The romance as a genre made $1.368 billion in sales last year.  Despite this impressive profit margin, however, many people dismiss romance novels as "trash," "smut," "bodice-ripper," and the new buzz word, "mommy porn."  Some of the harshest criticism of romance novels comes from feminist scholars like Kay Mussell, who contends that "as an art, [romances] are profoundly unsatisfying and profoundly derivative, for they represent a pathetic attempt to make dramatic a story that seems to lack resonance."  If what Mussell believes is true, why is this genre so popular?  Could it be there is something in these books that is powerful and meaningful, perhaps something that calls for a change in society? I propose that there are elements in the historical romance that encourage a change in our current societal expectations for women.  These novels promote change through their representations of empowered heroines who subvert traditional expectations of women's roles in their own society, thus challenging readers to re-evaluate modern day society's expectations of beauty, love, and a woman's role in marriage.  Even though these books are not set in our time period, their ideology against which their protagonists struggle is still both powerful and relevant.  By looking at the past through the lens of the present, we can see that these novels encourage an evolution of societal expectations in three ways: one, by giving women an identity, two, by making women realize that they are unique and beautiful just as they are, and three, by encouraging the idea that women should view marriage as a choice--not just a societal expectation.


Forest management is becoming increasingly complex due to increasing demands in ecosystem service provisioning and future climate change impacts. For a sustainable forest management, scientifically well-founded decision support is therefore urgently required. Within the project SessFor, a decision support system for strategic planning at the forest enterprise level is being developed, based on the climate sensitive forest model SwissStandSim and initialized from forest inventory data. The system is currently applied to the forest enterprise Wagenrain (440 ha), located in the Swiss Plateau region. Indicators for biodiversity and ecosystem service provisioning (timber production, recreation value and carbon sequestration) are calculated for different management strategies and evaluated using a multi-criteria decision analysis. Preliminary results demonstrate the suitability of the system to evaluate ecosystem service provisioning under different management strategies and to identify the best management strategy, based on criteria defined by the forest manager. Furthermore, results show how the system can be used to assess developments for time-scales of 50–100 years under different climate change scenarios. In the ongoing project, the system will be applied to other case study regions, including mountain forests, which are of key importance in Switzerland and other alpine areas.


The rib hump is a protrusion of the apicals ribs of the convex side of the toracic scoliosis and it is due to the torsional deformity that appears in scoliosis. It originates a great cosmetic deformity that although improves with the correction of the scoliosis, it appears again by the costal elasticity. For this reason, in cases of important deformity it is necessary to associate a costoplasty for its definitive improvement. 10 cases of Idiopatic Scoliosis with 75.5 degrees of average and rib hump of 22.1 degrees were analysed. A resection of apicals ribs without stabilization in the same surgical act were done; the correction of the curve was 34.6 degrees (55%) and of the hump 8.1 degrees (64%); there were no important complications and the postoperative evolution was normal. The average follow up was 21,9 months, only in 1 case a slight deterioration of the hump was detected, although in all the cases the ribs recovered. In conclusion, costoplasty breaks the vertebro-bicosto-esternal ring. For that reason it is effective for the improvement of the costal hump without adding morbidity to the correction of the scoliosis.


A new phase transition microextraction method was developed for determination of trace amount of arsenic ions in water samples in this work. The method is based on the critical point of miscibility of solvents. In this method the mixed solution of sample and organic solvent is initially homogeneous but is separated into two phases by adding a secondary solvent (modifier). In acidic medium As(V) was complexed with ammonium molybdate, this complex was quantitatively extracted to the mixture of organic solvent (acetonitrile/methyl isobutyl ketone) before ETAAS determination. Total inorganic arsenic (III, V) was extracted similarly after oxidation of As(III) to As(V) with nitric acid. Concentration of As(III) was calculated by difference in the concentration between total arsenic and As(V). Optimization of the experimental conditions and instrumental parameters was investigated in detail. A detection limit of 0.05 μgL −1 with enrichment factor of 85 was achieved for only 5 mL of sample. The analytical curve was linear in the concentration range of 0.25-4.00 μgL −1 . Relative standard deviation (RSD) for 10 replicate determinations of 2.0 μgL −1 of As(V) was 4,1%. The method was successfully applied to preconcentration and determination of arsenic in real water samples.


Biomedical fields have seen a remarkable increase in hybrid Gold open access articles. However, it is uncertain whether the hybrid Gold open access option contributes to a citation advantage, an increase in the citations of articles made immediately available as open access regardless of the article's quality or whether it involves a trending topic of discussion. This study aimed to compare the citation counts of hybrid Gold open access articles to subscription articles published in hybrid journals. The study aimed to ascertain if hybrid Gold open access publications yield an advantage in terms of citations. This cross-sectional study included the list of hybrid journals under 59 categories in the 'Clinical Medicine' group from Clarivate's Journal Citation Reports (JCR) during 2018–2021. The number of citable items with 'Gold Open Access' and 'Subscription and Free to Read' in each journal, as well as the number of citations of those citable items, were extracted from JCR. A hybrid Gold open access citation advantage was computed by dividing the number of citations per citable item with hybrid Gold open access by the number of citations per citable item with a subscription. A total of 498, 636, 1009, and 1328 hybrid journals in the 2018 JCR, 2019 JCR, 2020 JCR, and 2021 JCR, respectively, were included in this study. The citation advantage of hybrid Gold open access articles over subscription articles in 2018 was 1.45 (95% confidence interval (CI), 1.24–1.65); in 2019, it was 1.31 (95% CI, 1.20–1.41); in 2020, it was 1.30 (95% CI, 1.20–1.39); and in 2021, it was 1.31 (95% CI, 1.20–1.42). In the 'Clinical Medicine' discipline, the articles published in the hybrid journal as hybrid Gold open access had a greater number of citations when compared to those published as a subscription, self-archived, or otherwise openly accessible option.


The focus of this study was to identify microalgae isolates suitable for long-term outdoor cultivation at high salinities for biodiesel production. Screening and selection of locally collected halophilic microalgae isolates were based on the comparison of phenotypic traits such as growth rate, photosynthetic response and biomass productivity over a range of salinities, temperatures, light intensities and dissolved oxygen levels. Strain selection was also carried out in outdoor open raceway ponds.

The prasinophyte Tetraselmis and benthic diatoms were the most abundant of the microalgal species isolated. Indoor and outdoor comparative studies between 6 Tetraselmis strains- MUR 167, 219, 230, 231, 232 and 233- and the benthic diatom Amphora coffeaeformis MUR 158 showed that Tetraselmis was more suited for outdoor long-term cultivation in open raceway ponds. Disadvantages associated with A. coffeaeformis MUR 158 were a lower salinity tolerance (up to 5% NaCl only, as compared to 9% NaCl for Tetraselmis), slower growth and above all, the inability to outcompete Tetraselmis in outdoor open cultures.

Appreciable differences were observed between the 6 Tetraselmis strains, with Tetraselmis MUR 167, 230, 232 and 233 being the most promising strains for outdoor cultivation. Based on indoor determination of Pmax values, Ik values, growth rates, lipid content and photosynthetic response over a range of salinities, temperatures, light intensities and dissolved oxygen, Tetraselmis MUR 233 was the dominant strain, followed by MUR 230, MUR 232 and MUR 167. Out of doors, MUR 167 was the most productive strain when cultivated in open raceway ponds. However, Tetraselmis MUR 230 and MUR 233 were characterised by more consistent and stable growth. Regardless of strain variation, growth and biomass productivity in outdoor ponds were significantly influenced by water quality and were highest at cell densities below 40 x 104 cells.mL-1, salinities below 12% NaCl and at a temperature range of 20-25 °C.

The appropriate choice of solvent system, solvent to sample ratio and laboratory techniques for lipid extraction was also highlighted in this study. The modified Bligh and Dyer method was more efficient in extracting lipids from exponentially-grown cells as compared to the modified Folch et al. method, whereas no difference between both extraction methods was observed in cells from the stationary phase. Final lipid values were significantly influenced by methods employed for gravimetric measurements of lipid content.

In summary, this study showed that the halophilic Tetraselmis species is a suitable candidate for outdoor large-scale cultivation and that better performance and higher productivities in the open ponds can be achieved through careful strain selection and optimum culture management regime. This study also underlined the need for careful and critical assessment of reported lipid values in the literature since many factors influence lipid extraction and the final lipid content.


We employ the theory of technology acceptance to assess the suitability and fit of a new systems development environment, the .NET suite of technologies, as a pedagogical tool for teaching a technical information system (IS) course. The performance of students who adopted this technology for the completion of a class project requiring them to design and build an obJectoriented distributed-system is compared to that of students who opted for the more conventional technologies (J2EE). Results of this study indicate that the factors that led to the selection of .NET over the other technologies were consistent with the technology acceptance theory: Those project-teams that opted for .NET performed as well as the J2EE teams on the implementation/deployment part of the project, but reported significantly less technical difficulties than those who used the conventional technologies. This study suggests the effectiveness of the technology acceptance theory and similar IT innovation diffusion theories as approaches for assessing the pedagogical fit and suitability of specific IT for teaching specific IS courses.


Droughts are intensifying in many mid-latitude river basins due to climate change; therefore understanding the influence of droughts on water policy is crucial. This study of the politics of water reforms in Australia's Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) analyses contrasting discourses of water security during the Millennium Drought (1996-2010). The paper traces the historical evolution, mobilisation and effects of three discourses defined as 'drought-proofing', 'higher value use' and 'river restoration'. These are broadly aligned with engineering, economics and ecological perspectives, and while all discourses were integrated into government responses to the drought, the resurgence of drought-proofing significantly altered policy settings intended to shift MDB water management onto a more sustainable path. The paper illustrates the political and physical conditioning of water policy, placing drought responses in their historical context. The analysis demonstrates how policy actors used discourses of water security to define normative goals and legitimise policies, particularly when climatic extremes provide opportunities to influence policy outcomes. The paper provides three key insights for water governance and climate adaptation: first, drought responses can have far-reaching effects for water governance and policy trajectories; second, droughts pose challenges to positive climate adaptation when they revitalise heroic droughtproofing initiatives; and third, understanding the historical roots of contemporary drought responses is vital for effective climate adaptation.


