naseri Arzanagh F, Morovvati S. A Survey on Relationship Between Progesterone Receptor Gene Polymorphisms and Recurrent Spontaneous Abortions: A Short Report. J RafsanjanUniv Med Sci 2016; 15(3): 287-92. [Farsi]


The detrimental effect of the diffusion zones between coating and the substrate had been investigated by performing creep tests on aluminized Ni-based single crystal superalloys. In present study, creep test-pieces that had two kinds of sub-surface crystallographic orientations, and , were aluminized by the pack-cementation process at 1000°C for 5 h. To exclude the influence of the coating heat treatment on the creep strength of the bulk material, a set of specimens without coating was heat treated in vacuum at 1000°C for 5 h, which was equivalent to the condition during aluminizing process, for comparisons the creep rupture test was carried out at 900°C and 392 MPa. The cross-sectional microstructures of the as-aluminized and creep rupture specimens were observed by SEM using the backscattered electron image mode (BSE) and TEM. Analysis indicated that creep strength of the aluminized samples was decreased by the formation of the inter-diffusion zone (IDZ) and the substrate diffusion zone (SDZ); both of them reduced the load bearing thickness, thus resulting an increase in the effective stress. Furthermore, it was found that the disappearance of the secondary precipitate during coating treatment also decreased the creep strength. The IDZ, which formed at the coating/substrate interface grew more rapidly on the {110} plane than that on the {100} plane because of the preferential growth of the Topological-Close Paced (TCP) phase. Ru addition on the substrate could enhance the creep strength and the SDZ formation between the IDZ/substrate interface.


: A 1989 Computers in Healthcare survey finds considerably increased interest by hospital managers in bedside/point-of-care information systems, compared to results of a CIH survey in 1987. But cost-justifying these systems remains an obstacle to purchase decisions.


A crucial aspect in environmental sciences is related to the transportation, accumulation and fate of solid organic particles not native to the sediments. In this study we present the petrographical features of seven sediment samples obtained from aquatic environments in Sweden, Finland and The Netherlands. Most of the samples represent the uppermost layers, which accumulated during the recent past. Their total organic carbon content ranges between 1.5 and 20%. Density separations using heavy liquids were applied, in order to concentrate the organic matter and thus to facilitate the petrographical determinations. The microscopic approach revealed significant variations in the origin and hence, the type of the contained organic matter. Apart from modern plant debris and the algae indicating water-logged conditions, several particles of naturally and artificially derived solid-organic material were identified. The latter constitute organic contaminants, and include unburnt residues of highrank coals and chars. The petrographic data show a significant comparability with the 'black carbon' data determined by chemo-thermal oxidation at 375°C, demonstrating the applicability of the microscopic analysis in environmental studies.


ABSTRACT Zhang, J. and Zhao, F.-G., 2020. Applications of light steel and light concrete structure system in island building. In: Qiu, Y.; Zhu, H., and Fang, X. (eds.), Current Advancements in Marine and Coastal Research for Technological and Sociological Applications. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 107, pp. 73-76. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Because the island is surrounded by a high salinity and humidity marine environment, the buildings on the island will also be corroded and damaged by the marine environment. As a new type of building structure system, light steel light concrete system integrates the advantages of reinforced concrete and light steel structure, and has stronger corrosion resistance, so it is more widely used. Based on this, this paper first analyzes the technical characteristics of the light steel light concrete system, then studies the applicability of the light steel light concrete structure system in the island building, and finally gives the application analysis of the light steel light concrete structure system in the island building.


CYP106A2 from Bacillus megaterium ATCC 13368 is a bacterial cytochrome P450 that is capable of transforming steroid hormones. It can be easily expressed in Escherichia coli with a high yield. Its activity in vitro can be achieved by using the adrenal redox proteins adrenodoxin and adrenodoxin reductase. So far, it was not possible to crystallize CYP106A2 because of degradation during the crystallization process. Nevertheless, CYP106A2 is an interesting enzyme for biotechnological use. It hydroxylates pharmaceutically important steroids such as progesterone and 11-deoxycortisol. However, it will be necessary for efficient application of CYP106A2 in biotechnology to improve the hydroxylation activity and manipulate the regiospecificity. The present paper gives an overview of recent developments in protein engineering of CYP106A2.


