A hemolytic intermediate complex EAC1, 4, 2 was prepared by incubating carp EAC1, 4 with hydrazine-treated carp serum, which is deficient in C4 and C3 , at 0°C for 20 min. The difference between EAC1, 4, 2 and EAC1, 4 was shown by tests with inactivated carp sera. The former was hemolyzed by carrageenan-treated serum (Cn), ammonia-treated serum (Am) and heat-treated serum (H), whereas the latter was hemolyzed by Cn and Am, but not by H. EAC1, 4, 2 was unstable. Its half-life was about 15 min at 20°C and about 2.5h at 0°C. Addition of Ca2+ to the buffer was not effective in preventing the deterioration of this complex. The reaction between EAC1, 4 and Cy' (a mixture of complement components other than C1 and C4) proceeded only in the presence of Mg2+, whereas the reaction of EAC1, 4, 2 with Cy' proceeded without Mg2+. This indicates that the action of C2 requires Mg2+ while C3 acts without Mg2+.


This paper draws upon the recent carbon market turmoil to understand how the private realm is imagined in global climate governance. Instead of asking which entities (eg, public or private authorities) govern the carbon economy, we draw attention to the procedures (eg, caps on emissions, techniques of verification, or performance standards) by which carbon markets are made thinkable and governable as administrative domains. When focusing on these 'calculative practices', carbon market governance does not signify a retreat of the state. Rather, in this paper we argue that the involvement of nonstate actors in the governance of carbon markets represents a transformation of political rule that replaces formal and hierarchical techniques of government with more indirect regimes of calculation. From this vantage point carbon market governance emerges as an expression of a changing rationality of government where the private realm becomes elevated from being a passive terrain to be acted upon and instead turned into an entity that is both object and subject of government.


Background Renal impairment can alter excretion of chemotherapeutic agents and increase systemic toxicity. For that reason dose adjustment is often required in cancer patients treated with these drugs. It is important to know the patient's profile in order to prevent this toxicity. Purpose To determine the patient profiles and chemotherapeutic regimens that might need adjustment due to kidney failure. Materials and methods We carried out a study of onco-haematological patients in treatment between January–March 2013. The information was obtained from our Hospital databases including the prescription-validation-compounding integrated process. Kidney function data was obtained from the laboratory test results included in patients' electronic clinical history. Dose-adjustment factors were taken from the available literature. Results 1293 treatments were validated with one or more chemotherapeutic agents. We reviewed serum creatinine levels in 273 treatments (21%). The mean age of patients with renal failure was 65.2 ± 11.3 years. 20 chemotherapeutic dose adjustments were suggested by the pharmacist: 4 carboplatin-etoposide regimen, 2 oxaliplatin and raltitrexed, 4 doxorubicin and bleomycin-vinblastine-dacarbazine, 4 etoposide, 3 rituximab-cyclophosphamide-vincristine-doxorubicin, 1 docetaxel-cyclophosphamide and 2 cisplatin. All of them were accepted. 22.2% of the raltitrexed prescriptions were adjusted, 20.6% of etoposide, 14.3% of bleomycin, 8.3% of dacarbazine and 4.5% of cisplatin prescriptions. 25% of cyclophosphamide in rituximab-cyclophosphamide-vincristine-doxorubicin regimens was adjusted. Conclusions 7.3% (20/273) of the treatments during January–March 2013 were adjusted by pharmacist intervention. Dosage adjustment was mainly needed in mild-moderate renal failure patients reducing the dose by 20–25% in higher risk of nephrotoxicity drugs. Pharmacist interventions on pharmacotherapeutic monitoring of patients with chemotherapy improve patient safety and reduce the risk of toxicity. No conflict of interest.


The connection between patient psycho-behavioral type and cardiovascular diseases generated a lot of interest in recent decades. The psychosomatic approach defined four psycho-behavioral types: A, B, C and D. The studies proved that two of these types (A and D) are risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. Type A is characterized by high competitivity, great ambition, perfectionism, aggressivity and is a risk factor for coronary heart disease and hypertension. Type D is characterized by negative affectivity (anger, anxiety, depressed mood, hostility) and social inhibition (inhibition and hiding of these bad feelings) and is associated with higher cardiovascular reactivity, and higher incidence of coronary heart disease, cardiac mortality and ventricular arrhythmia. The family doctor or cardiologist must fit the patient (when it's the case) in one of these two types, must explain to the patient the connection between his/her psycho-behavioral type and the cardiovascular disease, and finally must refer the patient to psychotherapy to improve his A or D profile.


Background: Ethiopia is the second populated country in sub-Saharan Africa with 82 million people; more than half of them are under the age of 25. Youth throughout the world are susceptible to health risks because they lack adequate knowledge, adventure, and lack of guidance about sexual and reproductive health and related concerns. Limited in being a youth-friendly, affordable, or confidential. Moreover, the environment within which sexual and reproductive health services are provided is often not sensitive to the special needs of this youth population. Little is known about the level of utilization to the standard and the predators that influence the utilization. Objective: To assess utilization of youth friendly services and associated factors in Mekelle city. Methods: A community based cross-sectional study, which contains both quantitative and qualitative methods, were conducted from December-7-18, 2012. Two stage cluster sampling techniques were used to select study participants. Descriptive analysis was used to show the characteristics of the youths and levels of youth friendly services utilization. To depict the effect sizes of the predators for the youth friendly utilization, multivariable logistic regression was used. Result: A total of 330 subjects were included in the study with response rate of 100%. Of these, nearly three-fourth (69.1%) of the respondents used youth friendly services where as 47.1% reported that they did not know where to go as a main reason for not using youth friendly services. Majority of the respondents 295 (89.4%) had information about youth friendly services and 35.5% of them heard the information from media. However, 166 (53.3%) of the respondents had negative attitude towards youth friendly service utilization. Source of information about youth friendly services, knowledge and with whom you start sex have found to be independent predictors of utilization of youth friendly services. Conclusions and Recommendations: Though attitude towards youth friendly service was negative, utilization was good. So, the government should intervene on the attitude of the participants to improve the utilization of the service.


In the development of spoken dialog systems, domain adaptation and dialog state-dependent language model are usually researched separately. This paper proposes a new approach for domain adaptation augmented by the dialog state-dependence, which means a dialog turn based cache model decaying synchronously with the dialog state change. Through this approach it's more simple and rapid to adapt a Chinese spoken dialog system to a new task. Two different tasks, the train ticket reservation and the park guide are selected respectively as the target task in the experiments. The consistent reductions of perplexity and character error rate are observed during the adaptation.


Electricity security, generally referring to a system's capability to provide electricity to its users, is a multi-faceted problem attracting mounting attention from policy makers and scientists around the world. Electricity security encompasses largely different properties based upon the time/geographical scales of the factors affecting electricity delivery; it is challenged by threats surfacing in spheres far beyond the physical one; it involves a myriad of stakeholders spanning manifold disciplines and with considerably different expectations from the electricity commodity or services; it can be studied as a complicated techno-economic problem or as a complex socio-economic problem. All the above reasons, in a framework of changing European Union (EU) and global energy scenarios, render electricity security ever more challenging to assess and critical to safeguard. Against this background, this work presents recommendations to bring science and policy making closer towards evaluating and handling EU electricity security. More in detail, this is done by: Characterising electricity security via features at the cross-roads of policy and science. Reviewing the electricity security modelling and assessment approaches across sectors. Proposing elements for a novel electricity security decision-analytic framework for the EU. Contextualising the proposed framework in EU's Energy Union grid design initiatives.


