A mesocosm experiment was performed in order to observe the behaviour of an aquatic community under stable external conditions. The hypothesis was that the community would show temporal fluctuations that correspond to the principles of deterministic chaos. Water from a brackish (9 psu) location was kept from 31 March 1989 to 11 July 1990 in a 100 l mesocosm under artificial laboratory conditions to develop a species-depleted climax community of plankton. The mesocosm was reared for a further period of 1764 d (12 July 1990 to 11 May 1995) under controlled light and temperature conditions and sampled in short intervals of 3 to 4 d. During the period of observations there were no changes in species composition, but strong fluctuation in biomass occurred. The bio- mass data for picophytoplankton, nanophytoplankton, copepods and rotifers were used to check the systems dynamics for chaotic behaviour by recurrence quantification analysis (RQA), a new method which is applied here to analyse non-linear dynamics in marine ecosystems for the first time. Recur- rence histograms show a single period of 7 wk of picophytoplankton, a broad range of periods for nanophytoplankton between 4 and 7 wk with isolated peaks at 5 and 7 wk, a broad range of periods for copepods with a peak at 5 wk and 2 minor peaks at 3 and 12.5 wk, and transient behaviour in rotifers with peaks at 5.5 and 11.5 wk, with non-linear interaction between selected bands of periods. A comparison with shuffled time series shows that the system dynamic is deterministic with tran- sients and that a non-stationary trend exists in the phytoplankton time series. No chaotic behaviour could be detected.


ABSTRACT This article highlights the place of the spatio-legal imaginary in theorising urbanisation and Indigenous dispossession in Chile. Focusing on the Mapuche nation, we argue that we are witnessing another period of their historical struggles against territorial dispossession, which is shaped by polarised conceptions of urban, non-urban, and Indigenous spaces. We argue that internal colonisation is inseparable from processes of urbanisation that divorce Indigenous subjects from their territory based on two colonial principles, terra nullius and the supremacy of a Western worldview. These principles clash with Mapuche resistance that subverts these dichotomous categories. Viewing urban, non-urban, and Indigenous categorisations as co-constitutive and spatially continuous better reflects these ongoing struggles for territorial control in Chile.


The aim of this study is to analyze impact and existence of three Calendar Anomalies i.e., day-of-the-week, month-of-the-year, and turn-of-the-month on the commodities i.e., gold, silver, natural gas, oil, and platinum that are traded on the Pakistan Mercantile Exchange (PMEX). The impact of calendar anomalies is investigated separately during and before COVID period. The simple OLS regression along with the three advanced models of Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity i.e., GARCH (1,1), TGARCH and EGARCH models are used in this research to study the calendar anomalies impact. The significant effect of day-of-the-week anomaly is observed in oil and silver commodity. Month-of-the-year anomaly exists in all commodities except oil. Whereas, significant turn-of-the-month effect is present in all the selected top traded commodities. This study is limited to different periods due to the newly launch commodities of PMEX. PMEX started daily data of silver, platinum, and natural gas from the year 2017, therefore only four commodities have been included in the current research.
Keywords: Calendar Anomalies, Day-of-the-Week Anomaly, Month-of-the-Year Anomaly, Turn-of-the-Year Anomaly, COVID.


An experimental study was conducted to investigate the mixing processes downstream of a forced mixer. A forced mixer generates large scale, axial (stirring) vorticity which causes the primary and secondary flow to mix rapidly with low loss. These devices have been successfully used in the past where enhanced mixing of two streams was a requirement. Unfortunately, details of the mixing process associated with these lobed forced mixers are not well understood. Performance sensitivity to design variables has not been documented. An experiment was set up to investigate the mixing processes downstream of a mixer. Air flow was independently supplied to each side of the forced mixer by separate centrifugal blowers. Pressures were measured at the entrance to the lobes with a pitot-static probe to document the characteristics of the approaching boundary layer. Interior mean and fluctuating velocities were nonintrusively measured using a two-component Laser Doppler Velocimetry (LDV) system for velocity ratios of 1:1 and 2:1. The wake structure is shown to display a three step process where initially secondary flow was generated by the mixer lobes, the secondary flow created counter-rotating vortices with a diameter on the order of the convolute width, and then the vortices broke down resulting in a significant increase in turbulent mixing. The results show that the mean secondary motion induced by the lobes effectively circulated the flow passing through the lobes. This motion, however, did not homogeneously mix the two streams. Turbulent mixing in the third step of the mixing process appears to be an important element in the enhanced mixing that has been observed with forced mixers. The length required for the flow to reach this third step is a function of the velocity ratio across the mixer. The results of this investigation indicate that both the mean secondary motion and the turbulent mixing occurring after vortex breakdown need to be considered for prediction of forced mixer performance.Copyright © 1990 by ASME


Disturbances of activity of the glutamatergic neurotransmitter system in the brain are present in many neuropsychiatric disorders. The N‐methyl‐D‐aspartate (NMDA) receptor is the most abundant receptor of the glutamatergic system. In the neurodegenerative events of Alzheimer's disease, excessive activation of NMDA receptors may contribute to neuronal death. Inhibition of NMDA receptor activation may have neuroprotective effects and (semi)quantitative imaging of the activated system may help in the selection of patients for such inhibition therapies. In this study we evaluated [123I]CNS‐1261 binding in the rat brain. This radiotracer binds in vivo to the MK801 binding site of activated NMDA receptors. To determine the optimal time point for ex vivo assessments after bolus injection [123I]CNS‐1261 binding in rats, we performed a time course biodistribution study using dissection techniques. [123I]CNS‐1261 binding was also studied in the rat brain using autoradiography by means of storage phosphor imaging, with prior facilitation of NMDA receptor activation by injection of the potent coagonist D‐serine and after blocking of the NMDA receptor binding site by MK801 injection in D‐serine pretreated rats. Measurements of [123I]CNS‐1261 uptake matched the distribution of similar tracers for the MK801 binding site of the NMDA receptor and revealed an optimal time point of 2 h post injection for the assessment of tracer distribution in the rat brain. The blocking experiments indicated specific binding of [123I]CNS‐1261 to NMDA receptors but also a considerable amount of nonspecific binding. Facilitation of NMDA receptor activation by D‐serine did not result in an enhancement of binding of the radiotracer in the NMDA receptor‐rich rat hippocampus compared to the untreated group, as measured by autoradiography. In conclusion, our study has shown that [123I]CNS‐1261 binding is influenced by NMDA receptor availability. However, high nonspecific binding limits quantification and small changes in receptor availability are unlikely to be detected. Synapse 63:557–564, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


German architecture strives for high-quality building. As it has developed in order to solid foundation rooted from advances in art, philosophy, science, and technology, systematic architect qualification system and education program are implemented to cultivate diverse perspectives of architecture based on basic academic foundation. Architectural education in German universities puts a high value on architect's attitude and mind, and fundamental knowledge. It is a key to experience handson background under the qualification system. Architects in Germany eventually foster a broad understanding of urban development and traditional heritage to maintain community' s value by the synergic effect of architectural education and qualification system.


Since the discovery of brown dwarfs in 1994, and the discovery of dust cloud formation in the latest Very Low Mass Stars (VLMs) and Brown Dwarfs (BDs) in 1996, the most important challenge in modeling their atmospheres as become the understanding of cloud formation and advective mixing. For this purpose, we have developed radiation hydrodynamic 2D model atmosphere simulations to study the formation of forsterite dust in presence of advection, condensation, and sedimentation across the M-L-T VLMs to BDs sequence (Teff = 2800 K to 900 K, Freytag et al. 2010). We discovered the formation of gravity waves as a driving mechanism for the formation of clouds in these atmospheres, and derived a rule for the velocity field versus atmospheric depth and Teff , which is relatively insensitive to gravity. This rule has been used in the construction of the new model atmosphere grid, BT-Settl, to determine the microturbulence velocity, the diffusion coefficient, and the advective mixing of molecules as a function of depth. This new model grid of atmospheres and synthetic spectra has beencomputedfor100,000K>Teff>400K,5.5>logg>-0.5,and[M/H]=+0.5to -1.5, and the reference solar abundances of Asplund et al. (2009). We found that the new solar abundances allow an improved (close to perfect) reproduction of the photo- metric and spectroscopic VLMs properties, and, for the first time, a smooth transition between stellar and substellar regimes -- unlike the transition between the NextGen models from Hauschildt et al. 1999a,b, and the AMES-Dusty models from Allard et al. 2001). In the BDs regime, the BT-Settl models propose an improved explanation for the M-L-T spectral transition. In this paper, we therefore present the new BT-Settl model atmosphere grid, which explains the entire transition from the stellar to planetary mass regimes.


This paper addresses cooperation in a multicell environment where base stations (BSs) wish to jointly serve multiple users, under a constrained-capacity backhaul. We point out that for finite backhaul capacity a tradeoff between sharing user data, which allows for full MIMO cooperation, and not doing so, which reduces the setup to an interference channel but also requires less overhead, emerges. We optimize this tradeoff by formulating a rate splitting approach in which non-shared data (private to each transmitter) and shared data are superimposed. We derive the corresponding achievable rate region and obtain the optimal beamforming design for both shared and private symbols. We illustrate how the capacity of the backhaul determines how much of the user data is worth sharing across multiple BSs.


We present ASDF2, the current state of the art in CL build systems. From a technical standpoint, ASDF2 improves upon ASDF by integrating previous common extensions, making configuration easy, and fixing bugs. However the overriding concern driving these changes was social rather than technical: ASDF plays a central role in the CL community and we wanted to reduce the coordination costs that it imposed upon CL programmers. We outline ASDF's history and architecture, explain the link between the social issues we faced and the software features we added, and explore the technical challenges involved and lessons learned, notably involving inplace code upgrade of ASDF itself, backward compatibility, portability, testing and other coding best practices.