Over the past 20 years, the concept of automation has been an intriguing and studied subject, having applicability in numerous and vast areas of interest. Time is one of the most valuable resources and because of that we can understand why automation can bring such an impact in our modern educational environment that goes through a constant change. In a modern digital world, designing a brand new visual identity, building a new website, creating materials for Social Media platforms (such as Facebook Covers, Profile Picture Frames and other dedicated communication elements) are necessary actions. After conducting a survey, we have discovered that the whole process of creating materials for raising awareness can be an intense time consuming task that requires rigorous planning and real skills. As a result, we propose a simple, fast and scalable automation model for this complex process. The paper presents an original model and the impact it brings in terms of time efficiency, execution and requirements for human interaction. The model can be easily adapted to generate awareness campaigns materials for social, industrial or natural hazards/ vulnerabilities that can later be shared on the Internet faster, maximizing impact in crisis situations. The online platform that we developed can generate digital and physical materials to support educational services. Because of the fact that the platform needs only a small investment of time and can also be operated by a person without technical expertise, the user can create a new visual identity, a new responsive website, digital and physical materials (roll-ups, posters, tickets and other) in less than ten minutes. The time previously invested in the actual process of creating the visual identity can now be used to share the educational service or cause.


A major drawback of theories of superconductivity based on small polarons has been that the effective mass of the carriers becomes extremely large in the parameter regime where the effective interaction is attractive. An implicit assumption in these theories has been the existence of electron-hole symmetry. We consider here the Holstein model for small polarons and show that inclusion of electron-hole symmetry-breaking perturbations leads to a pairing mechanism that circumvents the above-mentioned difficulty. Such perturbations arise from a dependence of coupling constant and vibrational frequency on the density of carriers, as well as from anharmonicity in the vibrational potential. The possibility of using such a polaronic model arising from purely electron-phonon interactions to describe superconductivity in high-${\mathit{T}}_{\mathit{c}}$ oxides is considered. It is concluded that experimental evidence disfavors it, while it favors an electron-hole asymmetric small-polaron model arising from excitations with energies of electronic scale together with a small admixture of electron-phonon effects.


The specificity and stability of task-related social behaviors in children ages 5 to 12 was examined. Social behaviors during solvable and unsolvable puzzles were compared among children with Down syndrome, children with mental retardation, and typically developing children matched on mental age (MA). Compared to children without Down syndrome, those with the disorder looked to an adult and requested help more frequently. They also took longer to complete the tasks. These findings suggest that the overuse of social behaviors observed in young children with Down syndrome remains stable over the early school years and are specific to children with Down syndrome.


We present three natural language marking strategies based on fast and reliable shallow parsing techniques, and on widely available lexical resources: lexical substitution, adjective conjunction swaps, and relativiser switching. We test these techniques on a random sample of the British National Corpus. Individual candidate marks are checked for goodness of structural and semantic fit, using both lexical resources, and the web as a corpus. A representative sample of marks is given to 25 human judges to evaluate for acceptability and preservation of meaning. This establishes a correlation between corpus based felicity measures and perceived quality, and makes qualified predictions. Grammatical acceptability correlates with our automatic measure strongly (Pearson's r = 0.795, p = 0.001), allowing us to account for about two thirds of variability in human judgements. A moderate but statistically insignificant (Pearson's r = 0.422, p = 0.356) correlation is found with judgements of meaning preservation, indicating that the contextual window of five content words used for our automatic measure may need to be extended.


Highly successful and critically acclaimed, "Art of the Electronic Age" is now available in paperback for the first time, bringing to a wider audience the extraordinary artistic experimentation of the last 25 years. Frank Popper reveals the various trends that have been spawned by these unprecedented innovations - laser and holographic art; video, computer and communication art; installation, demonstration and performance art - and analyzes each of these movements in terms of its objectives and its participants. In showing what cannot be described by words alone, the colour illustrations are an essential aspect of this analysis. Popper demonstrates that such art has not emerged out of the blue, but is a clear evolution from the art and artists that preceded it, with the same objective of creating a shared aesthetic experience. A valuable study, "Art of the Electronic Age" should encourage such pioneering art to be assimilated, interpreted and enjoyed by a wider audience.


Insect gustatory systems comprise multiple taste organs for detecting chemicals that signal palatable or noxious quality. Although much is known about how taste neurons sense various chemicals, many questions remain about how individual taste neurons in each taste organ control feeding. Here, we use the Drosophila pharynx as a model to investigate how taste information is encoded at the cellular level to regulate consumption of sugars and amino acids. We first generate taste-blind animals and establish a critical role for pharyngeal input in food selection. We then investigate feeding behavior of both male and female flies in which only selected classes of pharyngeal neurons are restored via binary choice feeding preference assays as well as Fly Liquid-Food Interaction Counter assays. We find instances of integration as well as redundancy in how pharyngeal neurons control behavioral responses to sugars and amino acids. Additionally, we find that pharyngeal neurons drive sugar feeding preference based on sweet taste but not on nutritional value. Finally, we demonstrate functional specialization of pharyngeal and external neurons using optogenetic activation. Overall, our genetic taste neuron protection system in a taste-blind background provides a powerful approach to elucidate principles of pharyngeal taste coding and demonstrates functional overlap and subdivision among taste neurons. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Dietary intake of nutritious chemicals such as sugars and amino acids is essential for the survival of an animal. In insects, distinct classes of taste neurons control acceptance or rejection of food sources. Here, we develop a genetic system to investigate how individual taste neurons in the Drosophila pharynx encode specific tastants, focusing on sugars and amino acids. By examining flies in which only a single class of taste neurons is active, we find evidence for functional overlap as well as redundancy in responses to sugars and amino acids. We also uncover a functional subdivision between pharyngeal and external neurons in driving feeding responses. Overall, we find that different pharyngeal neurons act together to control intake of the two categories of appetitive tastants.