This paper studies how a worsening of the debt overhang distortion on bank lending can explain banking solvency crises that are accompanied by a plunge of bank asset values and by a severe contraction of lending and economic activity. Since the value of bank assets depends on economic prospects, a pessimistic view of the economy can be self-fulfilling and can trigger a financial crisis: If economic prospects are poor, bank asset values decline, the bank risk of default rises, and the associated debt overhang distortion worsens. The worsening of the distortion leads to a contraction in bank loans and a decline in economic activity, which confirms the initial pessimistic view. Signals of the existence of systemic risk include: a rise in the volatility and the presence of two modes in the probability distribution functions of the returns of bank-issued bonds and of portfolios of bank-issued bonds and equities; and a surge in the correlation between bank-issued bond returns. Macroprudential policy should limit the sensitivity of bank balance sheets to the aggregate economy and to the financial sector, using investment restrictions, capital requirements, and stress tests. In the event of a crisis, policy options include reducing the above sensitivity with commitments and guarantees, stimulating the economy, and restructuring bank capital and ownership.


Anaphylatic reactions are severe, generalized clinical reactions. They can occur with or without warning, progress rapidly from isolated to systemic symptoms, and may in some cases result in death. Estimates in the United States have projected that anaphylaxis can occur in approximately one in every 3000 hospitalized patients, and may be responsible for more than 500 deaths annually. This review will present information related to the epidemiology, pathophysiology, diagnosis and treatment of anaphylactic reactions. In addition, key prevention measures will be discussed.


In this paper, joint power-delay double-capture probabilities of a spread-spectrum packet network are derived. What we mean in terms of "double-capture" is that a receiver can simultaneously capture the first two incoming packets (from different transmitters) encoded by the same spreading code. The power capture model concerned takes into account multiuser interference, multipath Rayleigh fading, shadowing, and propagation path loss. To derive delay capture probability with an arbitrary arrival delay, a discrete-time approximation is applied. The method of deriving double-capture probability can also be extended to calculating multiple-packet (more than two) capture probabilities. Performance of a common-code slotted ALOHA system is evaluated with the double-capture effect and the results are compared with those of a traditional ALOHA system. It is shown that the channel impairing factors can be greatly mitigated by exploiting joint power-delay double-capture effect.


The market of variable annuities has grown tremendously in recent years and has become a significant part of our capital markets. These equity and interest rate structured products offer a broad range of guarantees, whose risks are typically borne by the insurers' balance sheets. The limited risk capital of the life insurance industry may constrain the future growth of the market, and therefore the management of the risk of these guarantees is an urgent problem to address. In this paper, we apply a decomposition methodology to identify the risks of these guarantees. We then discuss the hedging strategies in managing them within the context of an investment process. Finally, we discuss the broad applications of the methodology.


Ovarian tumours are common in animals, the majority occurring in bitches and cows. The two most important germ cell tumours were dysgerminoma and teratoma; these morphologically resemble their counterparts in women, with the exception that teratomas in animals tend less to malignancy. The granulosa cell tumour is the most frequent sex cord-stromal tumour in all six species and it may contain luteinized areas or show differentiation towards a Sertoli cell pattern. The canine papillary adenoma and papillary adenocarcinoma, which are as common as granulosa tumours, have several features in common with their counterparts in women: they are of similar histological appearance, are frequently bilateral, and the adenocarcinomas have a great propensity for peritoneal implantation metastasis. Ovarian cysts are frequent in the bitch, sow, and cow and may originate from five different anatomical structures in the ovary.


the Endoflex endotracheal tube as a stylet-free alternative in Glidescope intubations. Canadian Journal of Anesthesia 2008; 55: 473–4. 3 Greib N, Dow WA, Henderson J, Diemunsch PA. A combined videolaryngoscopy-flexible fibreoscopy intubation technique under general anesthesia. Canadian Journal of Anesthesia 2007; 54: 492–3. 4 Hsu W, Hsu S, Lee Y, et al. Penetrating injury of the soft palate during GlideScope intubation. Anesthesia and Analgesia 2007; 104: 1609–10. 5 Cross P, Cytryn J, Cheng KK. Perforation of the soft palate using the GlideScope videolaryngoscope. Canadian Journal of Anesthesia 2007; 54: 588–9. 6 Vincent RD, Wimberly MP, Brockwell RC, Magnusson JS. Soft palate perforation during orotracheal intubation facilitated by the GlideScope videolaryngoscope. Journal of Clinical Anesthesia 2007; 19: 619–21.


The original article to which this Erratum refers was published in IEEJ Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Engineering Vol.4, No. 5, 2009, pp.654‐662.


The study examined how well GRE verbal, GRE Quantitative, and GRE Analytic scores predicted graduate grade-point averages and scores on an objective comprehensive examination among graduate students in a master's degree program in counseling and school psychology. The initial sample consisted of 261 graduate students, which was reduced to 183 students (102 with a concentration in counseling, 81 with a school psychology concentration) after deletion of subjects with incomplete data. GRE Verbal scores, GRE Quantitative scores, GRE Analytic scores, graduate grade-point averages, and scores on an objective portion of a comprehensive examination were collected and data were analyzed via correlational techniques. GRE Verbal and Quantitative scores were found to be moderately strong predictors of both graduate grade-point averages and scores on comprehensive examinations. GRE Analytic scores emerged as weak predictors of graduate school performance. Results are related to previous findings. As a common criterion used to select graduate students, the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE; Educational Testing Service,19851996) often have been the subject of debate, and concern surrounding the use of the GRE in making admissions decisions has been evident for some time. At issue has been the extent to which GRE scores predict performance in graduate school. More than one author has suggested that even with considerable validation evidence, decisive conclusions are not warranted. As Ingram (1983) stated, a review of the literature at that time indicated at least one remarkable finding: "the apparent inability of GRE scores to consistently predict measures of graduate student success" (p. 711). More recently, Nilsson (1995, p. 638) noted the lack of homogeneity that characterizes studies concerning the validity of standardized tests such as the GRE, and Sternberg and Williams (1997) suggest that their findings "underscore the need for serious validation studies of the GRE, not to mention other admissions indexes, against measure of consequential performance" (pp. 638-639). A fair amount of research has addressed this question. The use of GRE scores and their relationship to aspects of graduate education such as program completion (Hackman, Wiggins, & Bass, 1970) and course grades (Hirschberg & Itkin, 1978; House, Johnson, & Tolone, 1987) have been investigated in a number of studies over the last 30 years or more. Much of the research on program completion has focused on doctoral rather than master's level programs. In one such study, for example, Rawls, Rawls, and Harrison (1969) noted that when students who completed their Ph.D.'s were compared to those who did not, those who obtained the doctorate had entered the program with significantly more undergraduate hours in psychology, biological sciences, and math, and fewer hours in the humanities. The average GRE scores for those who graduated did not differ from those who did not graduate. More than 20 years ago, Willingham (1974) reviewed the many studies that had appeared in the literature up until that time concerning the predictive validity of the GRE. In this review, he summarized the findings of 43 validity studies comprising 138 data sets, all involving the GRE, that occurred between 1952 and 1972. Willingham noted that "the most common predictors used in studies of success in graduate school are undergraduate average and GRE scores" and that "[w]ith respect to criteria of success, . . . [v]ery few studies reported validity data with departmental examinations as the criterion" (p. 275). He "concluded that the GRE is usually more valid than undergraduate grade-point average (GPA), and for various fields of study, the GRE Advanced test was the most generally valid predictor of graduate student success" (Dollinger, 1989, p. 56). More recently, however, Goldberg and Alliger (1992) and Morrison and Morrison (1995) reached considerably less positive conclusions based upon meta-analyses of studies examining the use of the GRE in predicting graduate school success. …