This paper presents an research of the performance of the artificial boundaries P3 and P4 of Stacey depending on the interval of the heigh of the computational grid. The interval between mesh points is changed constantly and the tables are presented below. Introduction, structure, results, conclusion and references of the paper are shown below. Analytical methods allow us to model a lot of processes in the exploring of the earth and to enjoy in a significant success in studies about permanent deformations as also for propagating of waves for a long time. In reality geological mediums are discontinuous of a large scale rang, combined from discrete particles, consider both microscopic and macroscopic parts. Development of numerical schemes provide us to study wave propagations through complex media. These methods have proven as valuable as a way for implementing of real data covered with seismic explorations with synthetic data from numerical models. They also have allow access to the processes like scattering of seismic waves as they pass through the crust. Of course there are other methods as finite difference method, boundary method of elements, discrete particle scheme who are not based on the wave equation, but to the physics of the wave propagation that shows on the atom scale. These days numerical seismology can provide us computer simulations of seismic wave propagation [4], that represent invaluable tool for understanding of the wave phenomena, their generating and their consequences.


To date, no clinical observations have been reported for histopathological changes in human gliomas under antiangiogenic treatment. We collected six glioblastomas resected under bevacizumab treatment. Histopathological investigation was performed by hematoxilyn-eosin staining and immunohistochemistry for CD34, VEGF, VEGFR1/2, HIF-1α, CA9, and nestin as compared to eleven control glioblastomas to assess the differences in histological features, microvessel density, expression of VEGF and its receptors, tumor oxygenation, and status of glioma stem-like cells. In the six tumors resected under bevacizumab, microvascular proliferation was absent, and microvessel density had significantly decreased compared with that of the controls. The expressions of VEGF and its receptors were downregulated in two cases of partial response. HIF-1α or CA9 expression was decreased in five of the six tumors, whereas the decreased expression of these markers was noted in only one of the 11 control glioblastomas. The expression of nestin significantly decreased in the six tumors compared with that of the controls, with the remaining nestin-positive cells being relatively concentrated around vessels. We provide the first clinicopathological evidence that antiangiogenic therapy induces the apparent normalization of vascular structure, decrease of microvessel density, and improvement of tumor oxygenation in glioblastomas. These in situ observations will help to optimize therapy.


This study aims to investigate the role of sponsor and internal corporate governance mechanisms in the performance of Asian REITs. The presence of sponsors, who are often the controlling unitholders of the REIT and the parent companies of the manager, is argued to exacerbate the agency costs. Under the premise that the sponsors commit to align their interests with that of other unitholders of the REITs, firm performance and board independence are expected to increase with sponsor ownership. Conversely, if sponsors increase their unitholdings to enhance their power to extract private benefits and expropriate the wealth of minority unitholders, sponsor ownership is expected to have a negative relation with board independence and REIT performance. This paper proposes an alternative measurement to calculate the level of sponsor unitholdings in the REIT. Between 2002 and 2012, sponsors retain around 19 percent of Asian REIT underlying assets. The final sample that is used consists of 514 firm-year observations from 91 REITs across Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia. It is found that board independence is negatively related with ownership by insiders (sponsor, CEO, and affiliated directors). The results also show that abnormal returns of REITs increase with insider ownership, but decrease with board independence. Further analysis reveals that REITs with high sponsor ownership outperform those with low sponsor ownership during financial downturn. The evidence seems to suggest that sponsors do not align their interests by appointing more independent directors in the board, but rather by providing REITs with strong development pipelines and support for future acquisition.


Aging and longevity are considered to be highly complex genetic traits. In order to gain insight into aging as a polygenic trait, we employed an outbred Saccharomyces cerevisiae model, generated by crossing a vineyard strain (RM11-1a) and a laboratory strain (S288c), to identify quantitative trait loci that control chronological lifespan, replicative lifespan, and telomere length. Among the major loci that regulate chronological lifespan in this cross, one genetic linkage was found to be congruent with a previously mapped locus that controls telomere length variation. We found that a single nucleotide polymorphism in BUL2, encoding a component of an ubiquitin ligase complex involved in trafficking of amino acid permeases, controls chronological lifespan and telomere length as well as amino acid uptake. Cellular amino acid availability changes conferred by the BUL2 polymorphism alter telomere length by modulating activity of a transcription factor Gln3. Among the GLN3 transcriptional targets relevant to this phenotype, we identified Wtm1, whose upregulation promotes nuclear retention of ribonucleotide reductase (RNR) components and inhibits the assembly of the RNR enzyme complex during S-phase. Inhibition of RNR is one of the mechanisms by which Gln3 modulates telomere length. Thus, identification of a polymorphism in BUL2 in this outbred yeast population revealed a previously unknown link between cellular amino acid availability, chronological lifespan and telomere length control. A genome scan for loci that control replicative lifespan identified the rDNA as a major quantitative trait locus, accounting for 45% of the genetic variation in lifespan. Despite its large size, rDNA is inherited as a single genetic locus due to the virtual absence of meiotic recombination. The lifespan extension conferred by the vineyard rDNA was independent of Sir2 and Fob1, proteins known to be involved in rDNA metabolism and replicative lifespan. Among the rDNA sequence differences between the two strains, we identified a polymorphism in the rDNA origin of replication in the vineyard strain, which leads to a marked decrease in origin activation in plasmid maintenance assays as compared to the laboratory sequence, is responsible for lifespan extension. We also found that vineyard rDNA has markedly reduced size compared to laboratory rDNA and that strains carrying vineyard rDNA have increased capacity for replication initiation at weak origins both in the genome and on plasmids. Our results suggest that rDNA origin activation alters DNA replication dynamics which modulates replicative lifespan.


BackgroundThe efficacy of aspirin for prevention of thrombotic graft occlusion after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) depends both on the dosage and time window of administration. Early and late graft patency were therefore assessed in a prospective, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of aspirin, 324 mg daily, given within 1 hour of CABG. Methods and ResultsAngiographic graft patency was determined at 1 week (231 patients) and year (219 patients) after CABG. The early vein graft occlusion rate was 1.6% on aspirin and 6.2% on placebo (p = 0.004), and late graft occlusion rate was 5.8% on continued aspirin and 11.6% on placebo (p = 0.01). New graft occlusion between 1 week and 1 year was less common in patients on aspirin than on placebo (4.3% versus 7.4%, p = 0.013). The protective effect of aspirin against occlusion persisted in most subgroups of graft type, graft flow, diameter of recipient artery, location of grafted artery, and endarterectomy. Mean chest tube blood loss for the first 24 hours was 571 ml for the aspirin group and 563 ml for the placebo group. Red cell transfusion requirements were 902 ml in the aspirin group and 934 ml in the placebo group (p=NS). The reoperation rate was 4.8% in the aspirin group and 1% in the placebo group (p = 0.1). ConclusionsImmediate postoperative administration of aspirin (324 mg) improves early graft patency and, with continued usage, protects against further occlusion up to 1 year after CABG. Postoperative blood loss was similar in the two groups; however, aspirin was associated with a nonsignificant higher rate of reoperation.


Sugar mills produce a range of by-products during the process of sugar extraction. Mill mud is one of the by-products that is produced in significant volume. Often mill mud is mixed with mill ash from the firing of bagasse, which together forms the bulk of mill waste available for disposal from raw sugar mills. The practice of spreading mill mud over nearby cane fields has been the primary means of disposing mill mud for many years. Mills generally promote the practice by offering freight subsidies to reduce the cost burden on growers who use this practice as a routine measure. The low level of nutrients and high moisture content makes mill mud a dilute source of nutrients, and supply of mill mud often exceeds the demand, leading to stockpiling of mill mud at most mills. Moreover, the continued application of mill mud and ash at high rates, without appropriate recognition of the soil condition and crop requirements, has raised a number of concerns in recent years. The risk of over-fertilization and heavy metal contamination of cane fields, and the concerns relating to offsite impacts from spillage to waterways, have raised questions about the indiscriminate use of mill mud in the industry. This study examines the issues relating to more responsible management of mill mud and reports on the cost-effectiveness of its application across a wider range of farms more distant from the mills as a means to minimise environmental risks.


The Riding the Wave report by the high level expert group on research data called for a collaborative data infrastructure that will enable researchers and
other stakeholders from education, society and business to use, re-use and exploit research data to the maximum benefit of science and society. The Knowledge Exchange partners have embraced this vision and commissioned a report that translates Riding the Wave into actions for the four partner countries and beyond.

 This paper builds on this report and presents an overview of the present situation with regard to research data in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom and offers broad outlines for a possible action programme for the four countries in realising the envisaged collaborative data infrastructure. An
action programme at the level of four countries will require the involvement of all stakeholders from the scientific community.


Studies toward the synthesis of three biologically active [5,6]-benzannulated spiroketal natural products are described. The first total synthesis of paecilospirone is reported, employing a late-stage, pH-neutral spiroketalization. A formal synthesis of γ-rubromycin is described, where the spiroketal moiety is formed by delicate manipulation of the electronic properties of the spirocyclization precursor. Finally, model work toward the total synthesis of berkelic acid is summarized, introducing a novel Horner–Wadsworth–Emmons/oxa-Michael (HWE/oxa-M) cascade to access the spiroketal precursor.