Table of Contents Preface Chapter 1 Overview Achievements in Aging and Work "period 1989-2007 Challenges after 2007" W.J. Goedhard Measures for the aging workforce in Japan from the perspective of the occupational health, safety and ergonomic M. Kumashiro The effects of work-related and individual factors on work ability: A systematic review T.I.J. van den Berg, L.A.M. Elders & A. Burdorf Systematic review for assessing job demands and physical work capacity in safety jobs A. Ropponen, J. Smolander & V. Louhevaara Chapter 2 Work Ability Index The place of age in organisational policymaking: Evidence from an Australian qualitative survey L. Brooke, P. Healy, J. Jiang & P. Taylor Establishment of a Work Ability Index network in Germany H.M. Hasselhorn, B.H. Muller, R. Tielsch, B. Gauggel, G. Freude & J. Tempel WAI among workers in SMEs at Wholesale, Fruits, Vegetables and Flower Market in Brazil - from research to action I. Monteiro, K. Tuomi, J. Ilmarinen, J. Seitsamo, E. Tuominen & H.R. Correa-Filho Factors associated to the work ability among Brazilian teachers T.G. Vedovato & I. Monteiro Factors that predict work ability: Incorporating a measure of organizational values towards ageing J. Palermo, L. Webber, K. Smith & A. Khor Effect of Japanese employment system on Work Ability Index M. Tokuhiro, H. Izumi, J.-L. Malo, N. Uehara & M. Kumashiro Study on work ability of Vietnamese workers in selected industries D.K. Van & N.N. Nga WAI among young employees in Brazil with new scores I. Monteiro, J. Ilmarinen, K. Tuomi, J. Seitsamo, E.P. Goes, A.P. Fernandes & E.P. Hodge Verifying of the theoretical model of perceived work ability in the field of teaching V. Louhevaaral & S. Jarvelin An assessment of the Work Ability Index (WAI) and its usefulness in predicting and promoting continued workin staff employed by amajor UK Charity 83 T. Reilly, A. Rees & M. Tipton Individual and work related determinants of work ability in white-collar workers T.I.J. van den Berg, S.M. Alavinia, F.J. Bredt, D. Lindeboom, L.A.M. Elders & A. Burdorf Workplace trauma exposure, emotional imbalance and work ability G.P. Fichera, L. Neri, S. Sartori & G. Costa Work ability and all cause mortality: A 25-year longitudinal study among Finnish municipal workers J. Seitsamo & R. Martikainen Impacts from occupational risk factors on self reported reduced work ability among Danish wage earners L. Sell, A. Faber & K. Sogaard Work ability and work quality as indicators for a longer and more productive working life M. Melon, P. Cocco & G. Costa Disabled people at work and work ability: A study in a Brazilian company E.P. Hodge & I. Monteiro Work ability of a population of 40+ in Luxembourg N. Majery Chapter 3 Staying at Work Older worker career plateau: Issues and remedies P. McCarthy & S. Moore Can organisations influence employees' intentions to retire? J. Oakman & Y. Wells Extending the working life R.G. Goedhard & W.J.A. Goedhard Pension preferences and work environment M. Stattin Younger managers and considerably older subordinates I. Johansson Training older workers and long-term development: Needs and obstacles J.-C. Marquie & L.R. Duarte Chapter 4 Promotion of Health and Work Ability Promoting health and workability in Vattenfall AB Nordic, Sweden R.J. Mykletun & T. Furunes Managers' decision making latitudes in relation to managing ageing workers T. Furunes & R.J. Mykletun The DRUVAN-project: A major increase in Occupational Health Service based on the Metal Age method in a Finnish municipality improved the work abilityand gave significant financial return O. Nasman & G. Ahonen A study on effects of support systems for KAIZEN in casting production of non-ferrous alloy by aged foundry workers Y. Mizuno, N. Motegi, M. Sugiura, F. Matsuda, T. Yoshikawa, K. Sakai & T. Misawa Discovering the treasure: The use of the Work Ability Concept and the WAI in a bus company within a workplace health promotion process J. Tempel & J. Schramm Prolonging working life in intellectual work UE. Kristjuhan Ergonomic and safe design of railway vehicles for elderly and handicapped people M. Rentzsch & D. Seliger Female workers' superior peculiarity and consideration for aging for the activation of "super-advanced age and fewer children" society K. Mikami, K. Iida & M. Kumashiro Usability research on the older person's ability for Web browsing D. Kobayashi & S. Yamamoto Chapter 5 Age Affected Functions Impact of psychosocial work environment factors measured by the COPSOQ on the need for recovery after work in aging workers. Preliminary results P. Kiss & M. De Meester Age differences in mental workload while performing visual search task M. Takahara, T. Miura, K. Shinohara & T. Kimura A study of clinical assessment of Unilateral Spatial Neglect using a Head Mounted Display system (HMD) for elderly stroke patients in a virtual reality technology T. Tanaka, S. Ino, T. Ifukube, S. Sugihara, S. Shirogane, Y. Oyama & Y. Maeda Postural control using a vibratory feedback system for balance training in the elderly T. Tanaka, S. Ino, T. Ifukube, S. Shirogane, Y. Maeda,Y. Oyama, S. Sugihara & T. Izumi A study of static and dynamic balance abilities in the elderly Y. Maeda, T. Tanaka, S. Ino, T. Ifukube, S. Shirogane & Y. Oyama Differences of visual information processing between younger and aged person K. Yamanaka,Y. Nakanishi & M. Kawakami Chapter 6 Nurse Effects of disturbed sleep on work ability and well-being among European nurses D. Camerino, P.M. Conway, S. Sartori & G. Costa Physical/mental recovery and work ability of nurses in Japan C. Miyamoto, Y. Suenaga, M. Ando, N. Noda, Y. Okui & M. Hashimoto Relationship between depersonalization syndrome and medical malpractice among Japanese nurses M. Sugiura, M. Hirosawa, Y. Yamada, Y. Nishi, S. Tanaka & M. Mizuno Effect of continuous exercise on job stress among Japanese nurses Y. Kawata, Y. Yamada, M. Sugiura, Y. Nishi, M. Mizuno, M. Hirosawa & S. Tanaka Relation between Typus Melancholicus and burnout among Japanese nurses Y. Yamada, M. Hirosawa, M. Sugiura, Y. Nishi, S. Tanaka & M. Mizuno Relationship between depression and depersonalization among Japanese nurses S. Tanaka, M. Sugiura, M. Hirosawa, Y. Yamada, Y. Nishi & M. Mizuno Effect of obsessive personality traits and impulsiveness on obsessive-compulsive disorder and eating disorders among hospital nurses Y. Nishi, M. Hirosawa, M. Sugiura, Y. Yamada, S. Tanaka & M. Mizuno Work-family balance and stressors among Japanese administrative nurses M. Mizuno, Y. Yamada, M. Hirosawa, M. Sugiura, Y. Nishi,Y. Kawata & S. Tanaka Chapter 7 Others Time constraints and age: Health impact on musculoskeletal problems and perceived health B. Norma, S. Rosa & S. Francesco Age-related differences in insurance claim rates for work-related injuries and diseases for different occupations and industry sectors K. Munk, P. Congdon & W. Macdonald Age-related differences in patterns of return to work and compensation costs following work-related injury or illness K. Munk, P. Congdon & W. Macdonald Keyword Index Author Index


Isolated hepatic perfusion (IHP) is the best regional chemotherapy modality for treatment of unresectable liver primary cancer and liver metastases. The main principle of isolated hepatic chemotherapy is to achieve higher regional drug concentrations and thus higher exposure of tumor tissue to the agents, resulting in increased response rates, while shielding the organism from the systemic toxicity because of the much lower concentrations in the systemic circulation. At present the methods of IHP include surgical methods and methods with balloon catheter technique, which promise to provide a micro invasive procedure, but are not fully mature. The key point of successful IHP is low leakage or leakage free. The more beneficial aspect of IHP is that it can simultaneously apply hyperthermy and biologic agent TNF to improve sensitivity of chemotherapy, which is not possible in other regional chemotherapy. From previous literatures this overview is to describe the principle, procedure techniques, leakage monitor methods, hyperthermy application, administration agents, therapeutic reaction, complications and perspective of IHP.


A review of pavement thickness designs shows that two kinds of failure criteria are used in most cases. They are: 1) The tension strain under the asphalt layer that causes cracking; and 2) the vertical compression strain on the sub-grade that causes deflection. In this study, various factors affecting thickness design are first defined and more than 216 pavement conditions are introduced. Structures are analyzed using the Flex pass program and their strains and stresses are investigated severally by choosing the failure criteria one at a time.


Despite high performance, municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) still discharge significant amounts of organic material and nitrogen and even microbes into the receiving water bodies, altering physico-chemical conditions and microbial functions. In this study, we examined how nitrified wastewater affects the microbiology of boreal lake sediments. Microbial community compositions were assessed with next generation sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene, and a more detailed view on nitrogen transformation processes was gained with qPCR targeting on functional genes (nirS, nirK, nosZI, nosZII, amoAarchaea, and amoAbacteria). In both of the two studied lake sites, the microbial community composition differed significantly between control point and wastewater discharge point, and a gradual shift toward natural community composition was seen downstream following the wastewater gradient. SourceTracker analysis predicted that ∼2% of sediment microbes were of WWTP-origin on the study site where wastewater was freely mixed with the lake water, while when wastewater was specially discharged to the sediment surface, ∼6% of microbes originated from WWTP, but the wastewater-influenced area was more limited. In nitrogen transformation processes, the ratio between nitrifying archaea (AOA) and bacteria (AOB) was affected by wastewater effluent, as the AOA abundance decreased from the control point (AOA:AOB 28:1 in Keuruu, 11:1 in Petäjävesi) to the wastewater-influenced sampling points, where AOB dominated (AOA:AOB 1:2–1:15 in Keuruu, 1:3–1:19 in Petäjävesi). The study showed that wastewater can affect sediment microbial community through importing nutrients and organic material and altering habitat characteristics, but also through bringing wastewater-originated microbes to the sediment, and may thus have significant impact on the freshwater biogeochemistry, especially in the nutrient-poor boreal ecosystems.


BACKGROUND
The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of the systemic immune inflammation index (SII), C-reactive protein/albumin ratio (CAR), the monocyte/lymphocyte ratio (MLR), and the neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in predicting disease severity, treatment, and prognosis in multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C).

METHODS
This medical record review retrospectively evaluated the clinical and laboratory findings of 191 MIS-C patients followed in the Department of Pediatric Rheumatology at Ankara City Hospital, Turkey. The patients were grouped by disease severity: mild, moderate, and severe. SII, CAR, MLR, and NLR were calculated for each group.

RESULTS
All patients had fever at the time of admission; 153 (80.1%) had gastrointestinal tract involvement, 74 (38.7%) had rash, 63 (33%) had conjunctivitis, 107 (56%) had cardiac involvement, 32 (15.6%) had renal involvement, and 143 (74.9%) had hematological involvement. According to logistic regression analysis, SII, NLR, MLR, and CAR were found to be predictive indexes for disease severity, need for intensive care, need for inotropes, and anakinra treatment in MIS-C. The cut-off values of ≥1605.3 for SII, ≥9.1 for NLR, and ≥3.9 for CAR increased the risk of severe disease by 3.4, 7.1, and 5.7 times, respectively.

CONCLUSION
NLR, SII, MLR, and CAR are effective and useful for predicting the severity of MIS-C, the need for intensive care, and the need for anakinra treatment.


NR3A is a developmentally regulated N‐methyl‐D‐aspartate receptor (NMDAR) subunit that was previously known as NMDAR‐L or χ‐1. Unlike other NMDAR subunits, NR3A inhibits the NMDAR‐associated ion channel in a novel manner, and a role in synaptogenesis has been suggested for this subunit. Here, we report a comprehensive study to delineate the temporal and anatomic expression of NR3A protein in the mammalian brain by using a monoclonal anti‐NR3A antibody. NR3A protein was found to peak at postnatal day (P) 8, and to decrease gradually from P12 to adulthood in the rat central nervous system. Moreover, NR3A protein was heavily expressed in all areas of the isocortex, portions of the amygdaloid nuclei, and selective cell layers and nuclei of the hippocampus, thalamus, hypothalamus, brainstem, and spinal cord. NR3A protein was also expressed in the cerebellar cortex, whereas only weak signal was detected in the previous in situ studies by using riboprobes. At an ultrastructural level, NR3A was associated specifically with asymmetrical synapses and localized to postsynaptic membranes. This information will facilitate future research on NMDARs by providing clues to possible inclusion of the NR3A subunit in NMDARs in many brain regions. J. Comp. Neurol. 450:303–317, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


This paper is focused on the preparation and characterization of different lamellar silica prepared by liquid crystal templating and silanisation. The initial template can be removed and replaced in the interlamellar spaces by different types of silane, being covalently grafted to the solid by reaction with the surface silanols. The lamellar stacking periodicity remains after this modification. The surfactant extraction can lead in significant grafting of isopropanol if the solid is simply refluxed in isopropanol, which have the effect of preserving the periodicity of the lamellar stacking. The surfactant extraction in an Soxhlet equipment avoid this reaction, with the effect of platelets organization collapsing. The lamellar silica studied exhibit great specific surface and combination of meso and microporosity, making them interesting materials for nanocomposite or catalysis applications.