Inlet fogging of gas turbine engines has attained considerable popularity due to the ease of installation and the relatively low first cost compared to other inlet cooling methods. With increasing demand for power and with shortages envisioned especially during the peak load times during the summers, there is a need to boost gas turbine power. There is a sizable evaporative cooling potential throughout the world when the climatic data is evaluated based on an analysis of coincident wet bulb and dry bulb information. This data is not readily available to plant users. In this paper, a detailed climatic analysis is made of 122 locations in the US to provide the hours of cooling that can be obtained by direct evaporative cooling. This data will allow gas turbine operators to easily make an assessment of the economics of evaporative cooling. The paper also covers an introduction to direct evaporative cooling and the methodology and data analysis used to derive the cooling potential in different regions of the US. Simulation runs have been made for gas turbine simple cycles using a reference plant based on a GE Frame 7111EA gas turbine at the 122 locations studied in the US to provide a feel for the sensitivity of operation with inlet


"The author presents an informative synthesis of...recent data about the Arequipa region [of Peru. The study]...highlights rapid demographic growth (3.1%), explained by high rates of fertility and migration. There is also data about age structure, fertility and mortality. The region shows a high degree of urbanization (75%) and a great dispersion of the rural population." (SUMMARY IN ENG)


In a series of papers by Dai and colleagues [1,2], a feature map (or kernel) was introduced for semi- and unsupervised learning. This feature map is build from the output of an ensemble of classifiers trained without using the ground-truth class labels. In this critique, we analyze the latest version of this series of papers, which is called Ensemble Projections [2]. We show that the results reported in [2] were not well conducted, and that Ensemble Projections performs poorly for semi-supervised learning.


Alterations of the p53 tumor suppressor gene in 21 cases with acoustic neuroma were investigated by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) and single strand conformation polymorphism (PCR-SSCP). Neither mutation nor deletion was found. In 13 informative cases, no loss of heterozygosity (LOH) was confirmed. Thus our results further substantiate the scant contribution of p53 gene tumorigenesis and cell proliferation to acoustic neuromas.


The statistical theory of extremes is extended to observations that are non-stationary and not independent. The non-stationarity over time and space is controlled via the scedasis (tail scale) in the marginal distributions. Spatial dependence stems from multivariate extreme value theory. We establish asymptotic theory for both the weighted sequential tail empirical process and the weighted tail quantile process based on all observations, taken over time and space. The results yield two statistical tests for homoscedasticity in the tail, one in space and one in time. Further, we show that the common extreme value index can be estimated via a pseudo-maximum likelihood procedure based on pooling all (non-stationary and dependent) observations. Our leading example and application is rainfall in Northern Germany.


Abstract Over the past 10 years, the organic sector has expanded continuously in Europe due to policy support and a growing market demand for organic products. In line with this development, many farmers converted to organic farming each year. Nevertheless, the total number of organic farms has not increased constantly in Europe. In several countries, the absolute number of organic farms actually decreased in some years of the past decade. Some of the deregistered farmers gave up completely; others reverted to conventional agriculture. Against this background, this article aims (i) to give an overview of the extent of reversion to conventional agriculture in Europe based on statistics, (ii) to conceptualize the decision to revert in the form of a theoretical model, (iii) to compare farmers' reasons to revert to conventional farming based on existing studies, and (iv) to identify further research needs. The importance of reversions to conventional agriculture is difficult to determine with the existing data, especially as in most cases it is not recorded as to what happened to the farms after deregistering from organic certification. The data nevertheless show that there are large fluctuations in the organic sector with many farmers entering and exiting each year. In order to reveal the farmers' reasons for deregistering, various qualitative as well as quantitative surveys have been carried out already. For most farmers, the decision to revert is a result of different factors. Reasons for the reversion of their farms can be classified into economic motives, difficulties regarding certification and control, problems with organic production techniques as well as the farms' macro environment. In most cases, however, economic reasons played a main role. Suggestions for organic legislation bodies, advisory services and policy makers are derived out of the findings. A deeper understanding of the influencing aspects regarding reversions and the necessary changes in the organic sector to avoid them should be an important objective of forthcoming research.