Even today the therapeutic strategy in the treatment of breast cancer is governed by prognostic factors, such as the size and type of the tumor, histological grading, and the number of lymph node metastases. In addition to other criteria, a decision must also be made as to whether changes in the radiotherapy technique (dosage, means of boostering) might lead to better results in the treatment of carcinoma of the breast in patients in poor condition. Several studies indicate that the effectiveness of irradiation can be improved (even with respect to longterm results) by alterations in the technique and careful adaptation to the surgical procedure.


Bats are highly diverse and ecologically valuable mammals. They serve as host to bacteria, viruses and fungi that are either beneficial or harmful to its colony as well as to other groups of cave organisms. The bacterial diversity of two bat guano samples, C1 and C2, from Cabalyorisa Cave, Mabini, Pangasinan, Philippines were investigated using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. V3-V4 hypervariable regions were amplified and then sequenced using Illumina MiSeq 250 PE system. Reads were processed using Mothur and QIIME pipelines and assigned 12,345 OTUs for C1 and 5,408 OTUs for C2. The most dominant OTUs in C1 belong to the Proteobacteria (61.7%), Actinobacteria (19.4%), Bacteroidetes (4.2%), Firmicutes (2.7%), Chloroflexi (2.5%), candidate phylum TM7 (2.3%) and Planctomycetes (1.9%) while Proteobacteria (61.7%) and Actinobacteria (34.9%) dominated C2. Large proportion of sequence reads mainly associated with unclassified bacteria indicated possible occurrence of novel bacteria in both samples. XRF spectrophotometric analyses of C1 and C2 guano revealed significant differences in the composition of both major and trace elements. C1 guano recorded high levels of Si, Fe, Mg, Al, Mn, Ti and Cu while C2 samples registered high concentrations of Ca, P, S, Zn and Cr. Community structure of the samples were compared with other published community profiling studies from Finland (SRR868695), Meghalaya, Northeast India (SRR1793374) and Maharashtra State, India (CGS). Core microbiome among samples were determined for comparison. Variations were observed among previously studied guano samples and the Cabalyorisa Cave samples were attributed to either bat sources or age of the guano. This is the first study on bacterial diversity of guano in the Philippines through high-throughput sequencing.


This paper describes a design optimisation process applied to systems that require a high likelihood of functioning on demand. It is imperative that the best use of the available resources is made and an optimal rather than just an adequate system design is produced. The contribution of this research is in the development of an integrated approach which not only considers the primary system objective, availability of the system, but caters for all critical factors imperative to obtain an optimal system design. This research therefore combines the latest advantages of the fault tree analysis technique and the binary decision diagram method along with a multi-objective optimisation approach. The application area is a High Integrity Protection System of an offshore platform. The optimisation criteria involves unavailability, cost, spurious trip frequency and maintenance down time. The results produced using this method are compared to those obtained by exhaustive search.


The non-participation to cervical screening is the major determinant in the risk of mortality due to cervical cancer. In France, around 40% of women do not participate to regular screening. The cultural or economic barriers for performing screening by Pap test are numerous; one of the most frequent is the refusal of gynaecological examination. A persistent HPV(HR) infection is a necessary factor for developing cervical cancer. The HPV(HR) testing has a high sensibility to detect high grade cervical intra-epithelial neoplasia (CIN 2-3) and a satisfactory specificity after 30-35 years old. The principal objective of this study was to compare the participation rates in women 35-69 years old who did not perform a Pap test after a first individual invitation, either when an HPV(HR) auto-test was offered to be performed at home or a second invitation to Pap test was sent. We also evaluated the quality of the two tests, the positive results obtained by age groups and the following histological type of lesions diagnosed in the women with positive results. The study included 9,334 women, 35-69 years old, who did not realized a Pap-test during the 2 previous years and who did not respond at a first individual invitation. These non-responders were randomized into two groups: one group (n=4,934) received a second individual invitation and the other (n=4,400) an offer of receiving and performing an HPV auto-test at home. In women 35-69 years the participation to the second invitation to Pap test was significantly lower (7.2%) than the participation to auto-test (26.4%) with P<0.001. The quality of the two tests was satisfactory; the auto-test was not altered by the postage to laboratory (non interpretable rate=1.4% [CI at 95%=0.65%; 2.15%]. From the 311 Pap tests done, 5.5% (17) were classified "abnormal" (nine ASCUS, one high grade and seven low grades). The follow up of 13 women out of 17 confirmed the diagnosis for 1 case of CIN2 and 2 cases of CIN3, 4 women are lost of follow up after 6 months. From the 939 HPV(HR) tests done, 6.2% (58) were positive. Such positivity rate was not influenced by age. Out of the 58 positive HPV(HR) cases, 27 only were of the 16 genotype (46.5% [CI 95%=33.7%; 59.3%]). This law rate is a consequence of an inversion of the ratio HPV 16 versus other types in women 60 years old and over. In this group, the follow-up of 36 women diagnosed five cases of CIN1, one of CIN2 and four of CIN3; 22 patients are lost of follow up at 6 months. Globally, in the studied population, an individual recall for pap test allowed to diagnose and treat 3 high grade lesions (7‰) and the dispatching of an auto test allowed the diagnosis and treatment of five high grade lesions (1,4‰), this difference is significant (P=0.02; OR=0.25 [0.05; 0.97]). The HPV(HR) auto-test seems to be better accepted than the Pap test in the 35-69 years old women previously non-responders to individual invitation, and the quality of the test is satisfactory. Such a test can be proposed to the 35-69 years old non-participant to Pap test to increase the coverage for cervical screening, if the rates of diagnostic examinations performed in case of an HPV(HR) positive is sufficiently high.


Thermoreversible Hydrogen-bond crosslinking isoprene rubber (THC-IR) was synthesized by modification of isoprene rubber (IR) with maleic anhydride followed by the addition of 3-amino-1, 2, 4-triazole(ATA), in solid phase. The mechanical properties of the resulting rubber were more similar to the sulfur-vulcanized rubber than general thermoplastic elastomers (ex. SEBS). Although the tensile strength and elongation at break were lower than those of a corresponding sulfur-cured rubber, the moduli were as high as those of sulfur-cured rubber. Reforming could be repeated more than 10 times without significantly changing its mechanical properties. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) revealed that the superior mechanical properties and good recyclability are attributable to the strong hydrogen bonding. The TRC-IR showed an endothermic transition peak at around 185°C on the DSC chart, indicating cleavage of the hydrogen bonding. Moreover, small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) clarified the crosslinking point is aggregated structure of ca. 5nm by supramolecular hydrogen bonding. A hypothetical model was suggested which comprises strong crosslinking moiety formed by the seven points hydrogen bonds. The thermoreversible crosslinking system could be applied to EPM and AEM, as well. These rubbers also showed superior mechanical properties as well as excellent recyclability.


Power cycling lifetime in a semiconductor module accounts for the progressive fatigue of the device due to repetitive thermo-mechanical stress. Mathematical models for the lifetime express the number of cycles that the device can withstand before failing under predefined repetitive conditions. These models reveal an exponential dependency of the lifetime with the amplitude of the swings of the chips junction temperature. Thus, an accurate estimation of the lifetime requires a precise knowledge of these temperature swings. During the design phase, the junction temperature time course over time is derived from the device losses with models of the thermal propagation inside the device package. The standard approach is based on discrete thermal models synthesized as a Cauer or Foster network equivalent. More advanced modelling techniques rely on Finite Element Methods (FEM). The paper compares three common thermal modelling approaches regarding their influence on lifetime prediction. In particular, it is demonstrated that these thermal models can present significant differences in predicting the cross couplings terms between the chips in the same module.


The aim of this thesis is to explore the changing representation of ships and sailors in English maritime fiction in the early twentieth century, as sailing ships were being replaced by steamships. It begins with a critical review examining the reception of Joseph Conrad's maritime fiction and subsequently presents new readings of five of his sea novels and their response to the transition between sail and steam: The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' (1897), Lord Jim (1900), Romance (1903), Chance (1913) and The Shadow-Line (1917). Arguing that Conrad's work is not the culmination of the maritime fiction genre, the third chapter examines sea stories that retreated back to the past in pirate adventure narratives. It begins with a contextual review of pirate fiction, followed by analyses of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's pirate short stories (1897 and 1911), F. Tennyson Jesse's Moonraker (1927), and Richard Hughes's A High Wind in Jamaica (1929). In the same period, other maritime texts turned away from the pirate romance to embrace the harsh realities of the brave new mechanised maritime world and the changing role of the sailor on modern vessels; chapter four examines the impact of war on maritime fiction through an analysis of Erskine Childers's The Riddle of the Sands (1903), which responded to and exacerbated national fears about invasion, while chapter five considers the impact of industrialisation on maritime fiction in James Hanley's Boy (1931) and Malcolm Lowry's Ultramarine (1933). The sixth chapter considers the role of fact and fiction in Richard Hughes's In Hazard (1938) and examines the ways in which this text looks back to Conrad's work. Ultimately, the texts discussed prompt a reconsideration of the maritime fiction genre, while the conclusion suggests how it enables further experimentation with the sea story throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century.