This tutorial will present the highlights of the SIMSCRIPT II.5 approach to building discrete event simulation models. The approach will be to construct a small example problem, implement the program in SIMSCRIPT II.5, and then to display the modularity which is possible with SIMSCRIPT II.5 by adding several "real-world" complexities to the model.


We investigate the error performance of multidimensional constellations in the multiple access and broadcast channels. More specifically, we provide closed-form expressions for the pairwise error probability (PEP) of the joint maximum likelihood detection, for multiuser signaling in the presence of additive white Gaussian noise and Rayleigh fading. Arbitrary numbers of users and multidimensional signal sets are assumed, while the provided formula for the PEP is a function of the dimension-wise distances of the multidimensional constellation. Furthermore, a useful upper bound on the average symbol error probability is also obtained through the union bound. The analysis is applied to the sparse code multiple access systems. The analytical results are validated successfully through simulations, and show their importance in the multidimensional constellation design.


This essay reviews the approaches taken by the Japanese agricultural economists on farmland concentration and consolidation. We critically discuss how scholars saw and understood the "land market" and evaluate the achievement and limitations of empirical studies. We suggest sharing a more realistic image of land markets, evaluation of policies and programs, and designing institutions to facilitate farmland consolidations as important directions for further research. Close collaboration between case-studies and quantitative approaches would be fruitful.


The results of a performance evaluation of a wireless LAN (WLLAN) in an indoor environment are presented. The LAN operates in the ISM bands using spread spectrum technology. Hardware specific parameters such as bit error rate vs. signal to noise ratio (BER vs. SNR), maximum transmission rate, and platform software overhead are measured experimentally for a single node. These empirical data, in combination with manufacturer specifications, are then used as a basis for deriving a network simulation model. A ray trace algorithm is used to obtain the indoor channel characteristics for point to point transmissions within a test room. The network simulation uses the measured BER vs. SNR, node and hardware specifications, and the ray trace channel characteristics to model the behavior of a multiple node network in a wireless environment.


This dissertation is divided into two chapters: the first chapter deals with some problems of the Hebrew tenses; the second chapter is a study on the principal uses of the Infinitive Absolute. Chapter I: The Tenses. After an exhaustive survey primarily devoted to the uses of the simple Imperfect and the Perfect with waw in past time and the simple Perfect in future time in the prose sections of the Old Testament, we have reached the following conclusions: 1. Both tense forms express the action indefinitely (i.e. without regard to progress or completion), in a way comparable to the Greek aorist tense. Hence we oppose the time-honoured theory which asserts that the Perfect denotes completed action and the Imperfect incomplete action. The distinction in form can be explained not by verbal use in Hebrew (apart from the Perfect of stative verbs) but by positing an original distinction (probably a stative force for the gatil form and an active force for the yaqtul form) which became obliterated when the gatil (gatal) form gathered active meaning. 2. All the Imperfects in past time are vestiges of an old preterite tense of the preformative type (which was found in two forms: yagtulu and yagtul). 3. All the Perfects in future time are survivals from the period when the old afformative verb gatil (gatal) was employed in future situations. 4. Particles and other elements (particularly a demonstrative element, or at least an element of deictic origin) are influential in verbal usage. In other words, an Imperfect occurs in past time not to denote the incompletion or continuance of an action but because it is in construction with a particle and/or other elements. The particle and the verb constitute a stereotyped syntactical arrangement. The preteritive use of the Imperfect is not restricted to instances with waw consecutive and other particles such as 'az and terem: additional particles are also used with the Imperfect in a preterite sense. Similarly, a Perfect occurs in future time not to denote the certainty of the occurrence of to action but because it is in stereotypic construction with other elements. The futuristic use is not limited to cases with x-raw consecutive: other particles are also used with the Perfect in a straight (aoristic) future sense. In the light of these statements, the time of the action (in the case of both tenses) is indicated by factors outside the verb form itself. 5. The Perfect with waw consecutive in past time is used like the Imperfect, so it likewise is a preterite tense. The Perfect with waw copulative is of course also a preterite, but its force is not a matter of dispute. Chapter II: The Infinitive Absolute. Our research was concerned principally with the adverbial uses of this verbal noun. It is our impression that some of these usages have been misunderstood. For example, when an Infinitive expressing movement (such as halok "going") follows a verb of the same root, this Infinitive extends in space the verbal, action, i.e. it denotes a continuation of the verbal ideas "he went on." The term "continuation" signifies a mere extension of the actions it suggests neither duration (implied to the term ''continuance") nor uninterruption (implied in the term "continuity"). Also, when there are successive Infinitives, one a verb of movement and the other a verb of non-movement (as in I Samuel 6:12, "And they went, going arid lowing (Weg, the former is not to be viewed as modifying the latter ("lowing on"). Rather it modifies the main verb ("they went on") which is from the same root aid is also a verb of movement. The Infinitive "lowing," a verb of non-motion, simply denotes the attendant circumstance: "they went on, lowing." If on the other hand both Infinitives are verbs of movement (as in Genesis 8:3, "And the waters returned from upon the earth, going (halok) and returning (wasob)), the first modifies the second and denotes an extension in space of the one action in progress: "And the waters returned, going on back." In fine, it should be mentioned that the idea of "extension" can relate to verbs of non-motion (as in Jeremiah 23:17, "The ones who say saying (amor)," i.e. who say on), but in such cases it is a non-spatial extension.


While interest groups use a variety of techniques to exert influence, coalition strategies are the dominant lobbying technique. However, many questions remain about such coalitions. This paper is the second in a series of social network analyses of purposive and coordinated interest group relationships. We utilize a network measure based on cosigner status to United States Supreme Court amicus curiae, or friend of the court briefs. The illuminated structures lend insight into the central players and overall formation of the network over the first several years of the 21st century. The factions are tied together by various central players, who act as hubs, leaving a disparate collection of organizations that work alone. Using an exponential-family random graph model (ERGM), we find that graph-theorectic and organizational characteristics, such as size and budget, as well as policy interests explain interest group network formation.


Abstract
Introduction Obsessive-compulsive disorder is one of the most common psychological disorders that has a great impact on the performance and quality of life of patients. The study was conducted to predict adjustment based on tolerance for ambiguity and perfectionism among patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Methods: The research method was correlation with forecasting approach and regression design. From the statistical population of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder referring to counseling centers in District 4 of Tehran, 150 people were selected as a sample using a multi-stage random method. Research tools included adaptability (Spanier, 1976), ambiguity intolerance (Freiston et al., 1994), perfectionism (Terry Short & et al., 1995). The research data were analyzed using SPSS and Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regression.
Results: The results of correlation coefficient showed that marital adjustment with ambiguity tolerance (r = -0.35, p = 0.001) and perfectionism (r = 0.35, p = 0.001) had significant correlation. have. The results of regression also showed that perfectionism with beta coefficient of 0.31 can predict the marital adjustment of obsessive patients more than the intolerance of ambiguity with beta multiplication of 0.22 and also 17% variance related to marital adjustment, based on tolerance. Ambiguity and perfectionism are explained.
Conclusion: adjustment of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder can be predicted using intolerance and ambiguity. Therefore, by improving the intolerance of ambiguity and perfectionism of obsessive-compulsive patients, their compatibility can be strengthened.


Why do elephants have sturdier thigh bones than humans? Why can't ostriches fly? How do bacteria swim through fluids? With each chapter structured around relevant biological case studies and examples, this engaging, full-colour book introduces fundamental physical concepts essential in the study of biological phenomena. Optics is introduced within the context of butterfly wing colouration, electricity is explained through the propagation of nerve signals, and accelerated motion is conveniently illustrated using the example of the jumping armadillo. Other key physical concepts covered include waves, mechanical forces, thermodynamics and magnetism, and important biological techniques are also discussed within this context, such as gel electrophoresis and fluorescence microscopy. A detailed appendix provides further discussion of the mathematical concepts utilised within the book, and numerous exercises and quizzes allow readers to test their understanding of key concepts. This book is invaluable to students aiming to improve their quantitative and analytical skills and understand the deeper nature of biological phenomena.


Analysing the topic of protofeminism in three Jane Austen's novels: Pride and Prejudice, Emma and Mansfield Park, apart from the introduction and conclusion, the paper consists of two main parts, which denote different characteristics of Austen's heroines that might be considered protofeminist.
The first part titled "Womanhood Revised" consists of two sections denoting how Austen covertly questioned the ingrained patriarchal order by portraying Fanny Price, Emma Woodhouse and Elizabeth Bennet differently than what was considered prevalent in the society of the time. Having stated the reasons why Austen's heroines might be considered protofeminist characters due to their choice of a proper education rather than mastering accomplishments, and due to their relationships with their fathers; the rest of the thesis, in the section titled "Marriage of the Equals", analyses the topic of marriage and how Austen's novels depict a freely chosen companionate in marriage based on a spousal equality of the mind.
In Austen's case one cannot assert, without a shadow of a doubt, that it was a consciously protofeminist point of view, and that the purpose of her novels was to reveal her own protofeminist concerns. However, the fact that her heroines are exemplary of the claim that women share the same moral nature as men, that they should have the same moral status, and exercise the same responsibilities for their own conduct (paraphrasing Kirkham 84), makes for a good debate on Austen's protofeminism.
It is this paper's declaration that Austen's heroines likely exert atypical behaviour for women of their time and social affiliation. They presumably challenge the traditional expectations for women and question the validity of the ingrained patriarchal ideals of a woman's subordination to a man. Even though these selected novels end in marriage, they all propose breaking from the traditional marriage expectations of a power dynamic between the spouses. Their relationship is established as an equal partnership provided by their equality of mind. It would not be a stretch to pronounce this as a slow shift towards the modern worldview and that Jane Austen took part in its achievement.