Abstract. Following the emergence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus
2 (SARS-CoV-2) responsible for COVID-19 in December 2019 in Wuhan (China)
and its spread to the rest of the world, the World Health Organization
declared a global pandemic in March 2020. Without effective treatment in the
initial pandemic phase, social distancing and mandatory quarantines were
introduced as the only available preventative measure. In contrast to the
detrimental societal impacts, air quality improved in all countries in which
strict lockdowns were applied, due to lower pollutant emissions. Here we
investigate the effects of the COVID-19 lockdowns in Europe on ambient black
carbon (BC), which affects climate and damages health, using in situ
observations from 17 European stations in a Bayesian inversion framework. BC
emissions declined by 23 kt in Europe (20 % in Italy, 40 % in Germany,
34 % in Spain, 22 % in France) during lockdowns compared to the same
period in the previous 5 years, which is partially attributed to COVID-19
measures. BC temporal variation in the countries enduring the most drastic
restrictions showed the most distinct lockdown impacts. Increased particle
light absorption in the beginning of the lockdown, confirmed by assimilated
satellite and remote sensing data, suggests residential combustion was the
dominant BC source. Accordingly, in central and Eastern Europe, which
experienced lower than average temperatures, BC was elevated compared to the
previous 5 years. Nevertheless, an average decrease of 11 % was seen
for the whole of Europe compared to the start of the lockdown period, with
the highest peaks in France (42 %), Germany (21 %), UK (13 %), Spain
(11 %) and Italy (8 %). Such a decrease was not seen in the previous
years, which also confirms the impact of COVID-19 on the European emissions
of BC.


BACKGROUND
Although Hispanics/Latinos in the United States are often considered a single ethnic group, they represent a heterogenous mixture of ancestries who can self-identify as any race defined by the U.S. Census. They have higher ESKD incidence compared with non-Hispanics, but little is known about the CKD incidence in this population.

METHODS
We examined rates and risk factors of new-onset CKD using data from 8774 adults in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos. Incident CKD was defined as eGFR <60 ml/min per 1.73 m2 with eGFR decline ≥1 ml/min per 1.73 m2 per year, or urine albumin/creatinine ratio ≥30 mg/g. Rates and incidence rate ratios were estimated using Poisson regression with robust variance while accounting for the study's complex design.

RESULTS
Mean age was 40.3 years at baseline and 51.6% were women. In 5.9 years of follow-up, 648 participants developed CKD (10.6 per 1000 person-years). The age- and sex-adjusted incidence rates ranged from 6.6 (other Hispanic/mixed background) to 15.0 (Puerto Ricans) per 1000 person-years. Compared with Mexican background, Puerto Rican background was associated with 79% increased risk for incident CKD (incidence rate ratios, 1.79; 95% confidence interval, 1.33 to 2.40), which was accounted for by differences in sociodemographics, acculturation, and clinical characteristics. In multivariable regression analysis, predictors of incident CKD included BP >140/90 mm Hg, higher glycated hemoglobin, lower baseline eGFR, and higher baseline urine albumin/creatinine ratio.

CONCLUSIONS
CKD incidence varies by Hispanic/Latino heritage and this disparity may be in part attributed to differences in sociodemographic characteristics. Culturally tailored public heath interventions focusing on the prevention and control of risk factors might ameliorate the CKD burden in this population.


In the midst of the Scottish government's implementation of a new National Curriculum in public education, my research project has attempted to create a flexible and interactive space in which primary school children explored and shared their life knowledge and construction(s) of self through reflective narratives and various art mediums in a classroom environment. Utilizing an educational model derived from the work of John Dewey, my research focuses on working with these children as co-researchers as we explore the results of processing, expressing and sharing life stories through art mediums in the creative spaces brought about by a time of structural transition, and in what ways narrative and art expression serve as communicative forms which can enable children to re/create and assign meaning to the concept of self and personal identities.


Evidence is presented that at least 12 of the Mu-induced yg2 mutants found in an extensive mutation analysis of this locus are the result of deletions in the region of the yg2 locus on the short arm of chromosome 9. Twelve of these putative deletions were characterized genetically, and in every instance, they were confirmed to be deletions involving chromosomal segments that include the yg2 and wd loci as well as additional portions of the short arm of chromosome 9.


Security engineering and agile development are often perceived as a clash of cultures. To address this clash, several approaches have been proposed that allow for agile security engineering. Unfortunately, agile development organization differ in their actual procedures and environmental properties resulting in varying requirements. We propose an approach to compare and select methods for agile security engineering. Furthermore, our approach addresses adaptation or construction of a tailored method taking the existing development culture into account. We demonstrate the feasibility of our proposal and report early experiences from its application within a small development organization for digital solutions in the automotive domain.


Date Presented 04/04/19
 Researchers implemented a massed practice- and task-specific protocol with use of the SaeboGlove with an individual with an incomplete SCI. The purpose of this study was to determine changes in performance and satisfaction in meaningful occupations and changes in UE motor recovery following use of the SaeboGlove with an individual with an SCI. Results indicate the SaeboGlove has potential to improve engagement in occupations and improve UE motor function with individuals with incomplete SCI.
 Primary Author and Speaker: Whitney Henderson
 Additional Authors and Speakers: Brittany Nickelson


The global financial crisis continues to affect prospects for growth and poverty reduction in developing countries. As in previous economic crises, the impact varies between countries. This reflects differences in economic structures, historical legacies and policies, and in the resulting levels of vulnerability to economic shocks. There is, however, growing recognition of the importance of the governance and institutional set up of a country in responding effectively to financial crises and other similar shocks. What is perhaps less clear is how, in reality, these affect policy responses and their implementation. There is a lack of evidence on the incentives for more sustainable and effective reform processes, beyond the immediate crisis, and on the blockages that might prevent such reform. These issues are key to understanding the dynamics underlying developing countries' policy responses to economic shocks, and to informing both domestic and international priorities in this area. A political economy approach to the analysis of the role of state capacity and incentives to respond to economic shocks would help to fill these knowledge gaps (Box 1). While more research is needed, this Project Briefing reviews the range of policy responses to the global financial crisis, as a first step. It sets out some useful frameworks and concepts to deepen our understanding of these issues, and to inform more effective assistance for countries affected by similar external shocks in the future.


Chronic osteomyelitis is a multifaceted bacterial infection with common features, which requires surgery for remission. The duration and modality of concomitant administration of antibiotic agents for adult patients is still based on expert opinions. The traditional recommendation of 6 to 12 weeks of antibiotic therapy with intravenous administration for at least the first 2 weeks is more and more challenged in favor of an oral antibiotic treatment with selected agents from the start. There is no evidence that the total duration of antibiotic therapy for more than 6-12 weeks improves outcome, when compared with shorter regimens. External advice from an expert team with combined surgeons and infectious disease physicians may help to reduce antibiotic consumption in a cost-effective way.


An audit study was conducted in Ghana, Mexico and Peru to understand the quality of financial information and products offered to low-income customers. Trained auditors visited multiple financial institutions, seeking credit and savings products. Consistent with Gabaix and Laibson (2006), staff only provides information about the cost when asked, disclosing less than a third of the total cost voluntarily. In fact, the cost disclosed voluntarily is uncorrelated with the expensiveness of the product. In addition, clients are rarely offered the cheapest product, most likely because staff is incentivized to offer more expensive and thus more profitable products to the institution. This suggests that clients are not provided enough information to be able to compare among products, and that disclosure and transparency policies may be ineffective because they undermine the commercial interest of financial institutions.