Visual tracking is fundamentally the problem of regressing the state of the target in each video frame. While significant progress has been achieved, trackers are still prone to failures and inaccuracies. It is therefore crucial to represent the uncertainty in the target estimation. Although current prominent paradigms rely on estimating a state-dependent confidence score, this value lacks a clear probabilistic interpretation, complicating its use. In this work, we therefore propose a probabilistic regression formulation and apply it to tracking. Our network predicts the conditional probability density of the target state given an input image. Crucially, our formulation is capable of modeling label noise stemming from inaccurate annotations and ambiguities in the task. The regression network is trained by minimizing the Kullback-Leibler divergence. When applied for tracking, our formulation not only allows a probabilistic representation of the output, but also substantially improves the performance. Our tracker sets a new state-of-the-art on six datasets, achieving 59.8% AUC on LaSOT and 75.8% Success on TrackingNet. The code and models are available at https://github.com/visionml/pytracking.


Meta-analysis comprises the analysis of the data of similar studies gathered in a systematic review. If the results of the studies differ (strongly), this is called heterogeneity. Possible causes of heterogeneity are: a wrong choice of type of measure of treatment effect, differences of methodological quality between studies, or real differences between studies. Heterogeneity between studies can be assessed by thorough examination of the differences between study characteristics in combination with a visual inspection of the degree of overlap of the confidence intervals of the estimates of effect of the different studies. By applying the random effects model for pooling, (non-systematic) heterogeneity between studies can be addressed. In case of heterogeneity between studies, sources of heterogeneity should be explored by means of subgroup analysis according to strict, present criteria. Subgroup analysis should address subgroups of patients within studies.


Low sodium salt (LSS) is an effective way to reduce the primary source of sodium from home cooking. To investigate the availability, price and characteristics of LSS, price gap between LSS and regular salt, and the potential size of subsidy needed to equalize the price of LSS and regular salt. A market survey of salts was conducted using two major online shopping sites JD and Taobao from November to December 2022. Of 360 salts, 76 (21.1%) are LSS and 284 (78.9%) are regular salt. The average proportion of potassium chloride is low (16.8%), and half of the brands contain less than 15% and only 6.6% contains ≥25%. The mean price of LSS is slightly but not significantly higher than that of regular salts (1.82 versus 1.67 yuan/100 g, p = .07). In the lowest quartile by price, the cost of LSS is significantly higher than regular salts (difference 0.13, p = .0048). Further, when comparing the lowest price LSS to the lowest price regular since within the same brand, the mean price LSS is 2.11-fold that of the regular salt (1.66 versus 0.79 yuan/100 g, p < .05). The price of iodized LSS is also significantly higher than that of iodized regular salt (1.86 verse 1.44 yuan/100 g, p = .044). An annual subsidy based on the difference in price in the first quartile would cost 4.75 yuan per capita. A variety of LSS are available in China's salt market.


Small amounts of nitrosyl chloride lower the ignition temperature of 2H2 + 0 2 mixtures by over 200° C, the efficiency of this substance in this re spect being slightly greater than nitrogen peroxide. At a given temperature the ignition is confined between a lower and an upper concentration of catalyst, outside which only slow reaction occurs. Both the slow reaction and the ignition are preceded by an induction period, the length of which passes from large values through a minimum to further large values as the catalyst concentration is increased, and which, in contrast to the H 2-0 2-N 02 system, is unaffected by irradiation with light from a mercury-vapour lamp. The induction periods and limits depend on the pressure and temperature of reactants in a very similar way to the induction periods and limits of the H 2-02-N 02 system described in Part V. The similarity of the two systems extends to the effect of non-reactant gases in quenching the ignition, the quenching pressures being of the same magnitude in both systems. A difference is, however, found in that these foreign gases shorten the induction period in this system whereas they lengthen it in the H 2-02-N 02 system.