Most homeotherms are believed to avoid large deviations of deep body temperature by choosing thermally preferable environments. There is evidence to suggest that this is not always true. Johnson (1987) found in two flocks of sheep that some individuals repeatedly spent time in the sun while others shaded. The animals voluntarily exposing themselves to high levels of solar radiation behaved in a fashion apparently contrary to accepted principles of homeostasis. This thesis describes investigations of the differences in shading behaviour amongst sheep and any consequences of these for their thermal status.

Three reasons for differences in shading behaviour were proposed: (1) that social differentiation within a flock enables some sheep to have priority of access to shade. (2) that sheep which remain in the sun are better able to effect heat losses when under heat load than are animals which seek shade, (3) that sheep remaining in the sun make reduced attempts to thermoregulate and instead adopt a strategy whereby body temperatures are allowed to rise.

To examine the first of these propositions, several social behaviours (leadership, dominance and aggressive tendencies) within a flock of sheep were quantified. These were compared with the amount of time each sheep spent shading. Social factors were found to be related to shade use, though thermal factors also had some influence.

To examine the second and third possibilities, a system was developed whereby deep body and skin temperatures could be recorded on freely ranging sheep. Four of these measurement systems were used to determine the thermal status of sheep at pasture. During this trial. experimental sheep did not use available shade but remained in the sun. In order to measure the effect of shading, the recording systems were therefore used again some weeks later when the same animals were confined to shade.

Because these two investigations took place several weeks apart, wool length and climatic conditions had changed and were confounding variables. To allow corrections for these, a sample of the animals was examined indoors under controlled conditions. Under simulated shaded and non-shaded conditions, the effects of wool length, air temperature and radiation load on thermoregulatory response were investigated. The observed relationships allowed predictions to be made of the probable effects of shade on the thermal status of sheep in the field.

From the results of the indoor investigations, it was possible to predict that the body temperatures and respiration rates of the free-ranging sheep staying in the sun would be significantly raised above those expected if they had sought shade. The extent of this thermal disturbance was not great, but it was unexpected since shade was readily available to the sheep. Several explanations of why the sheep did not use shade are considered. The observations made suggest that the sheep behaved in a sub-optimal manner contrary to accepted behavioural models. The results have revealed new theoretical and practical aspects of the shading behaviour of sheep.


Objectives - We examine the relationship between sleep duration and health in the high mortality context of Russia. Methods - Night and daytime sleep durations are based on self-reports and 24-hour heart rate trends (Holter monitoring). The sample of 201 individuals (Holter data for 185) is drawn from the Moscow Lipid Research Clinics cohort, followed up since 1975-77. Field-work occurred in 2002-03. Results - Although objective and reported mean sleep are similar, there are significant intra-individual differences. Significant associations are found between objective sleep and health: longer sleep corresponds to lower grip strength, poorer self-rated health and immediate recall, and higher mortality risk score. No significant relationships are found for subjective sleep. Conclusions - We provide the first evidence of an association between long sleep and worse health outcomes among elderly Russians. Predictive power increases if objective sleep measures are used, a consideration which is especially important in small studies.


This study has as objective to discuss technologies in use in administration of public health's services. The empiric data which this analysis it sketches are based in a professional experience of one of the authors as technical adviser close to Government Bureau of Health of São Paulo. The practice of management experienced is confronted with proposals of managerial technology brought by MERHY; ONOCKO (1997) and articulated to strategies of construction of full subjects starting from the work. The conclusions indicate the need to rethink the managerial technologies in use and they aim new managerial instruments.


Pentacyclic triterpenes (PCTs) represent a major class of bioactive metabolites in banaba (Lagerstroemia speciosa) leaves; however, biosynthetic enzymes and their involvement in the temporal accumulation of PCTs remain to be studied. We use an integrated approach involving transcriptomics, metabolomics and gene function analysis to identify oxidosqualene cyclases (OSCs) and cytochrome P450 monooxygenases (P450s) that catalyzed sequential cyclization and oxidative reactions towards PCT scaffold diversification. Four monofunctional OSCs (LsOSC1,3-5) converted the triterpene precursor 2,3-oxidosqualene to either lupeol, β-amyrin or cycloartenol, and a multifunctional LsOSC2 formed α-amyrin as a major product along with β-amyrin. Two CYP716 family P450s (CYP716A265, CYP716A266) catalyzed C-28 oxidation of α-amyrin, β-amyrin and lupeol to form ursolic acid, oleanolic acid and betulinic acid, respectively. However, CYP716C55 catalyzed C-2α hydroxylation of ursolic acid and oleanolic acid to produce corosolic acid and maslinic acid, respectively. Besides, combined transcript and metabolite analysis suggested major roles for the LsOSC2, CYP716A265 and CYP716C55 in determining leaf ursane and oleanane profiles. Combinatorial expression of OSCs and CYP716s in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Nicotiana benthamiana led to PCT pathway reconstruction, signifying the utility of banaba enzymes for bioactive PCT production in alternate plant/microbial hosts that are more easily tractable than the tree species.


We report on the generation of dual-wavelength mode-locked pulses in an erbium-doped fiber laser incorporating a topological insulator (TI): Bi2Se3/Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA) film which could operate as both an excellent saturable absorber (SA) for mode-locking and a high-nonlinear medium for mitigating the mode competition of erbium-doped fiber and stabilizing the dual-wavelength oscillation. The TI: Bi2Se3/PVA film is prepared through a liquid-phase exfoliation/spin-coating method. Its saturating intensity and modulation depth are measured to be about 31.5 MW/cm2 and 3.4%, respectively. Taking advantage of the high nonlinearity and saturable absorption of the TI: Bi2Se3, three dual-wavelength pulse patterns, namely bright pulse, bright-dark soliton pair, and hybrid step-like and dark pulse, could be achieved under different lengths of single mode fiber by properly adjusting the pump power and the polarization state. For the bright pulse operation, we obtain its fundamental repetition rate of 9.75 MHz. For the bright-dark soliton pair operation, we find that it contains two distinct parts in the whole optical spectrum: one is at shorter wavelength corresponds to bright soliton and the other one is at longer wavelength corresponds to dual-wavelength dark soliton. In addition, we also achieved the harmonic mode-locking (HML) of the bright-dark soliton pair. The highest obtained repetition rate is about 433.8 MHz, which corresponds to the 280th harmonic of the fundamental repetition rate. For the hybrid step-like and dark pulse operation, we achieve its fundamental repetition rate of 8.805 MHz. Our findings suggest that TI: Bi2Se3 can operate as both an excellent SA for short pulse generation and a promising highly nonlinear photonic material for the related nonlinear optics applications.


Abstract Nitric oxide (NO) is synthesised by different nitric oxide synthases (NOS) from Larginine and acts as a signal transducer in a variety of cells. The neuronal isoenzyme of NOS (nNOS) was recently found in rodent βcells and βcell lines. We provide evidence that nNOS is also present in the human βcell line CM and that the specific inhibitor of nNOS PIN is expressed in CM and INS-1 cells. Furthermore, we investigated the influence of glucose on the activity of nNOS and the expression of PIN and are able to show that both are increased by glucose stimulation in the βcell lines but not in the mouse fibroblastic cell line LTK. This indicates that nNOS and PIN play a role in the specific function of βcells, not only in rodents but also in humans.


Isovaleryl-CoA dehydrogenase (IVD) is a homotetrameric flavoenzyme which catalyzes the conversion of isovaleryl-CoA to 3-methylcrotonyl-CoA. E376 of pig medium chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase (MCAD), a homologous enzyme, has been identified as the active site catalytic residue. Amino acid sequence alignment shows that A375 is the corresponding residue in human IVD. Using the atomic coordinates determined for MCAD, molecular modeling suggests that E254 is the substituting catalytic residue in IVD. To substantiate the importance of this residue for enzyme function, cDNAs for the wild-type human IVD and E254G, E254D, E254Q, and E254G/A375E mutant IVDs were constructed and cloned into a prokaryotic expression vector. The proteins were synthesized in Escherichia coli and purified, and their properties were examined. The catalytic activity of the recombinant wild-type IVD was the highest in the presence of isovaleryl-CoA, and its UV/visible light spectrum in the presence of isovaleryl-CoA showed quenching of its characteristic absorption in the 445-nm region and appearance of absorption at 600 nm. The E254G and E254Q mutant IVDs had no detectable enzymatic activity, and isovaleryl-CoA did not induce quenching of the absorption in the 445-nm region or the appearance of absorption at 600 nm. The E254D mutant IVD had residual activity for isovaleryl-CoA, and its spectrum was altered compared to that of the wild type. The E254G/A375E mutant IVD exhibited catalytic activity toward isovaleryl-CoA, and its spectrum in the absence or presence of the substrate was similar to that of the wild-type IVD.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


The study proposes the development of a geographical information system for European Economic Community (EEC) regional data. The features of geographical information systems and some related issues are discussed. An outline is given of likely user requirements and attempts by various European organisations to make provision for these. The practical work involves the application of three selected data analysis, manipulation and mapping packages, and operating system facilities to tasks which users of the data might wish to undertake. For this purpose, EEC "Level II" region boundaries were digitised, and selected socio-economic attributes for 1977 organised in disc files. Ten choropleth maps of the Level II regions (eight original variabels and two composite variables) are displayed. Although there is a lack of certain, more specialised features in the software system used, it is considered that there exists the imprtant basic requirements of data analysis, manipulation and mapping in package form, upon which to build the proposed geographical information system.