Abstract 2020 saw the rapid onset of a global pandemic caused by the SARS‐CoV‐2 virus. For healthcare systems worldwide, the pandemic called upon quick organization ensuring treatment and containment measures for the new virus disease. Nurses were seen as constituting a vital instrumental professional component in this study. Due to the pandemic's unpredictable and potentially dangerous nature, nurses have faced unprecedented risks and challenges. Based on interviews and free text comment from a survey, this study explores how ethical challenges related to "being a nurse" during the COVID‐19 pandemic was experienced and understood by Danish hospital‐based nurses. Departing from anthropologist Jarett Zigon's notion of moral breakdown, the study demonstrates how the rapid onset of the pandemic constitutes a moral breakdown raising ethical demands for nurses. Analytically we identify three different ethical demands experienced by the nurses. These ethical demands are Nursing and societal ethical demands, Nursing and personal ethical demands, and Nursing and conflicting ethical demands. These demands represent not only very different understandings of ethical demands but also different understandings of ethical acts that are seen as necessary to respond to these demands.


This thesis describes an exploratory study that measures the overall performance impact on a textured and non-textured multiresolution terrain rendering system when using pre-processed Java3D binary files. Much of the work has focussed on studying fundamental concepts and algorithms for processing large virtual terrains. Based on the output from this work, a software testbed capable of collecting quantitative measures from the rendering output was implemented. The testbed was implemented in order to be able to study, and understand, the performance impact of Java3D binary serialized files by looking at the entirety of a virtual terrain rendering system. The testbed implements a novel approach to LOD control using the high level graphics API Java3D, and we will argue that this approach is viable for generating large virtual terrains. The performance comparisons are made by running a set of tests that simulate typical user operations performed in virtual terrain software. Based on the output from the testing, the thesis gives guidance on when it is most appropriate to use Java3D binary serialized files.


The study was conducted during 2009-2011 using semi-structured, open-ended questionnaires, informal interviews, and group discussions with traditional healers and senior citizens having thorough knowledge about plants and plant based remedies. During present study ten phytotherapeutic practices for management of different types of fever using 50 plant species as antipyretic agent were identified and documented. These species may be used for the development of new, cheap, and effective antipyretic agent of herbal origin. Further investigation of these plant species for herbal antipyretic agents will require safety and efficacy testing. There is an urgent need to formulate suitable conservation strategies for wildly growing medicinal plants to overcome their depletion from natural resources. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/ijasbt.v1i3.8383 Int J Appl Sci Biotechnol, Vol. 1(3) 2013 : 118-126


Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) belongs to small grain cereals that cover more than 78% of the daily calorie consumption of humans. With a prediction of 9.7 billion humans in 2050 (FAO stats) and climatic changes, the question of increasing small grain cereal's production has become an agricultural challenge. Drought exerts a strong environmental pressure, causing large yield losses worldwide. Therefore, understanding the mechanisms responsible for grain development from the fertilization to the mature dry grain is essential to understand how drought can affect this developmental program. In this book chapter, we present the physiological, molecular and hormonal regulation of barley grain development. In a second part, we describe the consequences of drought at different stage of barley development, with a special focus on the reproductive phase. Finally, in the last part, we present the different methods used to decipher new genetic information related to drought-tolerance. All this knowledge contributes to understanding the tolerance mechanisms of barley and to developing breeding strategies aiming to bring about new varieties with sustained yield in harsh conditions.


This study reports the second in a series of related studies of the ways in which small groups work together, and the effects of various kinds of technology support. In this study groups of three people worked for an hour and a half designing an Automated Post Office. Our previous work showed that people doing this task produced higher quality designs when they were able to use a shared-editor to support their emerging design. This study compares the same kinds of groups now working at a distance, connected to each other both by this shared editor and either with high-quality stereo audio or the same audio plus high-quality video. The video was arranged so that people made eye contact and spatial relations were preserved, allowing people to have a sense of who was doing what in a way similar to that in face-to-face work. Results showed that with video, work was as good in quality as that face-to face; with audio only, the quality of the work suffered a small but significant amount. When working at a distance, however, groups spent more time clarifying to each other and talking longer about how to manage their work. Furthermore, groups rated the audio-only condition as having a lower discussion quality, and reported more difficulty communicating Perceptions suffer without video, and work is accomplished in slightly different manner, but the quality of work suffers very little.


This letter evaluates the ability of the U.S. National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System 22-channel Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) to retrieve surface precipitation rates (millimeters per hour); water path estimates for rain, snow, and graupel (millimeters); and peak vertical wind (convective strength, meters per second). Simulated retrieval accuracies for ATMS were compared to those for its predecessor the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU), both of which sample the 23- to 190-GHz spectrum. ATMS retrieves all precipitation parameters up to ~ 25% more accurately than AMSU except for cloud ice and snow water paths, which are comparable. Image sharpening of the ATMS Nyquist-sampled observations below 90 GHz further improves the recovery of small features but amplifies noise so that the benefits are restricted primarily to finely structured convective systems.


We present a novel method to determine eccentricity constraints of extrasolar planets in systems with multiple transiting planets through photometry alone. Our method is highly model independent, making no assumptions about the stellar parameters and requiring no radial velocity, transit timing or occultation events. Our technique exploits the fact the light-curve-derived stellar density must be the same for all planets transiting a common star. Assuming a circular orbit, the derived stellar density departs from the true value by a predictable factor, Ψ, which contains information on the eccentricity of the system. By comparing multiple stellar densities, any differences must be due to eccentricity and thus meaningful constraints can be placed in the absence of any other information. The technique, called 'Multibody Asterodensity Profiling' (MAP), is a new observable which can be used alone or in combination with other observables, such as radial velocities and transit timing variations. An eccentricity prior can also be included as desired. MAP is most sensitive to the minimum pair-combined eccentricity e.g. (e1+e2)min. Individual eccentricity constraints are less stringent but an empirical eccentricity posterior is always derivable and is freely available from transit photometry alone.

We present a description of our technique using both analytic and numerical implementations, followed by two example analyses on synthetic photometry as a proof of principle. We point out that MAP has the potential to constrain the eccentricity, and thus habitability, of Earth-like planets in the absence of radial velocity data, which is likely for terrestrial-mass objects.


Vegetation development in Mediterranean landscapes is often a slow process. The typical Mediterranean climate -with long dry periods in summer, mild winters and concentrated rainfall events in spring and autumn- is an important constraint on growth, enhanced by the often marginal and degraded soil conditions. Climate change scenarios predict that the extreme character of the Mediterranean climate will increase: higher temperatures especially in the summer, and decreasing summer precipitation. The low growth potential and slow succession rates make the Mediterranean landscape specifically vulnerable to disturbances and modern climate change. It is therefore important to create reliable predictions of future vegetation development and to have accurate methods to monitor the natural areas. Analysis of spatial patterns and temporal variability in key vegetation characteristics such as biomass, leaf area, water use and growth provides information on the ecosystem that can be used to create more accurate projections for future development of the landscape and vegetation. The main objective of this thesis is therefore: To increase our understanding of, and ability to monitor the growth and development of evergreen Mediterranean vegetation and to improve the projections of vegetation change as an effect of modern climate change. The evergreen forests and shrub lands in the Peyne area in southern France stand model for many areas in the European Mediterranean basin and other Mediterranean areas across the globe. This thesis combines remote sensing, plot-based field data on biophysical vegetation parameters, geophysical exploration, tree-ring analysis, and dynamical production modelling. Large improvements can be made in remote sensing detection of biophysical vegetation parameters by optimising the spatial and temporal support of the imagery. Rooting depths of evergreen Mediterranean species Quercus ilex and Arbutus unedo were found to reach far into the fractured bedrock. By using the geophysical exploration method of Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) it is possible to detect vegetation water abstraction from the rock substrate during the summer down do six meters below the surface. Using a dynamic tree growth model combined with tree ring analysis it was found that the vegetation in the study area is especially vulnerable to a decrease in summer rainfall and a rise in summer temperature. A probable climate scenario for 2070 predicts a temperature increase of 2 °C in winter and 5 °C in summer plus a decrease of summer precipitation by 40%. Based on this scenario, the Forest-BGC vegetation productivity model predicts a decrease of leaf area by 25%, and potentially over 50% less production of woody biomass in the area. Such changes in vegetation growth may have large consequences for the landscape and land use possibilities in the region. This thesis contributes to the advance of our capability to monitor the growth and development of evergreen Mediterranean vegetation and to the improvement of projections of vegetation change in the next decennia as an effect of anticipated climate change.