The p21-activated kinase 4 (PAK4) is a key downstream effector of the Rho family GTPases and is found to be overexpressed in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) cells but not in normal human pancreatic ductal epithelia (HPDE). Gene copy number amplification studies in PDAC patient cohorts confirmed PAK4 amplification making it an attractive therapeutic target in PDAC. We investigated the antitumor activity of novel PAK4 allosteric modulators (PAM) on a panel of PDAC cell lines and chemotherapy-resistant flow-sorted PDAC cancer stem cells (CSC). The toxicity and efficacy of PAMs were evaluated in multiple subcutaneous mouse models of PDAC. PAMs (KPT-7523, KPT-7189, KPT-8752, KPT-9307, and KPT-9274) show antiproliferative activity in vitro against different PDAC cell lines while sparing normal HPDE. Cell growth inhibition was concurrent with apoptosis induction and suppression of colony formation in PDAC. PAMs inhibited proliferation and antiapoptotic signals downstream of PAK4. Co-immunoprecipitation experiments showed disruption of PAK4 complexes containing vimentin. PAMs disrupted CSC spheroid formation through suppression of PAK4. Moreover, PAMs synergize with gemcitabine and oxaliplatin in vitro. KPT-9274, currently in a phase I clinical trial (clinicaltrials.gov; NCT02702492), possesses desirable pharmacokinetic properties and is well tolerated in mice with the absence of any signs of toxicity when 200 mg/kg daily is administered either intravenously or orally. KPT-9274 as a single agent showed remarkable antitumor activity in subcutaneous xenograft models of PDAC cell lines and CSCs. These proof-of-concept studies demonstrated the antiproliferative effects of novel PAMs in PDAC and warrant further clinical investigations. Mol Cancer Ther; 16(1); 76–87. ©2016 AACR.


This paper analyzes the placement in the private sector of a subset of Brazilian public-sector employees. This group left public employment in the mid-1990's through a voluntary severance program. This paper contrasts their earnings before and after quitting the public sector, and compares both sets of wages to public and private sector earnings for similar workers. We find that participants in this voluntary severance program suffered a significant reduction in average earnings wage and an increase in earnings dispersion. We test whether the reduction in average earnings and the increase in earnings dispersion is the expected outcome once one controls for observed characteristics, by means of counterfactual simulations. Several methods of controlling for observed characteristics (parametric and non-parametrically) are used for robustness. The results indicate that this group of workers was paid at levels below what would be expected given their embodied observable characteristics.


The human exploration of multiple deep space destinations, and among them Near Earth Asteroids (NEA), in view of the final challenge of sending astronauts to Mars, represents a current and consistent study domain. NEAs represent interesting targets, not only for the high level scientific return of such missions, but also for advanced technologies demonstration. Accordingly, the NEA mission described in this paper is conceived as an intermediate step before a human mission to the Red Planet and, in this regard, several tech- nologies required for Mars are implemented, in order to test and validate them in significant environment, but at a closer and easier destination. Another crucial aspect to be considered, when dealing with asteroids, is related to planetary defence: even if the probability of an impact with the Earth is very low, this possibility does actually exist. A human mission as the one described in this paper would represent a chance for the development and test of technologies and techniques to be used for asteroid collision avoidance. The paper starts discussing the main objectives of a NEA mission, highlighting the benefits of the human presence. A reference human mission is then described, in terms of strategy, architecture and concept of operations, with particular attention to NEA collision avoidance issue. In the last part, the idea of exploiting virtual reality in support of the mission definition and execution is discussed


The microbial quality of hand-wash water samples of three groups of people: market traders, civil servants and students in Owerri, Nigeria were analysed using standard microbiological techniques. A total of 246 samples were used and results revealed the presence of Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Enterobacter sp, Shigella sp, Klebsiella sp, Enterococcus sp, Corynebacterium sp and Pseudomonas sp. Staphylococcus aureus and E. coli showed the highest prevalence amongst the groups of people sampled. The average total coliform counts and total heterotrophic bacterial counts revealed that the market women had the highest values of 1.9X1010 and 8.2X109 cfu/ml respectively; followed by students, 2.1X108 and 2.2X108 cfu/ml and civil servants 3.3X106 and 3.0X107 cfu/ml. These microorganisms are causative agents of diseases and infections such as common cold, which are easily contracted through hand to hand contact, as well as several cases of gastrointestinal disorders, and most urinary tract infections. The practice of proper hand hygiene is advocated owing to its public health significance.


The specific behaviors of monomeric electron acceptor-electron donor bridged molecules and of polymeric initiator-coinitiator systems tested as free radical polymerization photoinitiating systems were observed. The obtained experimental and theoretical results suggest that the back electron transfer process probably does not control the rate of photoinitiated polymerization going with initiators tested. The phenomena observed more likely results from a different proton transfer between Rose bengal radical anion and a tertiary aromatic amine radical cation. This can be deducted on the basis of Marcus theory, describing the kinetics of photoinduced intermolecular and intramolecular electron transfer processes, and laser flash photolysis measurements.


This paper proposes a low-complexity spectral partitioning (SP) based MUSIC algorithm for automotive radar. For short-range radar (SRR), the range accuracy and resolution of 24 GHz ISM band radar should be improved because the requirements of automotive sensing become more demanding over time. To improve the performance of range estimation, high resolution based algorithms such as the estimation of signal parameters via rotational invariance techniques (ESPRIT) and multiple signal classification (MUSIC) have been proposed. However, in a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the high resolution algorithm shows degraded performance to estimate the parameters. To solve this problem, SP based high resolution algorithms have been studied recently. However, for real-time operation, the conventional SP method cannot be applied to automotive radar due to its high complexity. Therefore, a low complexity SP based MUSIC is designed to maintain the performance of the range accuracy and resolution in a low SNR environment. While the complexity of the proposed algorithm is less than the SP-MUSIC, Monte-Carlo simulation results and experimental results show that the estimation performance of the proposed method is similar to that of SP-MUSIC in terms of various parameters.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eie.23.4.18719


While giving a brief introduction and analysis of the spatial history of Hungarian public administration, the author focuses on the following tendencies: in the historical-spatial development of the Hungarian public administration, continuity and interruption were present simultaneously, to a large extent in connection with the turning points of the history of the state. The most particular and most important regional unit of the Hungarian public administration was the county that itself changed several times with respect to both its function and spatial appearance. With the "foreign ownership" of the central power after 1526, the county developed into a special national-political institution and became the stage of national opposition. The historical county and county system reached the top of their power by the mid-19th century: Participant of law making, the regional representative of jurisdiction, general authority of public administration, the most important regional organ of the executive power. The civil transformation weakened the feudal type power unit of the counties, with the separation of the branches of power, the former importance of the county governments declined, the state administration pushed county governments out of more and more significant fields. — In the period of the civil transformation, a significant correction of the regional division of the counties took place, but carefully considering the historically formed county borders. The changes of the state border following World War I basically rearranged the regional order of inner public administration. The territorial and population imbalances among the counties were stronger than ever. Between the two world wars the nationalisation process of the public administration accelerated. Before and during World War II the administrative space of the counties pulsed according to the changes of the state border. The state socialist system, built between 1945 and 1950, carried out fundamental changes in the functions and operation of public administration, at the same time it only applied corrections in the regional structure. In the second half of the state socialist era some elements of self governments gradually appeared again in the Hungarian public administration, in a sense public administration approached the historical traditions of Hungary. The systemic change of self government public administration in 1990 brought a functional reform but not a real regional one. The reform of 1990 appreciated the role of the self governments of the settlements for the first time in the history of the Hungarian public administration, and it partly led to the fact that the regional governments were depreciated as never before in the administrative history of Hungary. The county governments had never been as weak and deprived of functions in the history of the Hungarian public administration as after 1990. The Hungarian public administration and regional system is facing new challenges and bad needs for reforms.


Many applications utilize sensors on mobile devices and apply deep learning for diverse applications. However, they have rarely enjoyed mainstream adoption due to many different individual conditions users encounter. Individual conditions are characterized by users' unique behaviors and different devices they carry, which collectively make sensor inputs different. It is impractical to train countless individual conditions beforehand and we thus argue meta-learning is a great approach in solving this problem. We present MetaSense that leverages "seen" conditions in training data to adapt to an "unseen" condition (i.e., the target user). Specifically, we design a meta-learning framework that learns "how to adapt" to the target via iterative training sessions of adaptation. MetaSense requires very few training examples from the target (e.g., one or two) and thus requires minimal user effort. In addition, we propose a similar condition detector (SCD) that identifies when the unseen condition has similar characteristics to seen conditions and leverages this hint to further improve the accuracy. Our evaluation with 10 different datasets shows that MetaSense improves the accuracy of state-of-the-art transfer learning and meta learning methods by 15 and 11 percent, respectively. Furthermore, our SCD achieves additional accuracy improvement (e.g., 15 percent for human activity recognition).


We argue that insider threat is a placeholder term that accompanies the transition from securing IT infrastructures to securing the socio-technical systems made possible by these IT infrastructures. The term insider in its literal interpretation loses meaning in a context where there are no stable perimeters one can refer to. Business practices such as outsourcing, employing temporary contractors, and the very use of IT, have removed security perimeters in the search for short-term efficiency gains, which may result in mid-term losses due to increased vulnerabilities. We conclude that securing socio-technical systems calls for the design of organisational (business) processes that remain viable once inside information about their implementation becomes available to potential attackers rather than for the deployment of secure IT infrastructures.


Fission yeasts Schizosaccharomyces pombe possess two types of excision repair systems for UV-induced DNA damage, nucleotide excision repair (NER) and UV-damaged DNA endonuclease (UVDE)-dependent excision repair (UVER). Despite its high efficiency in damage removal, UVER defects have less effect on UV survival than NER defects. To understand the differential roles of two pathways, we examined strand-specific damage removal at the myo2 and rpb2 loci. Although NER removes cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers from the transcribed strand more rapidly than from the nontranscribed strand, UVER repairs cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers equally on both strands and at a much higher rate than NER. The low rate of damage removal from the nontranscribed strand in the absence of UVER indicates inefficient global genome repair (GGR) in this organism and a possible function of UVER as an alternative to GGR. Disruption of rhp26, the S. pombe homolog of CSB/RAD26, eliminated the strand bias of NER almost completely and resulted in a significant increase of UV sensitivity of cells in a uvdeΔ background. We suggest that the combination of transcription-coupled repair of NER and rapid UVER contributes to UV survival in growing S. pombe cells, which is accomplished by transcription-coupled repair and GGR in other organisms.