Observations suggest that the tropical Pacific Ocean has lost oxygen since the 1960s leading to the expansion of its oxygen minimum zone (OMZ). Attribution to anthropogenic forcing is, however, difficult because of limited data availability and the large natural variability introduced by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). Here, we evaluate the PDO influence on oxygen dynamics and OMZ extent using observations and hindcast simulations from two global ocean circulation models (NEMO‐PISCES, MOM6‐COBALT). In both models, the tropical Pacific oxygen content decreases by about 30 Tmol.decade−1 and the OMZ volume expands by 1.3 × 105 km3.decade−1 during PDO positive phases, while variations of similar magnitude but opposite sign are simulated during negative phases. Changes in equatorial advective oxygen supply, partially offset by biological demand, control the oxygen response to PDO. Observations which cover 39% of the tropical Pacific volume only partially capture spatio‐temporal variability, hindering the separation of anthropogenic trend from natural variations.


This study new-historically explores the dialectics of time and space in American Indian women's writings to explain American Indians' awareness of and attachment to their surrounding nature and its expression in the contemporary American Indian tribal life. With delimited focus on Louise Erdrich's Tracks (1988) and Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony (1977), this article analyzes American Indian approach to time and space reflecting Natives' awareness of their surrounding place. Mythical stories of oral tradition inscribed in Tracks and Ceremony recreate American Indian timeless and macrocosmic realities. American Indian women writers have been selected owing to the matriarchal nature of American Indian social order wherein women have been the conscious carriers of their timeless oral tradition. The two selected novels of different settings express the cultural range of American Indian tribal belt from Canadian border (Tracks' setting) to Mexican border (Ceremony's setting). This range is evidence of the synchronic and diachronic integrations and distinctions of American Indian past, present and future.


We present for the first time to the best of our knowledge a systematic study of lifetime and damage of semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors (SESAMs) designed for operation in high-power oscillators. We characterize and compare nonlinear reflectivity and inverse saturable absorption (ISA) parameters as well as damage threshold and lifetime of different representative SESAMs under test using a nonlinear reflectivity measurement setup at unprecedented high fluence levels. We investigate the catastrophic damage that occurs at very high fluences by demonstrating a dependence of the damage threshold on the ISA parameter F2 and the maximum reflectivity fluence F0. We can clearly demonstrate that the damage fluence Fd scales proportionally to √F2 for all SESAMs. In the case of SESAMs with the same absorber where the product Fsat .ΔR is constant, the damage fluence Fd scales proportionally to F0. Therefore, damage occurs due to heating of the lattice by the energy absorbed due to the ISA process and is not related to the quantum well (QW) absorbers. Furthermore, we present guidelines on how to design samples with high saturation fluences, reduced induced absorption, and high damage thresholds. Using multiple QWs and a suitable di-electric topsection, we achieved SESAMs with saturation fluences >;200 μj/cm2, nonsaturable losses <;0.1%, and reduced ISA. Our best sample could not be damaged at a maximum available fluence of 0.21 J/cm2 and a peak intensity of 370 GW/cm2. These SESAMs will be suitable for future high-power femtosecond oscillators in the kilowatt average output power regime, which is very interesting for attosecond science and industrial material processing applications.


The reverse link error probability of multicell direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA) systems with beamforming and Rake receivers is evaluated in this paper. The impact of power control schemes on the error probability is examined, considering power-based power control (PW-PC) and signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) based power control (SIR-PC). Expressions for the error probability as a function of the number of users per cell, the number of antenna elements, the number of Rake receiver fingers, and the CDMA processing gain are derived and both multipath interference and interference due to other users (own and other cells) are taken into consideration in the evaluation. Numeric results indicate that CDMA systems with different power control schemes have the same reverse link user capacity for a given target bit-error rate. However, the SIR-PC approach consumes less power than PW-PC when the number of users is smaller than the user capacity.