Current climate policy and issues of energy security mean wind farms are being built at an increasing rate to meet energy demand. As wind farm development is very likely in the Mediterranean Sea, we provide an assessment of the offshore wind potential and identify expected biological effects of such developments in the region. We break new ground here by identifying potential offshore wind farm (OWF) "hotspots" in the Mediterranean. Using lessons learned in Northern Europe, and small-scale experiments in the Mediterranean, we identify sensitive species and habitats that will likely be influenced by OWFs in both these hotspot areas and at a basin level. This information will be valuable to guide policy governing OWF development and will inform the industry as and when environmental impact assessments are required for the Mediterranean Sea.


The spread of alien species in marine environments is today classified as a major threat to biodiversity as invasive species can outcompete native species or spread diseases. Many of the invasive species has been disseminated with ship as vectors, mainly as biofouling on hulls or via ballast water. Vessels' speed, operational pattern and type of antifouling are all important factors. Even if a hull looks clean there is a risk that some individuals are still being transported, leading to introduction and establishment of these species in a new environment, possibly causing problems. Risk assessments related to matching salinity and temperature in ports can constitute a basis for assessment of an alien species' potential of introduction in a new marine environment.

Vessel statistics from the Port of Gothenburg's has been used in the main body of this report. These statistics have been used to analyze the flow of arriving vessels to the Port of Gothenburg and to map the largest ports, seen to the number of port calls to Gothenburg. The analysis of the port statistics showed that the five ports with most calls to Gothenburg were Fredrikshamn, Zeebrugge, Kiel, Rotterdam and Immingham. Almost all of these ports represented, with respect to temperature and salinity, medium to high risk of introduction of alien species in Gothenburg. Even the seven largest countries* with most calls to the port of Gothenburg are all in regions with similar temperatures. The conclusion of this report is that there is need of an assessment tool to be able to make decisions regarding if hull cleaning should be allowed or not in the port of Gothenburg. This assessment should be used to reduce the risk of spread of alien species via ships' hulls. It is suggested that each vessel application should be processed individually and partly be based on their trading patterns and previously visited ports. Less consideration should be given to the service speed, since all vessels are likely to introduce species to Gothenburg.


In micro four-point probe measurements, three-way flexible L-shaped cantilever probes show significant advantages over conventional straight cantilever probes. The L-shaped cantilever allows static contact to the sample surface which reduces the frictional wear of the cantilever tips. We analyze the geometrical design space that must be fulfilled for the cantilevers to obtain static contact with the test sample. The design space relates the spring constant tensor of the cantilevers to the minimal value of the static tip-to-sample friction coefficient. Using an approximate model, we provide the analytical calculation of the compliance matrix of the L-shaped cantilever. Compared to results derived from finite element model simulations, the theoretical model provides a good qualitative analysis while deviations for the absolute values are seen. From a statistical analysis, the deviation is small for cantilevers with low effective spring constants, while the deviation is significant for large spring constants where the quasi one-dimensional approximation is no longer valid.


In the context of the theory of functional sentence perspective
(FSP), the English verb either ascribes a quality to the
subject, bridging its specification, or presents something new
on the scene, expressing the existence or appearance of the
phenomenon on the scene with "explicitness or sufficient
implicitness" (Firbas 1995: 65). The article discusses the
prototypical type of sentences implementing the so-called
Presentation Scale (i.e. that containing a rhematic subject in
preverbal position) within fiction narrative discourse with
special regard to the semantic affinity operating between the
subject and the predicate. In such distributional fields (cf.
The sun shone. or A bee buzzed across their path.), the
Pr-verbs seem to semantically support the character of their
subjects, preparing "the way for the phenomenon to be
presented" (Firbas 1992, 61).


This paper is concerned with the detailed implementation of real-time fuzzy logic speed control for a standby diesel-generating set. The implementation platform is that of the Mathworks xPC Target. This rapid prototyping scheme permits the automatic cross-compiling of the nonreal-time Simulink control system model into real-time C code, which is executable on the xPC target PC. The digital governor xPC target hardware consists of a desktop PC with a National Instrument Input/Ouput card and a Softing Controller Area Network Card. The paper details the fuzzy control model and the methods with which to communicate with the engine control module. Tests were conducted on a 50-kVA diesel-generating set. The results show that the fuzzy controller is superior to the variable gain PID-type governor used by the conventional engine control module.


Adhesive capsulitis is a common painful condition characterized by severe loss of mobility and shoulder pain. Patients with this disease have a painful restriction of both active and passive mobility and an overall loss of shoulder movement in all planes. This experimental design study investigated the effect of combination of taping neuromuscular and stretching exercises program compared to ultrasounds and stretching exercises program. A total of 40 patients aged between 40 and 60 years were involved in the study. Patients were divided in two groups: first group subjected of neuromuscular taping +stretching exercises program for 4 weeks (experimental group 20 patients) and a second group subjected of a daily program of physical therapy + stretching exercises (control group 20 patients). They were evaluated using visual analogue scales for pain, goniometric measure for passive and active range of motion, SPADI index for shoulder function and patient satisfaction. Analysis showed statistically significant improvement in both the experimental and control groups. In addition, the mean improvement in VAS was significantly greater after first week in the experimental group than in the control group. The study showed that the combination of taping with stretching exercises program leads to better outcomes in rehabilitation of patients with frozen shoulder especially when an immediate effect is needed.


Little research has been done to explore the adoption of mobile information services from a cultural perspective. This research is designed to study mobile information services adoption from a cultural perspective. Based on the three cultural dimensions (individualism/collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and power distance), three research hypotheses are presented. To examine these hypotheses, an exploratory study is carried out with a mobile information service called eMSIS with both Norwegian students and Chinese students. Support was found for the three hypotheses. The findings indicate that the cultural dimensions play important roles in how mobile information services are used and adopted in two different cultural settings: the Norwegian culture and the Chinese culture. The results also highlight the relevance of the cultural dimensions (individualism/collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and power distance) as the factors affecting the adoption of mobile information services.


ABSTRACT Zhong, C. and Zhao, Y., 2020. Factor efficiency of the seafood e-commerce industry: An exploratory study in coastal cities of China. In: Gong, D.; Zhang, M., and Liu, R. (eds.), Advances in Coastal Research: Engineering, Industry, Economy, and Sustainable Development. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 106, pp. 309–313. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Fresh food e-commerce in China has shown a booming development in recent years. As a segment of the fresh food market, seafood e-commerce has also developed rapidly. An analysis of the factor efficiency of seafood e-commerce in major coastal cities of China can provide effective suggestions for industrial upgrading and restructuring. Based on the data envelope analysis Banker, Charnes, and Cooper (DEA-BCC) model, this article makes an analysis of the factor efficiency of seafood e-commerce in 38 coastal cities of China and then a comparison between different cities and regions in the integrated efficiency, scale efficiency, technology efficiency, output deficiency, and factor redundancy. The results show: factor efficiency in southern coastal cities is generally higher than that in northern cities; output deficiency is not obvious in both the north and the south; factor redundancy is more serious in all cities.