Being the first horror film produced after the Reformation period, Rizal Mantovani and Jose Purnomo's Jelangkung (2001) played an important role in resurrecting the horror genre. As a commercially successful film, it became the blueprint for horror films produced afterwards. It challenged the New Order horror narrative pattern, introducing significant changes such as the shift towards pemudas or the youth as the central characters in the film, the absence of a patriarchal figure, and the open ending. These changes could well have been influenced by trends in global horror cinema, but for Indonesian films specifically, on the allegorical level, they have been able to effectively capture the anxiety and fear pemudas felt during the Reformation, especially about what it means to be a young Indonesian in post-Soeharto times. This study explores the allegorical function of this contemporary Indonesian horror film, focusing on how Jelangkung represents "the return of the repressed" through what Lowenstein (2005) calls "allegorical moments." It also attempts to locate these moments in Jelangkung, contextualizing the return of the repressed as the fear and anxiety toward the unresolved May 1998 traumatic event in Indonesia and the existing patriarchal system.


The Christian Church, which—due to its message of God's grace towards all mankind—should be expected to lead the way in matters of humanity, seems to be stuck in a notion of normalcy; the kind of participation known by the church usually aims at a practice involving activities that require capacities not present among persons with severe disabilities. This study is about persons with intellectual disability and their experiences of participation in the Church of Sweden. The first section discusses the concept of participation. The second section is about participation and normalcy in the Church of Sweden and includes the stories of Eric, Unni, and David who all have an intellectual disability and want to belong to the People of the Faith.


Interpretation of Great Lakes International Multidisciplinary Program on Crustal Evolution (GLIMPCE) seismic reflection profiles indicates that the Midcontinent (Keweenawan,1100 Ma) rift system of volcanic rocks and postvolcanic and interbedded sedimentary rocks extends to depths as great as 32 km (about 10.5-s reflection time) along profiles crossing western, central, and eastern Lake Superior and the northern end of Lake Michigan. This area may overlie the greatest thickness of intracratonic rift deposits on Earth. Times to Moho reflections vary along strike from 11.5 to 14 s (about 37-46 km depth) in the west, to 17 s (about 55 km) in the center, and 13 to 15 s (about 42-49 km) in the eastern end of Lake Superior. The prerift crust, however, was thinned 25-30 km beneath the central rift (compared with its flanks), providing evidence for crustal extension by factors of about 3-4. The Midcontinent rift system differs from Phanerozoic rifts in having total crustal thicknesses equal to or greater than the surrounding (presumably unextended) regions.


In a cluster of computers, if the system load in each of computers is nearly equal, it indicates good resource utilization. It is well-known that load balancing is a key factor in developing parallel and distributed applications. In our paper, a mobile agent based load balancing technique is presented. Instead of balancing the load in cluster by process migration, or by moving an entire process to a less loaded computer, we make an attempt to balance load by splitting up processes into separated jobs and then balance them to nodes by our novel load balancing method. In order to get our target, we use mobile agent to distribute load among nodes in a cluster. We have created five kinds of agents in namely directory agent, account agent, threshold agent, monitor agent and client agent. These agents follow the required policies for load balancing. Our proposed system focuses on problems that are inherently parallel or problems that can be worked with reasonable amount of synchronization. Our load balancing protocol is being implemented using Aglettrade, a Java_compliant mobile agent platform from IBM. Although we cannot claim that a mobile agent enable approach will always outperform message passing based load balancing, such an alternative approach to designing load balancing protocols has several advantages. Preliminary experimental results demonstrated that the proposed technique is effective


Here, we report the first draft whole-genome sequence of Pseudomonas fluorescens strain EK007-RG4, which was isolated from the phylloplane of a pear tree. P. fluorescens EK007-RG4 displays strong antagonism against Erwinia amylovora , the causal agent for fire blight disease, in addition to several other pathogenic and non-pathogenic bacteria. Genome comparison showed closest similarity between EK007-RG4 and the biocontrol agents P. fluorescens A506 and P. fluorescens SS101. Unique genes homologous to the nonribosomal peptide synthase genes massA , massB , and massC (5) were identified in the EK007-RG4 genome. These genes code for enzymes that biosynthesize cyclic lipopeptides (CLPs), which are biosurfactants with antimicrobial properties (6). A pro-tein BLAST search of the translated massA , massB , and massC genes of EK007-RG4 showed 96%, 97%, and 97% similarity, respectively, to any GenBank sequences. The core structure of the putative mass CLP produced by EK007-RG4 was predicted as (lipid tail)-Leu-Asp-Thr-Ile-Leu-Ser-Leu-Ser-Ile using antiSMASH (7). This predicted CLP is different from any known nonribosomal peptides in the Norine database (8). The potentially new EK007-RG4 CLP is likely a type of viscosin. However, the putative EK007-RG4 CLP is unique in that the second amino acid is Asp, while it is consistently Glu among known viscosins.


It is with great pride and no small amount of excitement that I announce the reboot of acmqueue's Research for Practice column. For three years, beginning at its inception in 2016, Research for Practice brought both seminal and cutting-edge research - via careful curation by experts in academia - within easy reach for practitioners who are too busy building things to manage the deluge of scholarly publications. We believe the series succeeded in its stated goal of sharing "the joy and utility of reading computer science research" between academics and their counterparts in industry. We know our readers have missed it, and we are delighted to rekindle the flame after a three-year hiatus. For this first installment, we invited Dr. Martin Kleppmann, research fellow and affiliated lecturer at the University of Cambridge, to curate a selection of recent research papers in a perennially interesting domain: convergent or "eventual consistent" replicated systems. His expert analysis circles the topic, viewing it through the lens of recent work in four distinct research domains: systems, programming languages, human-computer interaction, and data management. Along the way, readers will be exposed to a variety of data structures, algorithms, proof techniques, and programming models (each described in terms of a distinct formalism), all of which attempt to make programming large-scale distributed systems easier. I hope you enjoy his column as much as I did.


The outflow of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) is continuous and dynamic, but its functional organization is not well understood. Whether ANS patterns accompany emotions, or arise in basal physiology, remain unsettled questions in the field. Here, we searched for brief ANS patterns amidst continuous, multichannel physiological recordings in 45 healthy older adults. Participants completed an emotional reactivity task in which they viewed video clips that elicited a target emotion (awe, sadness, amusement, disgust, or nurturant love); each video clip was preceded by a pre-trial baseline period and followed by a post-trial recovery period. Participants also sat quietly for a separate 2-min resting period to assess basal physiology. Using principal components analysis and unsupervised clustering algorithms to reduce the second-by-second physiological data during the emotional reactivity task, we uncovered five ANS states. Each ANS state was characterized by a unique constellation of patterned physiological changes that differentiated among the trials of the emotional reactivity task. These ANS states emerged and dissipated over time, with each instance lasting several seconds on average. ANS states with similar structures were also detectable in the resting period but were intermittent and of smaller magnitude. Our results offer new insights into the functional organization of the ANS. By assembling short-lived, patterned changes, the ANS is equipped to generate a wide range of physiological states that accompany emotions and that contribute to the architecture of basal physiology.


The upward voicing of ideas is vital to organizational performance. Yet power differences between voicers and those with authority may result in valuable ideas being overlooked. In this ethnographic, 31-month longitudinal study of a multi-disciplinary team in the healthcare sector, we examine how upwardly voiced ideas can endure to reach implementation. Of 208 upwardly voiced ideas, most were rejected in the moment, but 49 reached implementation despite appearing to be initially rejected. These ideas were kept alive by other team members who later drew upon and revived the initial ideas through what we call the voice cultivation process. We detail this process and describe five pathways through which voiced ideas stayed alive to reach implementation by overcoming different forms of resistance. We illustrate how the allyship of others can help voice live on beyond its initial utterance to reach implementation and generate change, even when the person who initially spoke up is no longer on the team or advocating for the idea. By reconceptualizing voice as a collective, interactional process rather than a one-time dyadic event, this paper develops new theory on how employees can help one another's voice be heard to positively impact their teams and organizations.


We address mobility management for the internet protocol version 6 in mobile networks, namely mobile IPv6 (MIPv6). To correctly transfer IPv6 packets to a mobile node (MN), the MN has to update its binding to the home network while roaming away from its home network. Mobile IP networks suffer high binding update traffic from high rates of handoffs and long packet delivery delay from the large distance to the home network. In this paper, we introduce a dynamic and distributed domain-based mobility management protocol for MIPv6 to reduce the binding update and packet delivery delay and traffic. We describe the basic protocol operations and examine the performance improvement of our mobility management over the previous mobile IP mobility management method by using simulations. We show that the dynamic approach provides the optimal mobility solution for MIPv6 and the distributed approach can decentralize the network load.


Computed Tomographic (CT) imaging is extensively implemented for liver tumor visualization and detection. Computer aided image processing algorithms can provide aid to the physicians and radiologists in detecting deadly diseases of liver specifically cancerous liver tumors. This paper presents a novel image processing technique to automatically classify liver for its abnormality without going through the liver segmentation stage. The study is conducted on a dataset of 39 samples of abdominal CT images. The CT dataset comprises of images bearing unhealthy liver. The unhealthy liver is further divided into livers bearing malignant tumors namely hepatoma and benign tumors namely hemangiomas. The methodology adopted for the study comprises of feature extraction from original CT images of all types of liver with special focus on textural information. The extracted features undergo the process of classification for malignancy and benignancy of the liver tumor. The classifiers used for textural feature analysis include Support Vector Machines (SVM), K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) and ensemble classifier. Amongst these classifiers SVM yields a classification accuracy of 100% as compare to KNN and ensemble classifier which give the classification accuracy of 94.7% and 52.6% respectively. The proposed method of classification applied on entire abdominal CT scans without segmentation is performed by using the feature extraction matrix of structural similarity index (SSIM), which gives an improved classification accuracy of 100% as compared to the traditional GLCM matrix. The methodology can be tested to classify the liver for malignancy using other non-invasive techniques of ultrasounds and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) as well.


Attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy allows a detailed analysis of surface attached molecules, including their secondary structure, orientation, and interaction with small molecules in the case of proteins. Here, we present a universal immobilization technique on germanium for all oligo-histidine-tagged proteins. For this purpose, new triethoxysilane derivates were developed: we synthesized a linker-silane with a succinimidyl ester as amine-reactive headgroup and a matrix-silane with an unreactive ethylene glycol group. A new methodology for the attachment of triethoxysilanes on germanium was established, and the surface was characterized by ATR-FTIR and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. In the next step, the succinimidyl ester was reacted with aminonitrilotriacetic acid. Subsequently, Ni(2+) was coordinated to form Ni-nitrilotriacetic acid for His-tag binding. The capability of the functionalized surface was demonstrated by experiments using the small GTPase Ras and photosystem I (PS I). The native binding of the proteins was proven by difference spectroscopy, which probes protein function. The function of Ras as molecular switch was demonstrated by a beryllium trifluoride anion titration assay, which allows observation of the "on" and "off" switching of Ras at atomic resolution. Furthermore, the activity of immobilized PS I was proven by light-induced difference spectroscopy. Subsequent treatment with imidazole removes attached proteins, enabling repeated binding. This universal technique allows specific attachment of His-tagged proteins and a detailed study of their function at the atomic level using FTIR difference spectroscopy.


In the present work, thermal expansion coefficients of a number of ceramic coatings were studied by a non-destructive technique (NDT) known as shearography. Ceramic coatings, i.e., a white enamel and a yellow Acrylic Lacquer on a metallic alloy, i.e., carbon steels, were investigated at a temperature range simulating the severe weather temperatures in Kuwait, especially between the daylight and the night time temperatures, 20-60 0C. The investigation was focused on determining the in-plane displacement of the coating, which corresponds to the thermal deformation (strain), with respect to the applied temperature range. A mathematical relationship was derived along with the experimental data. The mathematical relationship described the thermal deformation of a coated film as a function of temperature. Furthermore, results of shearography indicate that the technique is found very useful NDT method not only for determining the thermal expansion coefficients of different coatings, but also the technique can be used as a 2D- microscope for monitoring the deformation of various coatings in at a submicroscopic scale.


Rationale The maintenance of peripheral muscle mass may be compromised in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) due to premature cellular senescence and exhaustion of the regenerative potential of the muscles. Methods Vastus lateralis biopsies were obtained from patients with COPD (n = 16) and healthy subjects (n = 7). Satellite cell number and the proportion of central nuclei, as a marker of muscle regenerative events, were assessed on cryosections. Telomere lengths, used as a marker of cellular senescence, were determined using Southern blot analyses. Results Central nuclei proportion was significantly higher in patients with COPD with a preserved muscle mass compared to controls and patients with COPD with muscle atrophy (p<0.001). In COPD, maximal telomere length was significantly decreased compared to controls (p<0.05). Similarly, minimal telomere length was significantly reduced in GOLD III–IV patients with muscle atrophy compared to controls (p<0.005). Minimal, mean and maximum telomere lengths correlated with mid-thigh muscle cross-sectional area (MTCSA) (R = 0.523, p = 0.005; R = 0.435, p = 0.019 and R = 0.491, p = 0.009, respectively). Conclusions Evidence of increased regenerative events was seen in GOLD III–IV patients with preserved muscle mass. Shortening of telomeres in GOLD III–IV patients with muscle atrophy is consistent with an increased number of senescent satellite cells and an exhausted muscle regenerative capacity, compromising the maintenance of muscle mass in these individuals.


A major goal of higher education is to provide students with the knowledge they need to be successful in their professional careers and prepare them to be lifelong learners who can adapt in a dynamic environment. To understand what that knowledge entails requires insights into what activities current practicing engineers are engaged in and what tools they use in the workplace. How those activities have changed over time will provide insight into how to properly train students to be lifelong learners. To assist with this effort, this work undertook a survey of a representative group of practicing engineers. The link for a web-based survey was sent to a chapter of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. In addition to demographic and employer information, details regarding work-related activities and how those activities have changed over time was requested. Additional information regarding the tools used by the responding practicing engineers was also collected. Survey results show design, manufacturing engineering, and project management as the major activities of the respondents. Results show that these activities have required approximately the same amount of time over the respondents' careers; with the exception of project management, which has increased. 75% of respondents' companies use product platforms and manufacture outside their home countries. The majority of respondents companies' use some type of cost estimation tool. The greatest number of respondents had a Bachelors degree and worked for companies with less than 1000 employees. These results are discussed in the context of the current engineering technology curriculum at the authors' institution.


Cytokinins (CK) are key determinants of seed size and their level can impact crop yield. The biological activities and chemistry of cytokinins are well defined but less is known about their molecular mode of action during maize kernel development, especially in late stage kernels. To understand the regulation of cytokinin levels at late stage kernel development, we examined the levels of active and inactive cytokinins in embryo and endosperm across kernel development. Active trans-zeatin is high during early stage of kernel growth, but decreases during later stages. We also undertook a genome-wide survey of cytokinin metabolic genes involved in biosynthesis, metabolism, conversion, transport, and signaling and examined their expression profiles during kernel development. Several major genes were identified which may contribute to changes in cytokinin levels during the late stage.  Our systematic analysis of cytokinin pathways genes and metabolites provides an overall insight into the regulation of CK level across maize kernel development. Our data on late stage kernel add to the existing knowledge of CK biology in maize and could facilitate the modulation of CK levels using biotechnology.

 Key words: Maize, cytokinin, kernel development, metabolism, gene regulation.


Introduction . Diverse fruit crops with a high value reduce the risk of crop failure and offer alternatives to farmers and the market. The scope of profitable production with such quality crops along with environmental concerns make the evaluation of new species desirable. The aim of our study was to determine the most appropriate species of Physalis for small-scale commercial production in the temperate climate of western Himalayan regions. Materials and methods . Four Physalis species, viz ., P. peruviana, P. ixocarpa, P. pruinosa and P. nicandroides, were field-grown during 2010–2011 in the experimental field of the Central Institute of Temperate Horticulture, Srinagar, India, to determine the most appropriate species of Physalis suitable for a temperate climate. Results and discussion . All the species tested produced vegetative growth, flowered and fruited; however, they differed significantly. The number of basal shoots was found to be maximum for P. pruinosa (6.37), whereas the maximum number of prickles per shoot was recorded as maximum for P. nicandroides (6.48). The number of points of attachment varied significantly with species, and the maximum was recorded for P. pruinosa and P. ixocarpa (7.16 for each); the maximum size of fully developed leaves (146.8 mm) and overall plant height (168.27 cm) were recorded for P. pruinosa . Physalis pruinosa and P. ixocarpa were found to exhibit vigorous growth under a temperate climate. Significant differences were recorded for fruiting, flowering and yield potential among the Physalis species. The minimum days taken for bud burst were reported for P. nicandroides (23.55) and P. ixocarpa (24.41). Similarly, the minimum days taken to reach maturity were reported for P. peruviana (64.96). The maximum number of fruits per plant (260.23), length of fruit (33.83 mm), average fruit weight (37.19 g), husk weight (0.32 g), fruit husk ratio (121.27), maximum fruit firmness (43.96 Relative Index) and yield (9.96 Relative Index) were recorded for P. pruinosa . Significant variation was recorded in quality attributes. The highest total soluble solids were found for P. nicandroides (8.46 °Brix), whereas the minimum total titrable acidity (0.35%) and maximum ascorbic content (38.41 mg·100 g–1 ) were recorded for P. peruviana . The 'L ' value of fruits, showing brightness, was recorded as the highest for P. peruviana (58.97), whereas fruits of all the species showed a negative 'a ' value, indicating that none of them produced redness; however, the 'b ' value, indicating yellowness, was maximum for P. pruinosa (18.72).


Abstract. The new age of digital technologies has led to a shift in conservation approaches when documenting historic places for posterity. The availability of these new technologies has provided tools for better decision-making with respect to the conservation of fragile built heritage. For sites vulnerable to seismic activity, such as Bagan, frequent catastrophic events have strengthened the need for proper documentation. A multidisciplinary team, comprised of students from Carleton University, students from Mandalay Technological University, and staff from the Department of Archaeology and Library of Bagan, conducted a documentation workshop using digital recording techniques. The team selected four Buddhist temples in the city of Bagan, Myanmar, as case studies for the documentation expedition. The strategy included using active and passive sensing techniques (Figure 1), which were used to assess the character-defining elements associated to the built heritage of the case studies. Furthermore, the strategy involved examining the state of conservation of the built heritage. Following the on-site documentation, the data collected was processed to give 2D and 3D representations of the documented sites. These representations serve as a record for future use in conservation. Additional objectives related to the documentation of the four sites were to understand the obstacles in conserving built heritage with respect to the ancient city of Bagan, to expand the technical knowledge of the local staff and the future professionals, and to examine the values and limitations of the recording techniques employed.


The research described in this dissertation deals with an open problem concerning the synthesis of controllers of fixed order and structure. This problem is encountered in a variety of applications. Simply put, the problem may be put as the determination of the set, S of controller parameter vectors, K = (k 1,k2,...,kl), that render Hurwitz a family (indexed by F ) of complex polynomials of the form {P0( s,α) + i=1
l
Pi(s,α) ki, α ∈ F }, where the polynomials Pj(s,α), j = 0,...,l are given data. They are specified by the plant to be controlled, the structure of the controller desired and the performance that the controllers are expected to achieve. Simple examples indicate that the set S can be non-convex and even be disconnected.
While the determination of the non-emptiness of S is decidable and amenable to methods such as the quantifier elimination scheme, such methods have not been computationally tractable and more importantly, do not provide a reasonable approximation for the set of controllers. Practical applications require the construction of a set of controllers that will enable a control engineer to check the satisfaction of performance criteria that may not be mathematically well characterized. The transient performance criteria often fall into this category.
From the practical viewpoint of the construction of approximations for S , this dissertation is different from earlier work in the literature on this problem. A novel feature of the proposed algorithm is the exploitation of the interlacing property of Hurwitz polynomials to provide arbitrarily tight outer and inner approximation to S . The approximation is given in terms of the union of polyhedral sets which are constructed systematically using the Hermite-Biehler theorem and the generalizations of the Descartes' rule of signs.