Case overview
This case uniquely challenges students by introducing the history of how LIXIL transformed its corporate social responsibility (CSR) program to create shared value within the global sanitation sector by launching the SATO business unit as a social enterprise. SATO is a "self-sustaining social business that establishes a local Make, Sell, Use cycle in the community – creating jobs and allowing local manufacturers and stakeholders to continue the business independently" (LIXIL, 2019). From 2012 to 2021, NGOs helped the company design and market the SATO toilet pan and other products that form the SATO business unit. The SATO business unit must balance its social mission of improved sanitation with the need to gain a profit and become a sustainable business – the ongoing challenge of social entrepreneurship.

Leaning objectives
After completing this case study, students will be able to meet the following objectives: understand the difference in corporate strategy between CSR and ventures that create shared value; understand the sometimes-competing goals of social enterprises and analyze how they can balance both economic and social objectives; understand that developing and emerging markets are different from each other; explain how corporations can decide which markets to pursue, and how they can meet the needs of the diverse BOP markets; understand how the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals can create economic opportunities for corporations; and (optional: suggested for post-graduates) identify activities and challenges of MNC market entry in developing country contexts. Analyze institutional voids in developing country contexts and explore how partnerships can help to address these voids.

Complexity academic level
This case is most appropriate for the study of international business, corporate social responsibility, and social entrepreneurship students at both the undergraduate and post-graduate levels. The case may be used for undergraduate students to illustrate corporate social entrepreneurship, creating shared value, NGO partnerships, and marketing to the base of the pyramid (BOP) consumers. An optional section on BOP market entry is presented for early- and late-stage post-graduate students, illustrating the concepts of the liability of foreignness and institutional voids.

Supplementary materials
Teaching notes are available for educators only.

Subject code
CCS 3: Entrepreneurship.


. The occurrence of earthquakes may have catastrophic and devastating consequences for the inhabitants of the place where they occur. Some regions are characterized by the high frequency of this type of natural phenomenon. Such is the case of Ecuador, a country with a high seismic index due to its location in a subduction zone between the Pacific Plate and the South American Plate. Predictions in the behavior of earthquakes are a way of prevention that allows taking measures according to vulnerability. Although it is difficult to accurately predict the occurrence of an earthquake, there are dissimilar types of analysis to observe its behavior and patterns of occurrence. The nature of earthquakes and their monitoring variables usually make up large databases. For its processing and subsequent analysis of the results, it is convenient to use statistical techniques of Data Mining such as K-Means. In this work, the classic K-Means method is combined with Neutrosophy to improve the results obtained by taking into account the indeterminacy of such complex data sets and including the diversity of the data and its fluctuation, due to the proximity among the boundaries and their membership clusters.


Two studies examined how personality motives influence the perception of traumatic events in memory and how such perception may be linked to psychological distress. Participants completed implicit and explicit measures of agentic and communal motives. In Study 1, participants living in New York City at the time of the terrorist attacks wrote their thoughts and feelings about the events of September 11th. In Study 2, participants wrote about a personally traumatic experience. In both studies, they also completed questionnaires on psychological symptoms and stress-related growth. The memories were then scored for differentiation and integration. Agentic motives correlated with differentiated perceptions and differentiation was linked to dissociative symptoms in Study 2. Communal motives related to integrated perceptions, and integration related to stress-related growth in both studies. Findings suggest that motives play a significant role in the perception of traumatic and difficult experiences and that these perceptions may be differentially linked to psychological impact.


This Fact Sheet details the progress made in the past 10 years and challenges ahead, stressing the fact that Death Sentences and Executions Have Decreased, there is a Growing Use of a Moratorium, a Growing Restrictions on the Scope of the Death Penalty: Elimination of Mandatory Death Sentences, Growing Restrictions on the Scope of the Death Penalty, Growing Support for the UN General Assembly Resolutions Calling for a Moratorium,
Increasing Ratifications of the Protocols to Abolish the Death Penalty, Growing International Statements and a Growing Abolitionist Movement.


ISAR imagery of ships are complicated by the 3-D motion of the target, which causes blurring in the imagery. A technique is proposed which could help detect such motion and prove useful to both analyse the 3-D motion as well as possibly help to estimate the 3-D position of scatterers as a by-product of the analysis. The technique is based on principal component analysis of accurate scatterer range histories and is shown only in simulation. Future research should focus on practical application.


Objective: The PTEN tumor suppressor gene has been demonstrated to be inactivated in a variety of human tumors. In breast cancer, the PTEN gene mutation is not commonly found whereas loss of heterozygosity affecting the PTEN locus is frequently found. The aim of this study was to analyze PTEN protein expression in breast cancer and to evaluate the prognostic significance of PTEN protein expression. Methods: Paraffin-embedded sections ofinvasive ductal carcinoma of the breast were immunohistochemically stained for PTEN protein expression in 236 breast cancers. The immunohistochemical expression of breast cancer cells was judged to be either normal or reduced compared with the PTEN protein expression of the normal mammary gland. Results: The expression of PTEN protein was found to have decreased in 67 (28%) of 236 breast cancers. The reduced expression correlated with lymph node metastasis (p = 0.0371), but not with tumor size, nuclear grade, MIB-1 counts or p53 protein expression. Univariate analysis indicated that patients with a reduced PTEN expression had a shorter disease-free survival (DFS) than those with a normal PTEN expression (p = 0.0174). Univariate analyses also determined tumor size, lymph node metastases, nuclear grade, MIB-1 counts, p53 protein as well as PTEN protein expression to be significant factors for DFS, while multivariate analysis determined lymph node metastases and the MIB-1 counts to be independent significant factors for DFS. Conclusions: The inactivation of PTEN, demonstrated by a reduced expression of PTEN protein by immunohistochemistry, was found in about one third of all breast cancers. The reduced expression of PTEN protein correlated with lymph node metastases and a worse prognosis in the patients with breast cancer.


Food production must adapt in the face of climate change. In Europe, projected vulnerability of food production to climate change is particularly high in Mediterranean regions. Increasing agricultural diversity has been suggested as an adaptation strategy, but empirical evidence is lacking. We analyzed the relationship between regional farm diversity (i.e., diversity among farm types) and the effects of climate variability on regional wheat ( Triticum spp.) productivity. An extensive data set with information from more than 50 000 farms from 1990 to 2003 was analyzed, along with observed weather data. Our results suggest that the diversity in farm size and intensity, particularly high in Mediterranean regions, reduces vulnerability of regional wheat yields to climate variability. Accordingly, increasing regional farm diversity can be a strategy through which regions in Europe can adapt to unfavorable conditions, such as higher temperatures and associated droughts.


Source water quality plays a critical role in maintaining the quality and supply of drinking water, yet it can be negatively affected by human activities. In Pennsylvania, coal mining and treatment of conventional oil and gas drilling produced wastewaters have affected source water quality for over 100 years. The recent unconventional natural gas development in the Marcellus Shale formation produces significant volumes of wastewater containing bromide and has the potential to affect source water quality and downstream drinking water quality. Wastewater from coal-fired power plants also contains bromide that may be released into source water. Increasing source water bromide presents a challenge as even small amounts of bromide in source water can lead to carcinogenic disinfection by-products (DBPs) in chlorinated finished drinking water. However, bromide is not regulated in source water and is not removed by conventional drinking water treatment processes. The objective of this work is to evaluate the safe bromide concentration in source water to minimize the cancer risk of trihalomethanes-a group of DBPs-in treated drinking water. By evaluating three years of water sampling data from the Monongahela River in Southwestern Pennsylvania, the present analysis reached three conclusions. First, bromide monitoring for source water quality should be taken at drinking water intake points. Water sample types (river water samples vs drinking water intake samples) can lead to different water quality conclusions and thus affect regulatory compliance decision-making. Second, bromide monitoring at drinking water intake points can serve as a predictor for changes in heavily brominated trihalomethanes concentrations in finished water. Increasing bromide in source water can serve as an early warning sign of iii increasing formation of heavily brominated trihalomethanes and their associated cancer risks in drinking water. Finally, this work developed a statistical simulation model to evaluate the effect of source water bromide on trihalomethane formation and speciation and to analyze the changing cancer risks in water associated with these changing bromide concentrations in the Monongahela River. The statistical simulation method proposed in this work leads to the conclusion that the bromide concentration in source water must be very low to prevent the adverse health effects associated with brominated trihalomethanes in chlorinated drinking water. This method can be used by water utilities to determine the bromide concentration in their source water that might indicate a need for process changes or by regulatory agencies to evaluate source water bromide issues. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