The purpose of the study is to examine the efficacy and safety through the introduction of a local anesthetic wound irrigation catheter for continuous postoperative analgesia in newborns. The study was conducted during the postoperative period of 33 full-term newborns. In the study group (n = 15), analgesia was carried out through the wound catheter with infusion of local anesthetic, for the control group (n = 18) continuous intravenous infusion promedol was used. The effectiveness of postoperative analgesia was rated by CRIES postoperative pain control scale, monitoring of skin conductance, cardiointervalogram and hormone level control in the blood. The study showed that the use of wound catheter for continuous postoperative analgesia with local anesthetics provides effective level of analgesia in newborns, which is comparable with the introduction of opioid analgesics. There were no severe postoperative complications. The method of analgesia by administering a local anesthetic through the wound catheter can be recommended for postoperative analgesia in newborns, especially during major surgeries.


A non-governmental organisation has distributed point-of-use water filtering units in the Western Division of Fiji. We sought to understand filter utilisation and water quality: both water flowing directly out of filters and stored water. We surveyed 270 households and 6 schools on filter use and performed hydrogen sulphide bacterial indicator testing on 24 water samples directly from filters and 37 stored water samples. Our response rate was 95%. Of these, only half (52%) reported consistently filtering their drinking water. Very few (8%) reported consistent use when preparing kava, a traditional drink. Factors associated with limited filter use included lost or broken filter parts (22%) ( p < 0.05) and perception of source water quality as 44% of respondents who believed their source water was safe to drink reported consistent filter use compared to 68% of respondents who did not ( p < 0.01). Bacterial indicator testing using hydrogen sulphide paper-strips showed that most water samples directly from the filter (71%) and from storage vessels (76%) were contaminated. Limited levels of use and high levels of contamination in both water directly from the filter and stored water raise serious questions as to the benefit of the filter even as an interim water quality solution in this setting.


Fabrication and investigation of the properties of CdSe/ZnS core/shell for the luminescent solar concentrates (LSC) application is presented. An increase of the efficiency of a silicon solar cell was obtained by applying the LSC. The increase was a result of the optical properties of the semiconductor nanoparticles CdSe/ZnS core/shell that were deposited over the top surface of the silicon solar cell facing the illumination source (Halogen lamp). The gravity force was invested for the film deposition process. The optical properties of these nanoparticles were studied. The absorption spectra for the CdSe/ZnS core-shell were 270-600nm, i.e., located within the spectral response area of the examined solar cell. The energy gap values for CdSe were 2.5 eV and 3.3eV for ZnS. X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis was adopted and showed that the particle dimensions are within the nanometer scale. The efficiency value of the bare solar cell was 7.3%, whereas the value was increased to 8.0 % by applying the CdSe/ZnS core/shell LSC, indicating an efficiency gain percentage of 9.59%.


Purpose

Green manufacturing (GM) has received growing attention in the last few years. As today's business environment is highly competitive, dynamic and volatile in nature, GM is seen as the winning strategy to be adopted by manufacturers. In this scenario, successful implementation of GM by manufacturers can give them an edge over their competitors. The purpose of this paper is to identify and develop the structural relationship among different factors for the successful implementation of GM.

Design/methodology/approach

A questionnaire-based survey and interpretive structural modeling (ISM) approach has been applied in this study. In this research, 12 factors have been identified, such as top management commitment, supplier and materials management, green product and process design, employee training and empowerment, etc. On the basis of survey results and opinions of experts from industry and academia, a structural relationship model has been developed through an ISM approach.

Findings

Top management commitment has the highest driving power for the implementation of GM. Effective implementation of GM will improve organization performance in terms of product cost and quality. For effective implementation of GM, management should not ignore development of people, product and processes.

Practical implications

The developed model will be useful to managers, decision makers and practitioners of GM in prioritizing their resources more effectively.

Originality/value

Critical success factor play a pivotal role for the assessment and implementation of GM practices. Identification of key success factors and their mutual relationship can help in implementation of GM practices in various organizations. It is probably one of the leading attempts to provide road map to the implementation of GM practices in Indian manufacturing industries.


Paper presented at the HSRC Social Sciences Research Conference; 'Social innovation and the promotion of social science research', Saint George Conference Centre, 12-14 September


Summary: Cyanide production by Chromobacterium violaceum growing on a l-glutamate/minimal salts medium was stimulated by addition of 2 mm-glycine and 0·5 mm-l-methionine to the medium. However, when the initial concentration of glycine was 0·6 mm, a lower level of cyanogenesis was obtained than that with glycine-free medium. Cystathionine, dl-methionine sulphoxide, d-methionine and S-adenosyl-l-homocysteine were effective substitutes for l-methionine, but a wide range of other compounds including betaine and choline were inactive. Cyanogenesis was stimulated when threonine was used as a replacement for glycine, but serine and a range of analogues of glycine were ineffective. In a minimal salts medium containing glucose as the carbon source, glycine or NH4Cl but not methionine could serve as the sole nitrogen source for growth. Growth on glucose plus NH4Cl in the presence of glycine and methionine resulted in greater yields of cyanide than growth on a similar medium in the absence of NH4Cl. In the latter case raising the initial concentration of glycine, to compensate for its utilization as the sole source of nitrogen, had little effect on cyanogenesis. Addition of cyclic AMP to both the NH4Cl-containing and NH4Cl-free media caused a decrease in cyanide formation.


The unique dislocation–twin boundary (TB) interactions that govern the extraordinary mechanical properties of nanotwinned (NT) metals have the strong intrinsic effect of material energy and the extrinsic effect of feature size. In this work, we perform molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to elucidate fundamental deformation mechanisms of two NT face-centered cubic (FCC) metals (Cu and Pd) under probe-based friction, with an emphasis on evaluating the influence of both material's intrinsic energy barrier and extrinsic grain size on the microscopic deformation behavior and correlated macroscopic frictional results of the materials. Simulation results reveal that individual deformation modes of dislocation mechanisms, dislocation–TB interactions, TB-associated mechanisms, deformation twinning and grain boundary (GB) accommodation work in parallel in the plastic deformation of the materials, and their competition is strongly influenced by both the intrinsic energy barriers for the nucleation of stacking faults and twin faults, and the extrinsic grain size. Consequently, both the frictional response and worn surface morphology present strong anisotropic characteristics. It is also found that the deformation behavior of NT Pd under a localized multi-axis stress state is significantly different from that which occurs under a uniaxial stress state. These findings will advance the rational design and synthesis of nanostructured materials with advanced frictional properties.


It is becoming common to employ a Network Of Workstations, often referred to as a NOW, for general purpose computing since the allocation of an individual workstation offers good interactive response. However, there may still be a need to perform very large scale computations which exceed the resources of a single workstation. It may be that the amount of processing implies an inconveniently long duration or that the data manipulated exceeds available storage. One possibility is to employ a more powerful single machine for such computations. However, there is growing interest in seeking a cheaper alternative by harnessing the significant idle time often observed in a NOW and also possibly employing a number of workstations in parallel on a single problem. Parallelisation permits use of the combined memories of all participating workstations, but also introduces a need for communication. and success in any hardware environment depends on the amount of communication relative to the amount of computation required. In the context of a NOW, much success is reported with applications which have low communication requirements relative to computation requirements. Here it is claimed that there is reason for investigation into the use of a NOW for parallel execution of computations which are demanding in storage, potentially even exceeding the sum of memory in all available workstations. Another consideration is that where a computation is of sufficient scale, some provision for tolerating partial failures may be desirable. However, generic support for storage management and fault-tolerance in computations of this scale for a NOW is not currently available and the suitability of a NOW for solving such computations has not been investigated to any large extent. The work described here is concerned with these issues. The approach employed is to make use of an existing distributed system which supports nested atomic actions (atomic transactions) to structure fault-tolerant computations with persistent objects. This system is used to develop a fault-tolerant "bag of tasks" computation model, where the bag and shared objects are located on secondary storage. In order to understand the factors that affect the performance of large parallel computations on a NOW, a number of specific applications are developed. The performance of these applications is analysed using a semi-empirical model. The same measurements underlying these performance predictions may be employed in estimation of the performance of alternative application structures. Using services provided by the distributed system referred to above, each application is implemented. The implementation allows verification of predicted performance and also permits identification of issues regarding construction of components required to support the chosen application structuring technique. The work demonstrates that a NOW certainly offers some potential for gain through parallelisation and that for large grain computations, the cost of implementing fault tolerance is low.