The 2014 General Election returned Fiji to democratic government after almost eight years of
military-backed government rule. As in other Pacific Island countries, issues of customary or native
land generate critical debate before and during national elections because of the cultural, social
and economic significance of land. Interwoven with these important factors is ethnicity and in this
case the Taukei (indigenous people) and non-Taukei that have had different land rights in terms of
accessibility, use and ownership as regulated by the Native Land Act. The 2014 General Election
campaign was significant because for the first time political parties, especially the Social Democratic
Liberal Party (SODELPA) and FijiFirst Party (FFP) campaigned vigorously on the decrees pertaining
to land that had been introduced by the interim government to win the approval of voters, especially
Taukei. After a brief discussion of the cultural importance of land to the Taukei, this article evaluates
whether the SODELPA or FFP party manifestoes relating to land issues appealed more to Taukei voters during the general election.


Objectives: Patients with diabetes often suffer from chronic wounds which can occur due to the impairment of wound healing in these patients. Scientists have been trying to address this issue by using wide spectrum of antibiotics and drugs. However, overusing antibiotics in recent years has led to antibiotic resistant crisis; therefore, there is an urgent need to develop new approaches in order for controlling microbial infections in diabetic patients. This study aimed to determine if cold plasma was effective in wound healing in the infectious diabetic conditions. Material and Methods: In this experimental study, 40 adult male rats with diabetes infected with Staphylococcus aureus were included. The animals were randomly divided into two groups of 20 rats and four sub-groups (i.e., day 3rd, day 7th, day 14th, and day 21st). The rats in the treatment group were exposed to helium plasma irradiated for 3 minutes per day for 21 days. Wound healing in the samples was evaluated using five healing indexes including epithelium formation, Inflammatory cells, new vascularization, fibroblast, and collagen formation. Results: A significant difference (P<0.05) was found between the indexes in the plasma radiation group compared to the control group. The results showed that the speed of wound healing in the group treated with cold helium gas plasma was higher than that in the control group. Collagen formation was always completed faster in the helium plasma group, indicating the positive effects of helium plasma on infected diabetic wounds. Conclusions: Helium plasma was remarkable effective in healing wound and controlling infections in diabetic rats.


Depending on the size of sets, a wrapped phase map is unwrapped by either region or pixel. In region phase unwrapping, the jump point threshold value is adjusted to search the region boundary after filtering a wrapped map with higher noise and then phase unwrapping ±2nπ in each region without filtering. The latter compares if the phase difference of adjacent pixels is greater than π as a reference for determining pixel point ±2π to perform phase unwrapping point by point. Although the former unwraps phase by means of boundary search and the latter with the phase difference of adjacent pixels, phase unwrapping errors occur in both cases in detecting surface cracks on materials as data on both sides of a crack are discontinuous. This paper proposes a solution for phase unwrapping on discontinuous surfaces by means of crack search and marking with region assembly phase unwrapping technology to locate boundaries in both region splits and crack splits and further extends the scope of application of region assembly phase unwrapping.


We propose a mechanism previously developed as a hypothetical cause of the initiation of subduction in the Earth's mantle, to describe a situation where such subduction may occur transiently, at irregular intervals of time. It has been suggested that tectonics on Venus may be described by such a scenario. In our model, a subduction event is followed by resumption of high Rayleigh number mantle convection below a stagnant lithosphere which thickens due to conductive cooling. As it thickens, differential buoyancy causes large lithospheric stresses which eventually lead to (plastic) failure in the upper portions of the lithosphere. This plastic zone thickens faster than the lithosphere, so that at some critical time, it reaches the base of the lithosphere. At this point, the effective lithosphere viscosity decreases to that of the underlying mantle, and subduction can occur. We suggest that this is mechanistically consistent with the postulated Venusian tectonic style.


The predictability of program execution provides attackers a rich source of knowledge who can exploit it to spy or remotely control the program. Moving target defense ad- dresses this issue by constantly switching between many di- verse variants of a program, which reduces the certainty that an attacker can have about the program execution. The ef- fectiveness of this approach relies on the availability of a large number of software variants that exhibit dierent ex- ecutions. However, current approaches rely on the natural diversity provided by o-the-shelf components, which is very limited. In this paper, we explore the automatic synthe- sis of large sets of program variants, called sosies. Sosies provide the same expected functionality as the original pro- gram, while exhibiting dierent executions. They are said to be computationally diverse. This work addresses two objectives: comparing dierent transformations for increasing the likelihood of sosie synthe- sis (densifying the search space for sosies); demonstrating computation diversity in synthesized sosies. We synthesized 30 184 sosies in total, for 9 large, real-world, open source ap- plications. For all these programs we identied one type of program analysis that systematically increases the density of sosies; we measured computation diversity for sosies of 3 programs and found diversity in method calls or data in more than 40% of sosies. This is a step towards controlled massive unpredictability of software.


Lawrence v. Texas, which gave constitutional protection to same-sex adult sodomy, is the latest signpost on the Court's sexual privacy trail. The Supreme Court's opinion avoids formulating a specific rule to guide discretion, opting instead to focus on overruling Bowers. Nevertheless, Justice Scalia's dissent, with its ominous prophecy that Lawrence will be the death of legislation banning sex aids and other morality crimes, provides a tantalizing promise of a potentially broad application. This article considers that potential in the context of various state laws banning sex aids. Alabama's law, for example, banning such devices, is based on Alabama's claim that the pursuit of orgasms by artificial means for their own sake is detrimental to the health and morality of the State.Part I of this Article details and critiques generally the Supreme Court's past precedent limiting constitutional privacy and liberty rights. By using history and tradition in interpreting the limits of substantive due process, the Court allowed gender discrimination to infect constitutional interpretation. A lack of concern about women's health issues has fueled a history and tradition that is oblivious to the realities of women's sexual selves. Part II discusses the history of sex aids - specifically devices intended to allow women to achieve orgasm - in the context of their history and tradition. Surprisingly, vibrators have a history and tradition of non-regulation. Part III examines the interaction between gender bias in legal and medical applications, specifically in the case of sex aids. Ultimately, medical stereotypes can infect case law, and medical bias can reinforce gender stereotypes in the law. Part IV details how states enforce statutes outlawing such devices. These laws are not just quaint artifacts of an earlier time and place - Alabama's law was passed in 1998 - and prosecution under these laws results in convictions and jail sentences. Part V reviews the Lawrence majority opinion and searches for clues as to what the decision means for sexual privacy generally, and for sex aids specifically. This article concludes that the change in focus is a narrow victory for liberty and privacy interests, at most shifting the burden to the government to justify its reasons for impinging those interests whose application, not surprisingly, will depend upon the proclivities of the Court that applies it in the next case. When considering sex aid cases after Lawrence, however, the courts should not view the situation from a male-centered definition of sexuality that reduces women's normal needs to pathologies or diseases or that ignores sexuality unrelated to procreation. Rather, courts should examine whether it is constitutionally permissible for a state to outlaw the sale of sexual devices that are used in the privacy of an adult's own bedroom. They should rationally conclude that the government has no such power.


Background and Aim: Paclitaxol (PTX) is one of the well-known drugs that has been widely used for chemotherapy of a wide spectrum of cancers. Recently, advanced drug delivery systems using nanocarriers with high selectivity have been used for cancer therapy. Graphene nanostructure and its derivatives, i.e., graphene oxide (GO), are promising candidates for biological applications, such as drug delivery, because of their high specific surface areas. Due to hydrophobicity of graphene, it is not easily dispersed in water. Therefore, functional groups are added to it. In this study, we investigated adsorption of paclitaxel (PTX) drug molecule onto graphene oxide (GO) in aqueous environment. Graphene sheets typically decorated with epoxy (GO-O), and hydroxyl (GO-OH) hydrophilic functional groups can reduce apparent hydrophobicity. Materials And Methods: Using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations the influence of the functional groups on adsorption of PTX anticancer drug molecules, adsorption energy, and the average distance of drug molecules from surface were evaluated. Simulations were conducted using the LAMMPS software package. Result: The results showed when the functional groups exceeded the critical value (18%), the number of atoms with the same partial charge in GO-OH system were more than that of GO-O surface. Therefore with an increase in the repulsion forces, the molecule distance became longer due to compressive surface stresses induced in GO-OH system. Furthermore, deformation of surface will result in an increase in the distance of PTX-GO. Conclusion: Our findings suggested that type of functional groups affecting adsorption of paclitaxel on GO surface was important in drug delivery system. Moreover, the critical value of functional groups can have useful medical applications as in drug delivery systems.


Bladder cancer (BC) is an increasingly frequent cancer worldwide, being currently the sixth most frequent tumor and the thirteenth leading cause of cancer death. Among all BC cases, pathologists have identified several histomorphologies different from the conventional urothelial carcinoma. Although rare, these histologic variants have a distinct growth pattern, an altered cell differentiation and an unusual clinical behavior, especially concerning clinical presentation at diagnosis, response to the standard treatment and prognosis. Therefore, an updated review of this topic should be useful to aid clinicians in a better evidence-based decision-making. This chapter aims to summarize the current literature on the most common histologic variants regarding their epidemiology, clinical presentation at diagnosis, treatment options and prognosis. This includes both non-muscle invasive BC and muscle invasive BC as well as metastatic disease. A special focus will be placed on the role of neoadjuvant chemotherapy and early cystectomy and its prognostic implications.