Repurposing mass-produced internal combustion engines Quantifying the value and use of low-cost internal combustion piston engines for modular applications in energy and chemical engineering industries Zara E. L'Heureux This thesis proposes that internal combustion piston engines can help clear the way for a transformation in the energy, chemical, and refining industries that is akin to the transition computer technology experienced with the shift from large mainframes to small personal computers and large farms of individually small, modular processing units. This thesis provides a mathematical foundation, multi-dimensional optimizations, experimental results, an engine model, and a techno-economic assessment, all working towards quantifying the value of repurposing internal combustion piston engines for new applications in modular, small-scale technologies, particularly for energy and chemical engineering systems. Many chemical engineering and power generation industries have focused on increasing individual unit sizes and centralizing production. This "bigger is better" concept makes it difficult to evolve and incorporate change. Large systems are often designed with long lifetimes, incorporate innovation slowly, and necessitate high upfront investment costs. Breaking away from this cycle is essential for promoting change, especially change happening quickly in the energy and chemical engineering industries. The ability to evolve during a system's lifetime provides a competitive advantage in a field dominated by large and often very old equipment that cannot respond to technology change. This thesis specifically highlights the value of small, mass-manufactured internal combustion piston engines retrofitted to participate in non-automotive system designs. The applications are unconventional and stem first from the observation that, when normalized by power output, internal combustion engines are one hundred times less expensive than conventional, large power plants. This cost disparity motivated a look at scaling laws to determine if scaling across both individual unit size and number of units produced would predict the two order of magnitude difference seen here. For the first time, this thesis provides a mathematical analysis of scaling with a combination of both changing individual unit size and varying the total number of units produced. Different paths to meet a particular cumulative capacity are analyzed and show that total costs are path dependent and vary as a function of the unit size and number of units produced. The path dependence identified is fairly weak, however, and for all practical applications, the underlying scaling laws seem unaffected. This analysis continues to support the interest in pursuing designs built around small, modular infrastructure. Building on the observation that internal combustion engines are an inexpensive power-producing unit, the first optimization in this thesis focuses on quantifying the value of engine capacity committing to deliver power in the day-ahead electricity and reserve markets, specifically based on pricing from the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO). An optimization was written in Python to determine, based on engine cost, fuel cost, engine wear, engine lifetime, and electricity prices, when and how much of an engine's power should be committed to a particular energy market. The optimization aimed to maximize profit for the engine and generator (engine genset) system acting as a price-taker. The result is an annual profit on the order of $30 per kilowatt. The most value in the engine genset is in its commitments to the spinning reserve market, where power is often committed but not always called on to deliver. This analysis highlights the benefits of modularity in energy generation and provides one example where the system is so inexpensive and short-lived, that the optimization views the engine replacement cost as a consumable operating expense rather than a capital cost. Having the opportunity to incorporate incremental technological improvements in a system's infrastructure throughout its lifetime allows introduction of new technology with higher efficiencies and better designs. An alternative to traditionally large infrastructure that locks in a design and today's state-of-the-art technology for the next 50 70 years, is a system designed to incorporate new technology in a modular fashion. The modular engine genset system used for power generation is one example of how this works in practice. The largest single component of this thesis is modeling, designing, retrofitting, and testing a reciprocating piston engine used as a compressor. Motivated again by the low cost of an internal combustion engine, this work looks at how an engine (which is, in its conventional form, essentially a reciprocating compressor) can be costeffectively retrofitted to perform as a small-scale gas compressor. In the laboratory, an engine compressor was built by retrofitting a one-cylinder, 79 cc engine. Various retrofitting techniques were incorporated into the system design, and the engine compressor performance was quantified in each iteration. Because the retrofitted engine is now a power consumer rather than a power-producing unit, the engine compressor is driven in the laboratory with an electric motor. Experimentally, compressed air engine exhaust (starting at elevated inlet pressures) surpassed 650 psia (about 45 bar), which makes this system very attractive for many applications in chemical engineering and refining industries. A model of the engine compressor system was written in Python and incorporates experimentally-derived parameters to quantify gas leakage, engine friction, and flow (including backflow) through valves. The model as a whole was calibrated and verified with experimental data and is used to explore engine retrofits beyond what was tested in the laboratory. Along with the experimental and modeling work, a techno-economic assessment is included to compare the engine compressor system with state-of-the-art, commercially-available compressors. Included in the financial analysis is a case study where an engine compressor system is modeled to achieve specific compression needs. The result of the assessment is that, indeed, the low engine cost, even with the necessary retrofits, provides a cost advantage over incumbent compression technologies. Lastly, this thesis provides an algorithm and case study for another application of small-scale units in energy infrastructure, specifically in energy storage. This study focuses on quantifying the value of small-scale, onsite energy storage in shaving peak power demands. This case study focuses on university-level power demands. The analysis finds that, because peak power is so costly, even small amounts of energy storage, when dispatched optimally, can provide significant cost reductions. This provides another example of the value of small-scale implementations, particularly in energy infrastructure. While the study focuses on flywheels and batteries as the energy storage medium, engine gensets could also be used to deliver power and shave peak power demands. The overarching goal of this thesis is to introduce small-scale, modular infrastructure, with a particular focus on the opportunity to retrofit and repurpose inexpensive, mass-manufactured internal combustion engines in new and unconventional applications. The modeling and experimental work presented in this dissertation show very compelling results for engines incorporated into both energy generation infrastructure and chemical engineering industries via compression technologies. The low engine cost provides an opportunity to add retrofits whilst remaining cost competitive with the incumbent technology. This work supports the claim that modular infrastructure, built on the indivisible unit of an internal combustion engine, can revolutionize many industries by providing a low-cost mechanism for rapid change and promoting small-scale designs.


1.By the middle of the last century the hippocampal formation started to be one of the most studied structures of the nervous system. The present study was conducted using 45 albino rats of either sex (150-200 gm) and divided into 3 equal groups. First group was control and received water and food ad-libitum, second group was experimental receiving chronic depression for 7 weeks by immobilization method, the third group received Flouxetine drug (1mg/kg body weight orally) for 4 weeks following chronic depression. The animals were sacrificed after the experiment, perfused with 10% formaldehyde, brains were dissected and tissue blocks were processed for paraffin embedding. Observations were made on 5 micron thick H and E stained sections. Estimation of neuronal density of CA4 regions was performed using Motic images plus 2.0 software. Neuronal density was markedly reduced (85.4 cells/cubic mm) in experimental group, as compared to control (110.5 cells/cubic mm). Neuronal density was enhanced to 144.3 cells /cubic mm in Treatment Group. Statistical analysis was done using students t-test and the significance was assessed. It was found that stress induced depression causes significant neuronal loss in CA4 region that can be significantly reversed by the pharmacological intervention.


When we talk about picturebooks, by now we refer to visual narrative , i.e. to that publishing production of books made up of text and pictures or just pictures – silent books or wordless books . The research, through a short historic excursus, ranges between the literary field – the stories – and the iconographic field – illustrations – in which epic tales, myths, traditional and folk tales, figures of the imagination and "fictions" originate. Therefore, we will analyse mostly literary works that include written tales and printed illustrations, critical references and compendia on pedagogical studies. In particular, we will privilege picturebooks for children that have been published both on a national and on an international level.


The present contribution addresses the issue of preventing and combating gender and sex discrimination in subjects in the age of development and, specifically, children. In our society, characterized by an ideological sexist, genderist and heterocentric matrix, identities that cannot placed within the socially constructed and accepted stereotypes of normality are – often – victims of abuses and they are denied equal treatment. In order to raise awareness of the need to respect personal and social differences, more and more initiatives are being created aimed at promoting a non-discriminatory attitude towards gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, non-conforming and queer people. Among such initiatives, the construction and narration of stories for children explaining the concepts inherent in the culture of differences, are a valid tool for fostering a climate and a cultural structure free of gender and sex stigmatization and instead aiming at enhancing "difference†, considering it a positive possibility just like socially-accepted states. The essay, after a brief description of the characteristics of language, attitudes and relationship with reality in subjects in the age of development, examines the methodological and ethical approach to be used with children, so as to allow them to understand the possibility of different forms of identity and otherness. Preventing and countering prejudices arising from beliefs and social models that help in reproducing every day, in civil society, discriminations, harassment, and unequal treatment against many people, represents a mission to create and reproduce an inclusive and democratic society.


A modular multifunctional facade for the retrofit of shopping malls, capable of adapting to different climates and to the existing building features both by the presence of movable components and by proper sizing of the fixed ones, is under development within the European FP7 project CommONEnergy. In particular, this curtain-wall facade is equipped with a fixed shading system, a photovoltaic panel with a battery feeding the automated openings for natural ventilation. The aim of this work is to define a reliable parametric model for a multi-functional facade system, to support designers with a set of useful data for the holistic design of the facade configuration depending on climate, orientation and building use. Firstly, a reference zone model for the facade was devised; this had to be both representative of reality and smartly defined for simulation software implementation. Besides the definition of the facade model parameters, all unknown design parameters were identified with their minimum and maximum values, depending on different possible applications and environmental conditions in which the facade could be applied. The inputs for the model were defined in a parametric matrix and included: facade module size, facade orientation, climate, window typology (thermal transmittance and g-value), distance between the shading lamellas, tilt angle, and openable window size. The simulation engine was decoupled: visual comfort and artificial lighting use were assessed with Radiance, while the facade thermal behaviour was evaluated by means of building energy simulations in TRNSYS, taking into consideration the daylight assessment results. For each simulated configuration, a set of relevant outputs fields for Indoor Air Quality, thermal and visual comfort, and energy performance were derived. The main considered performance indicators were the long-term percentage of people dissatisfied, the number of hours when CO2 concentration was within the recommended values for each of the categories defined by EN 15251:2007, the illuminance provided by daylight, the energy consumption due to lighting, ventilation, heating and cooling, and the energy generated by the PV panel. Moreover, all outputs were collected in a pre-design support tool comprised of a database accessible through a filtering system to gather the desired performances. This work highlights the role of thermal and daylighting simulation in the design of an adaptive multifunctional facade through the definition of a methodology for the support at the pre-design phase.