The present study was fixed as objective to compare the response to water deficit (33% of field capacity, FC) stress of eight cultivars of Medicago sativa, originating from the Mediterranean basin. Comparison was performed on some key parameters such as growth, relative water content, leaf water potential, MDA tissue content, electrolyte leakage and proline and soluble sugar tissue concentrations. In all cultivars, water deficit stress reduced the whole plant growth, increased the root/shoot DW ratio and led to a significant decrease in leaf relative water content and leaf water potential. In water-stressed plants and for the majority of cultivars, proline and soluble sugar concentrations increased significantly. The Tamantit cultivar originating from Algeria showed the better tolerance to water deficit stress. Some criteria are concomitant with this tolerance: (1) a high biomass production under stress conditions when compared to other cultivars (2) the root preferential development, (3) the better ability to accumulate proline and soluble sugars, and (4) the aptitude to protect its photosynthetic apparatus against the oxidative stress generated by the water deficit stress. Ecotipo Siciliano, originating from Italy was the most sensitive cultivar. The increase of proline and soluble sugars concentrations upon water deficit stress particularly in the most tolerant cultivar suggested their involvement in the osmotic adjustment.


Research has shown that degrading acoustic background noise influences speech quality across phoneme classes in a nonuniform manner. This results in variable quality performance of many speech enhancement algorithms in noisy environments. A phoneme classification procedure is proposed which directs single-channel constrained speech enhancement. The procedure performs broad phoneme class partitioning of noisy speech frames using a continuous mixture hidden Markov model recognizer in conjunction with a perceptually motivated cost-based decision process. Once noisy speech frames are identified, iterative speech enhancement based on all-pole parameter estimation with inter- and intra-frame spectral constraints is employed. The phoneme class-directed enhancement algorithm is evaluated using TIMIT speech data and shown to result in substantial improvement in objective speech quality over a range of signal-to-noise ratios and individual phoneme classes. >


Several components of the dermal-epidermal junction (DEJ) bear the name of the autoimmune bullous disease in which they are involved. The epidermolysis bullosa acquisita (EBA) antigen, a component of anchoring fibrils, and the bullous pemphigoid (BP) antigen, a component of hemidesmosomes (HD) with a molecular weight of 220-240 kD, have been well characterized. In contrast, there is little data known about the cicatricial pemphigoid (CP) antigen. No differences between CP and BP have been reported when sera of patients were studied by Western immunoblotting. Findings of a study of sera from 8 patients with CP by indirect immunoelectron microscopy (IEM) on normal human skin are reported. Saponin (0.1% 10 mn) was used as a permeabilizing agent of cytomembranes and saponin-treated skin samples were compared to saponin-untreated skin samples. Four sera from patients with BP, one from a patient with EBA, and three from healthy donors served as controls. The CP sera produced a similar staining of DEJ on both saponin-treated and saponin-untreated skin samples: immune deposits were localized over the lamina densa and the lower part of the lamina lucida clearly separated from the cytoplasmic membrane of keratinocytes, in regularly spaced clumps. The BP sera produced an intense staining of DEJ only on saponin-treated skin samples: immune deposits were observed on the cytoplasmic attachment plaque of the HD; on saponin-untreated skin samples, BP sera produced only a faint staining of the extracellular part of HD. Finally, as expected the EBA serum appeared on the lower part of the lamina densa and anchoring fibrils, and no DAB deposits were observed with the serum of healthy donors. This data indicated that CP antigen is different than BP antigen by its exclusive extracellular localization. It may be a component of anchoring filaments.


Hyaluronan is a high-molecular mass component of pulmonary extracelluar matrix, and lung injury can generate a low-molecular mass hyaluronan (HA) fragment that functions as endogenous ligand to cell surface receptors CD44 and TLR4. This leads to activation of intracellular NF-κB signaling and proinflammatory cytokine production. Based on previous information that ozone exposure causes increased HA in bronchial alveolar lavage fluid and ozone pre-exposure primes immune response to inhaled LPS, we hypothesized that HA production during ozone exposure augments the inflammatory response to LPS. We demonstrate that acute ozone exposure at 1 part per million for 3 h primes the immune response to low-dose aerosolized LPS in C57BL/6J mice, resulting in increased neutrophil recruitment into the airspaces, increased levels of protein and proinflammatory cytokines in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, and increased airway hyperresponsiveness. Intratracheal instillation of endotoxin-free HA (25 μg) enhances the biological response to inhaled LPS in a manner similar to ozone pre-exposure. In vitro studies using bone marrow-derived macrophages indicate that HA enhances LPS responses measured by TNF-α production, while immunofluorescence staining of murine alveolar macrophages demonstrates that HA induces TLR4 peripheralization and lipid raft colocalization. Collectively, our observations support that ozone primes macrophage responsiveness to low-dose LPS, in part, due to HA-induced TLR4 peripheralization in lung macrophages.


: Sensing the state of the environment is an important source for context-aware applications. Several approaches exist to provide sensor information to mobile application nodes. As the extreme cases we have pure infrastructures and pure ad h oc net wor ks. In order to allow sensor platforms to serve both of these approaches, we have designed a universal sensor platform and integrated it into an infrastructure-based approach as well as into ad hoc networks. In this paper we discuss the requirements on such a platform, the design, and the experiences.


This LibGuide was created in order to provide users with access to the documents of the United Nations, both located online and in print at the Government Documents Collection at Florida International University's Green Library.


Title Development of a Harvesting Robot for Heavy-weight Crop [an abstract of dissertation and a summary of dissertation review] Author(s) Roshanianfard, Ali Citation 北海道大学. 博士(農学) 甲第13151号 Issue Date 2018-03-22 Doc URL http://hdl.handle.net/2115/70189 Rights(URL) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ Type theses (doctoral abstract and summary of review) Additional Information There are other files related to this item in HUSCAP. Check the above URL. File Information Ali_Roshanianfard_abstract.pdf (論文内容の要旨)


The establishment of the Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (CCDPHP) at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) following the Conferences on the State of the Art in Quality Control Measures for Diagnostic Cytology Laboratories is briefly discussed. The CCDPHP is expected to play a major role in the CDC's cancer control program, including participation in establishing effective screening programs and assuring the quality of such methodologies as the Papanicolaou test and mammography.


Objectives The province of Ontario, Canada, banned the use of menthol-flavoured tobacco products as of 1 January 2017. The long-term impact of a menthol ban on smoking behaviour has not been previously evaluated. Methods Population cohort study with baseline survey conducted September–December 2016 and follow-up January–August 2018 among residents of Ontario, Canada, 16 years old and over who reported current smoking (past 30 days) at baseline survey and completed follow-up (n=913) including 187 reporting smoking menthol cigarettes daily, 420 reported smoking menthol cigarettes occasionally, and 306 were non-menthol cigarette smokers. Relative rates of making a quit attempt and being a non-smoker at follow-up were estimated with Poisson regression controlling for smoking and demographic characteristics at baseline. Results At follow-up, 63% of daily menthol smokers reported making a quit attempt since the ban compared with 62% of occasional menthol smokers and 43% of non-menthol smokers (adjusted relative rate (ARR) for daily menthol smokers compared with non-menthol smokers: 1.25; 95% CI 1.03 to 1.50). At follow-up, 24% of daily menthol smokers reported making a quit since the ban compared with 20% of occasional menthol smokers and 14% of non-menthol smokers (ARR for daily menthol smokers compared with non-menthol smokers: 1.62; 95% CI 1.08 to 2.42). Conclusions The study found higher rates of quitting among daily and occasional menthol smokers in Ontario 1 year after the implementation of a menthol ban compared with non-menthol smokers. Our findings suggest that restrictions on menthol may lead to substantial improvements in public health.