There is conflicting evidence for an ancient ocean which occupied the northern hemispheric basin on Mars. Along different regions of the dichotomy boundary, sediment fans have been interpreted as either forming into a large water body or a series of smaller paleolake basins. Here, we investigate fluvial systems in the Memnonia Sulci region of Mars, set along the dichotomy, which comprise erosional valley networks, paleolake basins, inverted channel systems, and sediment fans. We focus our analysis on the evolution of the upslope catchment and characterizing the ancient environment of a large, downslope basin, bound by the topographic dichotomy and the Medusae Fosse Formation. The catchment fluvial systems comprise highly degraded valley networks and show a complex history of incision and filling, influenced by paleolake basin overflow, impact crater damming, aggradation, and possibly a downstream water body. The morphology of the sediment fans is consistent with either fluvial fans or deltas and they form at discrete elevations, rather than a common elevation plane. Our analysis is consistent with the sediment fans forming into a series of paleolake basins set along the dichotomy, rather than into a large inner sea or ocean-sized water body. The fluvial systems were likely active between the mid Noachian and early Hesperian periods. Our results demonstrate the complex, multi-phase evolution of fluvial systems on ancient Mars and highlight the importance of regional and local studies when characterizing ancient regions of the dichotomy. Mars's that fluvial activity likely occurred between the mid Noachian and early Hesperian. Our results (a) demonstrate the complex, multi-phase evolution of fluvial systems on ancient Mars (e.g., Edgett et al., 2020) and (b) highlight the importance of regional studies when assessing the nature of the northern lowlands basin on early Mars, which can differ from the global picture.


The δ18O(PO4) of shark teeth can be used as a geochemical proxy for the palaeoenvironment during tooth mineralization. A well-preserved state of the teeth is necessary for this approach. We used polarization, cathodoluminescence (CL) and scanning electron microscopy to investigate two fossil shark teeth (Sphenodus nitidus) from the Late Jurassic Nusplingen Plattenkalk. The data are compared with those for two recent shark teeth (Hemipristis elongata, Lamiopsis temminckii). δ18O(PO4) of six further Jurassic shark teeth was measured and is compared with δ18O data from co-occurring belemnite rostra and carbonate sediments. The enameloid of both the fossil and the recent shark teeth shows orange–red CL, which is due to incorporation of Mn during biomineralization. The δ18O(PO4) values of the fossil enameloid are constant around 21.50‰ V-SMOW whereas those of the fossil dentine are more negative with values around 20‰ V-SMOW, which indicates that the enameloid is well preserved. Palaeotemperatures calculated from the enameloid are like those derived from belemnites. We demonstrate that CL microscopy should only be used cautiously as a diagenesis-screening method for fossil biophosphates. Geochemical and microstructural analyses of tissue types with different susceptibility to diagenetic alteration on the other hand provide an effective way to identify well-preserved tissues. Supplementary material: Polarization microscopy images, energy-dispersive X-ray data and cathodoluminescence spectra are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4373720


White-rot fungi consist of a group of basidiomycetes that are able to remove lignin, cellulose, and hemicellulose concurrently at approximately equal rates. These fungi produce three enzymes commonly known as lignin-modifying enzymes (LMEs) that are responsible for the degradation of wood components. These enzymes are produced during the secondary metabolism under an obligatory aerobic process and are induced by nutrient starvation, low pH, and high concentrations of Mn. We focused this review on the source of environmental organopollutants and the role that these white-rot fungi play on the transformation or mineralization of the environmental contaminants. These recalcitrant compounds originate mainly from human contamination. White-rot fungi or their enzymes showed mineralization of many environmental contaminants such as 1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-bis(4-chlorophenyl) ethane (DDT), 2, 4, 6-Trinitrotoluene (TNT); polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB's); polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH's); wood preservatives; some synthetic dyes; and bleach-derived from paper producing plants.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.54167/tecnociencia.v2i2.64


Project portfolio management deals with the selection of multiple projects. Because the number of potential projects that can be selected is greater than the number of projects that can be funded, managers face the problem of selecting a portfolio that maximizes the expected benefits. In this article, financial concepts are applied in the project portfolio and then cash flow at risk, as a measure in project portfolio optimization, is developed. Finally, we propose a novel mathematical model for project selection.