We present a machine learning technique to recognize gestures and estimate metric depth of hands for 3D interaction, relying only on monocular RGB video input. We aim to enable spatial interaction with small, body-worn devices where rich 3D input is desired but the usage of conventional depth sensors is prohibitive due to their power consumption and size. We propose a hybrid classification-regression approach to learn and predict a mapping of RGB colors to absolute, metric depth in real time. We also classify distinct hand gestures, allowing for a variety of 3D interactions. We demonstrate our technique with three mobile interaction scenarios and evaluate the method quantitatively and qualitatively.


The emergence of advanced filamentary composite materials as a structural material comes at a time of increasing concern over reliability. This places increasing emphasis on the ability to characterize the fracture and fatigue behavior of these materials. The importance of understanding fracture behavior is intensified because of the characteristic statistical variability in material strength and the observation of fracture phenomena that are significantly different from those of metals. This paper discusses what appear to be the three main approaches being pursued. The first applies classical fracture mechanics (CFM) on a macroscopic level, treating composites as homogeneous, anisotropic materials. The second recognizes material heterogeneity and applies CFM to the problems of crack propagation in the matrix and fiber phases and interfaces separately. The third method, which might be called the material modeling approach, uses approximate models in order to represent the major effects of heterogeneity and simplify the analysis. The advantages and limitations of each of the three approaches are discussed and predictions compared with available experimental data. The emphasis is on material modeling, and it is shown that with the use of relatively simple models it is possible to predict many of the unusual fracture phenomena that are observed.


The large size and high-percentage of domain-specific code in most legacy systems makes it unlikely that automated understanding tools will be able to completely understand them. Yet automated tools can clearly recognize portions of the design. That suggests exploring environments in which programmer and system work together to understand legacy software. This paper describes such an environment that supports programmer and system cooperating to extract an object-oriented design from legacy software systems. It combines an automated program understanding component that recognizes standard implementations of domain independent plans with with a structured notebook that the programmer uses to link object-oriented design primitives to arbitrary source code fragments. This jointly extracted information is used to support conceptual queries about the program's code and design.<<ETX>>


In this paper, we study the asymptotic behavior of the extreme eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the high dimensional spiked sample covariance matrices, in the supercritical case when a reliable detection of spikes is possible. In particular, we derive the joint distribution of the extreme eigenvalues and the generalized components of the associated eigenvectors, i.e., the projections of the eigenvectors onto arbitrary given direction, assuming that the dimension and sample size are comparably large. In general, the joint distribution is given in terms of linear combinations of finitely many Gaussian and Chi-square variables, with parameters depending on the projection direction and the spikes. Our assumption on the spikes is fully general. First, the strengths of spikes are only required to be slightly above the critical threshold and no upper bound on the strengths is needed. Second, multiple spikes, i.e., spikes with the same strength, are allowed. Third, no structural assumption is imposed on the spikes. Thanks to the general setting, we can then apply the results to various high dimensional statistical hypothesis testing problems involving both the eigenvalues and eigenvectors. Specifically, we propose accurate and powerful statistics to conduct hypothesis testing on the principal components. These statistics are data-dependent and adaptive to the underlying true spikes. Numerical simulations also confirm the accuracy and powerfulness of our proposed statistics and illustrate significantly better performance compared to the existing methods in the literature. In particular, our methods are accurate and powerful even when either the spikes are small or the dimension is large.


The study purpose was to examine factors affecting women in completing drug court. Participants were 212 women drug court participants selected via stratified random sampling (by county) from the larger Kentucky Drug Court participant population. Various secondary data sources were used (e.g., participant assessment, Management Information System), and multivariate logistic regression examining 17 independent variables showed 4 variables were significantly associated with program completion for women: employment at program assessment, intravenous opiate use, number of times hospitalized for psychological or emotional problems, and conviction of a misdemeanor-eligible violent crime before drug court. Study findings can be used by social workers and other practitioners to better understand women's drug court participation and to identify ways to tailor program services for women's unique needs.


Adoptive Cell Therapy of cancer using T cells is entering mainstream practice after years
as a research method. Central to the efficacy of this "living therapy" is the function of the
T cells transferred. T-cells, like other primary tissue cells, undergo differentiation and
death. Clinical and preclinical data shows that lesser differentiated, less glycolytic, and
more proliferative-capable cells used for the adoptive transfer yield superior tumor
responses.
This introductory section will describe discoveries which elucidate and control T-cell
differentiation and function for the improvement of adoptive cell therapy. Namely by use
of inhibition of the PI3k/AKT pathways, and through the discovery of a dual function of
death and differentiation by the canonical death receptor Fas, which can be parsed apart
with a mutation from valine to cysteine at the 194 position (C194V), differentiation can be
withheld while leaving cell proliferation unhindered during T-cell stimulation and
expansion. The data also reveals that the differentiation signal caused by extracellular Fas
ligation passes through AKT, revealing both Fas and AKT as points of intervention for
targeting differentiation along the same pathway.
From further investigation, this introduction will describe the effect of AKT inhibition on
T-cell differentiation on a transciptional and metabolic level. The data reveals AKT
inhibition promoted FOXO1 intranuclear organization, which creates a more naive-like
phenotype to the cells, and lower glycolytic status, another phenotype associated with
persistent and long-lived cells. Furthermore, this control of AKT and Fas in T-cells yields
benefits in several modalities of pre-clinical models of adoptive T-cell immunotherapy of
cancer, in both use of a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) and with use of Tumor
Infiltrating Lymphocytes (TIL). Finally, the real-world applicability of the finding
including the use of AKT inhibition in current approved Adoptive T-cell immunotherapies
will be discussed.


This paper proposes a pulse-width modulation (PWM) three-level converter with reduced filter size using two transformers. The proposed converter has many advantages. All switches sustain only the half of the input voltage and since the secondary rectified voltage is a three-level waveform, the output filter inductor can be reduced. Also, because of the power sharing of transformer and reduced output inductor, high efficiency can be obtained. The operational principle, analysis, and design considerations of the proposed converter are presented in this paper. The validity of this study is confirmed by the experimental results from a prototype with 600W, 500–600V input, and 60V output.


Introduction: The quality of life of elderly people tend to decline with the increase of age. Some theories and evidence had shown that relaxation can improve the quality of life of the elderly. Usik Wiwitan (UWI) in West Java, which is the local wisdom of relaxation practice, has a potential to improve quality of life. This research is a field experiment with to assess the effectiveness and practicality of UWI in improving the quality of life of the elderly.

Method: Subjects were divided into two groups A and B randomly. The group A underwent the guided UWI for 10 weeks, while group B acted as controls. Measurement of quality of life in each group was performed at weeks 0, 5 and 10 using the WHOQOL-BREF instrument. The Generalized Estimating Equations analyses were used to evaluate the improved quality of life in repeated measurements. The confounding variables were socio-demographic factors and blood pressure.

Results: There was a decrease in systole and diastolic blood pressures after intervention in both groups. However, there were no differences in blood pressure in the two groups after the intervention program ended. UWI increased quality of life scores by 5 points at 5th week and 7 points at 10th week.

Conclusion: UWI is a simple method for the elderly and easy to do as well as entertaining and vastly improve the quality of life. UWI has the potential method for the elderly's health programs.


As an electrically controllable wetting effect, electrowetting on dielectrics (EWOD) is applied in diverse fields including optics, display technology and lab-on-a-chip systems. For the further development of EWOD applications, the reduction of the operation voltage is an essential issue. Recently, a low-voltage EWOD system with a threshold of 2 V was developed. In its sessile drop configuration, an aqueous electrolyte droplet with microliter scaled volume is actuated on an EWOD electrode in oil. The integration of this low-voltage EWOD system into a multiparameter measurement system enables the non-linearity and dynamics of the EWOD system to be online investigated during electrowetting and dewetting. The non-linearity was characterized by the hysteresis in the droplet deformation and that in the thickness variation of an oil layer, which is entrapped between the droplet and the electrode, in the nm range. The dynamics was evaluated with the characteristic time for the droplet deformation upon voltage jumps. This study of electrowetting and dewetting focuses on the conversion efficiency of the electrical energy in the deformation processes.


The biosynthetic pathway of peptidoglycan, an essential component of bacterial cell wall, is a well-recognized target for antibiotic development. Peptidoglycan precursors are synthesized in the bacterial cytosol by various enzymes including the ATP-hydrolyzing Mur ligases, which catalyze the stepwise addition of amino acids to a UDP-MurNAc precursor to yield UDP-MurNAc-pentapeptide. MurD catalyzes the addition of D-glutamic acid to UDP-MurNAc-L-Ala in the presence of ATP; structural and biochemical studies have suggested the binding of the substrates with an ordered kinetic mechanism in which ligand binding inevitably closes the active site. In this work, we challenge this assumption by reporting the crystal structures of intermediate forms of MurD either in the absence of ligands or in the presence of small molecules. A detailed analysis provides insight into the events that lead to the closure of MurD and reveals that minor structural modifications contribute to major overall conformation alterations. These novel insights will be instrumental in the development of new potential antibiotics designed to target the peptidoglycan biosynthetic pathway.


A high dynamic range image camera (HDRI) is a kind of camera which captures the HDRI image. HDRI means the image with high dynamic range, it can record the gray information of the object with much wider dynamic range. HDR image has great applications in many fields. The existing HDRI camera needs either the special image sensor or can capture the still object only. In this paper, a new kind of camera is proposed. In this camera, a space light modulator (SLM) is used to acquire images with different exposure, then a HDRI is made with these images. This camera can acquire dynamic image and it is cheap and easy to extend.


In this paper we present artificial constraints as a method for guiding heuristic search in the computationally challenging domain of motion planning among movable obstacles. The robot is permitted to manipulate unspecified obstacles in order to create space for a path. A plan is an ordered sequence of paths for robot motion and object manipulation. We show that under monotone assumptions, anticipating future manipulation paths results in constraints on both the choice of objects and their placements at earlier stages in the plan. We present an algorithm that uses this observation to incrementally reduce the search space and quickly find solutions to previously unsolved classes of movable obstacle problems. Our planner is developed for arbitrary robot geometry and kinematics. It is presented with an implementa tion for the domain of navigation among movable obstacles.


Radiolabeled protein A from Staphylococcus aureus (Staph A) has been used to develop a solid phase, noncompetitive radioimmunoassay for quantitation of specific IgG antibody. The assay involves two incubations: First, agarose-insolubilized antigen is mixed with serum samples for 1 to 4 hr during which specific antibody is bound; second, after a washing procedure, the solid phase immune complexes are incubated for 4 to 18 hr with 125I-Staph A, during which the radiolabeled detection protein binds to the insolubilized specific IgG antibody. In a comparative study of the IgG antiphospholipase A antibody content of 23 human sera drawn from honeybee venom-sensitive patients, resulted of the Staph A assay correlated highly (r = 0.981, p less than 0.001, N = 23) with those obtained from a liquid phase, competitive radioimmunoprecipitation (double antibody) assay. The two assays demonstrated comparable precision, sensitivity, and reproducibility. In contrast, the use of 125I-Staph A in the solid phase radioimmunoassay was superior to 125I rabbit anti-human IgG because of lower negative serum (blank) values, shorter time required to reach equilibrium binding, and greater precision and reproducibility. In principle, the 125I Staph A assay may be applied ot IgG quantitation for crude allergen extracts as well as purified antigens. Furthermore, the sera of a number of mammalian species may be studied without further modification.


The microclimate at Thermocline Cave (lat, 30° 45′S, long, 149° 43′E) was investigated by measuring air temperature and relative humidity at five stations on 18 occasions from September 1971 to December, 1973. The activity, body weight and roosting sites of the bat Miniopterus schreibersii blepotis in the cave were recorded on each visit.

Relative humidity in the cave was generally high and paralleled temperature. The cave exhibited a range of temperatures from 9 to 19.5°C but bats selected roosting sites only in a part of this range. During the autumn when the bats arrived and were feeding, their body weights were low, and they roosted in a domed area at the rear of the cave with a temperature of 19.5°C. As they became less active and body weight increased they moved to cooler parts (9.5-11°C) towards the front of the cave and underwent periods of torpor, in one case lasting for at least 12 days. From July to September body weight decreased. The bats became more active in September and most had left the cave by October.

It appears that M.s. blepotis can detect temperature differences of 1°C. They used this ability to select cold areas with stable high humidity in Thermocline Cave to under go periods of winter torpor.


ABSTRACT Distribution of recent sedimentary facies is significantly different in four closely spaced, isolated carbonate platforms off the coasts of Belize and Yucatan (SE Mexico). These differences are largely controlled by variations in submarine topography, which are likely the result of differential subsidence and karstification from platform to platform. A variety of depositional styles and patterns is found in platform interiors that developed during the same Holocene sea-level rise. Composition and texture of surface sediment samples were used to define four major sediment types and to distinguish nine depositional environments within the platforms. Facies maps are based on analysis of 454 sediment samples and high-resolution satellite imagery. Glovers Reef is characterized by a circular facies distribution. The nearly continuous reef margin is composed of a coral-red coralline algae-Halimeda grainstone. Mixed nonskeletal (peloidal)/skeletal wackestones and packstones are present in shallow lagoon parts (< 5 m water depth) behind the margin. The deep interior, from 5 to 18 m water depth, is characterized by mollusk-foram-Halimeda wackestones with over 860 patch reefs of coral-red algae-Halimeda-mollusk packstones. Lighthouse Reef also has a coral grainstone and coral-red algae-Halimeda grainstone rim, but the facies distribution in the interior is strongly asymmetrical. The 8-m-deep eastern lagoon is floored by mollusk-foram-Halimeda wackestones and packstones; the 3-m-deep western lagoon has the mixed peloidal/skeletal wackestone to grainstone facies. A linear trend of coalescing patch reefs and skeletal grainstone facies separates the two lagoons. Banco Chinchorro is similar to Lighthouse Reef, inasmuch as facies distribution patterns of the interior are strongly asymmetrical. Mollusk-foram-Halimeda wackestones-grainstones are present in eastern lagoon areas, whereas shallow (< 5 m) western parts of the lagoon are composed of mixed peloidal/skeletal grainstones, packstones, and wackestones. Most of Turneffe Islands is protected on the east by Lighthouse Reef. Accordingly, Turneffe has a narrower reef and skeletal grainstone rim than the other two platforms. Restricted interior lagoons are up to 8 m deep, and are enclosed by wide mangrove rims and surface sediments dominated by Halimeda-rich wackestone rich in organic matter. Coral patch reefs are absent. In contrast, the unprotected northernmost part of Turneffe has a wide reef and grainstone rim and the open lagoon area consists of mollusk-foram-Halimeda wackestones-packstones with abundant patch reefs.


Based on the FLAC2D finite difference software, We can use strength reduction theory to gained the stability factor of the 48 soil slopes under the different conditions, Grey Correlation Analysis Method of the Grey System Theory is employed to analyze the sensitivities of factor influencing slope stability. The matrix of correlation data is setup, the elements of which are transformed to dimensionless parameters. The grey correlative factors and grey correlative degrees which respect to the influencing factor and the slope stability factor are computed, and the sensible factors influence slope stability are decided. The results show that the cohesion of the soil. The density and the internal friction angle are the most sensitive factors to the slope stability, and the dilatancy angle, slope angle and the slope height are taken second place, which provide a reference to the reasonably and effectively design of the actual slope works.


A commercially available hydroxyapatite (HA) was sintered for a number of sintering temperatures and times between 1150°C to 1350°C and 0 to 12 hours respectively. Full density was reached after sintering for 1.5 hours at 1250°C and a maximum microhardness of 4.9GPa was achieved after 6 hours at 1300°C. Significant grain growth occurred but did not seem to influence the microhardness observed. Significant decomposition was observed after sintering at 1350°C for 1.5 which lead to major decreases in microhardness. An activation energy for grain growth of 286 kJ.mol-1 was calculated which is substantially higher than that previously noted for HA.


Identity is a central theme in contemporary politics, but legal academia lacks a rigorous analysis of this concept. The aim of this article is twofold: (i) firstly, it aims to reveal presumptions on identity in human rights law by mapping how the European Court of Human Rights approaches identity and (ii) secondly, it seeks to analyse these presumptions using theoretical insights on identity. By merging legal and theoretical analysis, this article contributes a reading of the Court's case law which suggests that the tension between the political and apolitical is visible as a common thread in the Court's use of identity. In case law concerning paternity, the Court appears to hold a specific view of what is presented as an unquestionable part of identity. This ostensibly pre-political notion of identity becomes untenable in cases where the nature of an identity feature, such as the headscarf, is contended or a minority has adopted a national identity that conflicts with the majoritarian national identity. The Court's approach to identity in such cases reflects a paradox that is inherent to identity; identity is personal while simultaneously constituted and shaped by overarching power mechanisms.


The amount of products and services available over the Internet increases significantly and it soon becomes beyond users ability to analyze and compare them. At the same time the number of potential customers available via the Internet also increases dramatically and starts to be beyond the service providers ability to perform efficient targeted marketing. A possible way for relaxing the above-mentioned limitations could be in usage of electronic assistants, both for customers and providers. Such assistants may serve as mediators for commercial Internet-based activity. Software agents could play role of such mediators representing customers and providers in the network. In this paper we present our experience and a solution to using agent technology in customer services management for mobile users. The solution is intended to increase granularity and personalization in targeted advertising while ensuring customer privacy. The proposed solution has been implemented in a prototype system for providing services for users of mobile devices.


Tao Xu Rui Zhang Menglu Dong Zeyu Zhang Hanning Li Chenao Zhan Xingrui Li 1Department of Thyroid and Breast Surgery, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430030, People's Republic of China; 2Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430030, People's Republic of China; 3Department of Radiology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430030, People's Republic of China Introduction: Previous studies have indicated that the small leucine-rich proteoglycan (SLR) osteoglycin (OGN) is downregulated in various cancers, including squamous cervical carcinoma, gastric cancer, and colorectal adenoma, indicating that OGN is a putative tumor suppressor. However, its exact role in the pathology of human cancers, especially breast cancer (BC), is not clear. Methods: The expression of OGN in BC tissues was examined using qRT-PCR. Online databases were employed to analyze the correlation between OGN expression and clinicopathological characteristics. CCK-8 assay, colony formation assay, transwell migration and invasion assays were applied to detect cell proliferation, colony formation, migration and invasion of BC cells, respectively. Xenograft tumor models were constructed to explore the role of OGN on tumor growth in vivo. Results: OGN expression was reduced in 24 paired BC samples compared with normal tissue. Decreased expression of OGN was correlated with greater pathological grade, a more aggressive tumor subtype, and poor overall survival. In vitro experiments showed that OGN overexpressed by plasmid transfection significantly inhibited cell proliferation, colony formation, migration, and invasion of BC cell lines. In xenograft tumor models, overexpression of OGN repressed the growth of MCF-7 cells in vivo and alleviated the compression of the tumor on surrounding structures. We also observed that OGN expression reversed EMT via repressing the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway. Conclusion: This study revealed that OGN could function as a tumor suppressor during breast carcinogenesis, and we contribute new evidence to the body of research on the SLRP family.