Author(s): Pincus, David | Advisor(s): Walter, Peter; El-Samad, Hana | Abstract: The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is the compartment in eukaryotic cells in which secreted and membrane-spanning proteins are folded, modified and assembled. These proteins are the means by which cells sense and respond to their environment and neighboring cells. Thus it is vital that these proteins fold into their appropriate structures so they can function properly. When cells are exposed to various environmental stresses, mutations or differentiation cues, the ER protein folding machinery can become overwhelmed, a condition known as ER stress. During ER stress unfolded and misfolded proteins accumulate in the ER, eliciting an intracellular signaling pathway called the unfolded protein response (UPR) that functions as a feedback loop to restore homeostasis to protein folding in the ER.The UPR is an ancient pathway found in all organisms with an ER. The most conserved component of the UPR is Ire1, an ER-resident transmembrane protein that contains a domain in the ER lumen that senses unfolded proteins and effector kinase and RNase domains in the cytosol that initiate the response. In most organisms misfolded proteins in the ER activate Ire1 to initiate a nonconventional mRNA splicing reaction. Splicing results in the production of a transcription factor that induces UPR target genes to increase the folding capacity of the ER and thereby relieve the stress. In the work compiled in this thesis, we find that maintaining homeostasis in the ER requires not only that Ire1 activates specifically, but also that Ire1 deactivates efficiently. Activation and deactivation of the UPR are regulated at the level of Ire1 oligomerization on both sides of the ER membrane. Binding to unfolded proteins drives oligomerization while de-oligomerization is aided by binding to the chaperone protein BiP in the lumen of the ER (Chapter 2) and Ire1's kinase activity in the cytoplasm (Chapter 3). Unmitigated UPR signaling imposes a fitness cost on cells (Chapter 4) underscoring the need for such deactivation mechanisms. Similar deactivation mechanisms may play underappreciated roles in controlling activity in many signaling pathways and stress responses.


Harmful pathogens immune actions need to establish protective measures against the introduction into the country of organisms harmful to plants or plant products, respectively orgnismelor quarantine and against their spread. The experiment was conducted in experimental 2010, under the test conditions of a tomato farm located in the County of Alba, commune RAƒhAƒu respectively. In the experimental period, the dependence of the degree of attack of septoriosis in tomatoes and registered thermic and pluviometruc regime from the month of April up to September, representing a negative trend and a positive trend, respectively, but it does not respect linearity The value of the correlation coefficient between septoriosis attack and temperature is negative and moderate R = -0.442, representative for 19.50% of the analzyed culture, and correlation coefficient between septoriosis attack and rainfall is positive and moderate R = +0.488, representative for 23.80% of the analzyed culture.


This study investigates the antecedents of a frontline employee's trust-in-supervisor with relation quality as moderator variable. This research is a causal descriptive study to investigate the relationship between variables. A personally administered survey was conducted to collect data from 100 frontline employees in Kebumen District, Cenral Java, Indonesia. Covariance-based structural equation modeling was applied using PLS3 to explore the proposed relationships. The results show that abusive supervision is negatively related to frontline employee's trust-in-supervisor, whereas supervisor support and communication quality have significant positive effects on frontline employee's trust-in-supervisor. Finally, the results show that relationship quality moderates (strengthens) the supportive influence of supervisors on trust in supervisors, but the quality of the relationship does not moderate the effect of abusive supervisors on trust in supervisor


In this paper, first we extend two basic measures of association rules in data mining (i.e, confidence and support) to the case of fuzzy association rules. The main difference between standard and fuzzy association rules is the discretization of continuous variables. While continuous variables are divided into intervals for generating standard association rules, they are divided into linguistic values in the case of fuzzy association rules. Next we examine two specifications of rule weights of fuzzy association rules for pattern classification problems. One is the direct use of the confidence as a rule weight. The other is based on a slightly complicated formulation where the rule weight of each fuzzy association role is discounted by the confidence or other rules with the same antecedent conditions and different consequent classes. Through computer simulations on a pattern classification problem with many continuous attributes, we compare these two definitions with each other. Simulation results show that the direct use of the confidence is inferior to the other definition of rule weights. Then we examine three rule selection criteria (i.e., confidence, support, and their product). It is shown that good fuzzy association rules are extracted from numerical data using the product criterion. Finally we compare the performance of fuzzy association rules with that of standard association rules.


The memory hierarchy of an embedded system can consume up to 50% of microprocessor system power (Segars, S.,2001). This paper proposes: (i) a design flow to estimate energy consumption and performance using an SoC system based on FPGA, and (ii) an automated architecture exploration mechanism based on parameter variation of a memory hierarchy and NIOS II processor. Results based on Mibench and XiRisc suite have demonstrated that, on average, with 9% of the design space, an energy consumption reduction of about 27% has been achieved, as well as an increase of 10% in the performance of the application.