This dissertation discusses some aspects of steam distillation extraction of essential oils from vegetable sources. This has not received much attention in terms of technological advancement as a chemical engineering process despite the fact it has been in existence for many years. More than 90% of the different essential oils that are used as fragrances in general household and personal care products and medicinal formulations are produced by steam distillation extraction. Despite this dominance of the method as a means of essential oils extraction not much information is available for its optimisation. In order to address this lack of attention a study of the steam distillation extraction was carried. First a steam distillation extraction process was designed and commissioned and used for pilot plant distillation. It was then used together with gas chromatography to study steam distillation extraction in order to add more understanding of the process. The steam distillation rig was designed so that it could produce about 2 ml to more than 50 ml of steam per minute. The findings of the study were that proportionally low steam flow rate for a given packed bed mass produced richer (in terms of oil content) condensate and the converse was true. Sample yield curves, which show the mass of oil in each similar sample of condensate volume during the course of each run showed that for a period of time the oil content in a sample is at maximum, before the yield decay period sets in. This maximum was determined mainly by the size of the packed bed and the steam flow rate. For each new and higher steam flow rate, a new but lower maximum oil yield was developed for a fixed bed height. There is a direct relationship between concentration of oil in the vapour phase, CO, and steam residence time, x, in packed bed. This can be expressed as CO, and the proportionality constant depends on the physical characteristics of packed bed. This pattern was similar for either subcutaneous or superficial oil sources. The amount of the oil yield was determined by profiling the major components during the entire extraction period using gas chromatography. Based on the results a systematic method, which involves practical experimentation was developed, and can be used to optimise steam distillation of essential oils.


This article considers the issue of patient empowerment in the context of New Labour's proposed reforms to the National Health Service (NHS) in England. Through an exploration of some of the key measures in the government's white paper High Quality Care for All, the article argues for a conceptualization of patient empowerment as a political technique of governing. Patient empowerment, it is contended, can no longer be understood solely as a quantitative phenomenon to be balanced within the doctor-patient relationship. Rather, its deployment by the government as a way of governing health and health care more broadly demands that we consider what political functions-including, importantly, it is argued here, managing the problem of the increasing cost of illness and health care-patient empowerment may be involved in performing. In order to assist in this enquiry, the article draws on some of Michel Foucault's work on the art of governing. It is suggested that his understanding of the neoliberal mode of governing best captures the proposed changes to the NHS and the role patient empowerment plays in their implementation.


Abstract. Most cost-effective concentrated photovoltaics (CPV) systems are based on an optical train comprising two stages, the first being a Fresnel lens. Among them, the Fresnel-Köhler (FK) concentrator stands out owing to both performance and practical reasons. We describe the experimental measurements procedure for FK concentrator modules. This procedure includes three main types of measurements: electrical efficiency, acceptance angle, and irradiance uniformity at the solar cell plane. We have collected here the performance features of two different FK prototypes (ranging different f-numbers, concentration ratios, and cell sizes). The electrical efficiencies measured in both prototypes are high and fit well with the models, achieving values up to 32.7% (temperature corrected, and with no antireflective coating on SOE or POE surfaces) in the best case. The measured angular transmission curves show large acceptance angles, again perfectly matching the expected values [measured concentration acceptance product (CAP) values over 0.56]. The irradiance pattern on the cell (obtained with a digital camera) shows an almost perfectly uniform distribution, as predicted by raytrace simulations. All these excellent on-sun results confirm the FK concentrator as a potentially cost-effective solution for the CPV market.


Activation of the Gi-protein-coupled A3 adenosine receptor (A3AR) has been reported to be involved in the inhibition of tumor cell growth. A3AR is highly expressed in tumor cells whereas lower expression was noted in a variety of normal cells. Recently we showed that A3AR activation in melanoma cells resulted in growth inhibition via a direct anti-proliferative effect which entailed cell cycle arrest in the G 0 /G 1 and down-regulation of cyclin D1 and c-Myc. In the present study we present an additional mechanism demonstrating that A3AR agonists activate natural killer (NK) cells which further enhance the anti-tumor effect of this group of molecules. NK cells mediate the natural cytotoxicity and their number and function is reduced in cancer patients. We show Cl-IB-MECA to inhibit tumor development via the activation of NK cells is an additional mechanism which accounts for the anti-tumor effect of A3AR agonists. This effect was noted at a low dose of 10 µg/kg, demonstrating that the response is exclusively A3AR mediated. Treatment of naïve mice for four days yielded the highest effect on NK cell potentiation. In mice inoculated with B16-F10 melanoma cells and treated each orally with Cl-IB-MECA, melanoma growth inhibition correlated with higher serum level of IL-12 and potentiation of NK cells. Moreover, in adoptive transfer experiments in melanoma bearing mice, marked inhibition of lung metastatic foci was noted upon engraftment with splenocytes derived from Cl-IB-MECA treated mice. Taken together, the ability of Cl-IB-MECA to inhibit tumor development via the activation of NK cells is an additional mechanism which accounts for the anti-tumor effect of A3AR agonists.


Summary This study used six resort hotels in Taitung as examples, and "SERVQUAL" scale and the Two-Dimensional Quality Model to measure the service quality of resort hotels. The findings can serve as reference for resort hotels to improve services. Results showed that among resort hotel quality improvement indicators, there are 5 one-dimensional quality elements (O), 15 critical quality elements (M), 2 indifferent quality elements (I), but no attraction quality elements (A). This means that most tourists consider most services as critical, thus, resort hotel operators must continuously provide more intricate and customized service quality to increase tourist satisfaction, or it will adversely affect the willingness of tourists to stay at hotels. It is suggested that other than basic service quality, hotel operators should offer tourists more service items that surprise and excite them, and create more attraction quality elements in order to increase corporate profit.


Abstract Objective: To investigate the prevalence of ear diseases, other otological risk factors potentially affecting hearing, and noise exposure among adults. Furthermore, subject-related factors possibly associated with hearing impairment (HI), i.e. handedness, eye color, and susceptibility to sunburn, were studied. Design: A cross-sectional, unscreened, population-based, epidemiological study among adults. Study sample: The subjects (n = 850), aged 54–66 years, were randomly sampled from the population register. A questionnaire survey, an otological examination, and pure-tone audiometry were performed. Results: Chronic middle-ear disease (both active and inactive) was the most common ear disease with a prevalence of 5.3%, while the prevalence of otosclerosis was 1.3%, and that of Ménière's disease, 0.7%. Noise exposure was reported by 46% of the subjects, and it had no effect on hearing among those with no ear disease or other otological risk factors for HI. Dark eye color and non-susceptibility to sunburn were associated with HI among noise-exposed subjects. Conclusions: Common ear diseases and other otological risk factors constitute a major part of the etiologies of HI among adults. Contrary to previous studies, noise exposure turned out to have only marginal effect on hearing among those with no otological risk factors.


Abstract Background: MiRNA-30c was a tumor suppressor in several human cancers, however, its association with clinicopathological features and prognosis in colorectal cancer (CRC) is unclear. Materials and Methods: The expression level of miRNA-30c in 192 pairs of colorectal cancer and adjacent normal tissues was detected by Quantitative RT-PCR, the association between miRNA-30c expression and clinical characteristics and prognosis were statistically analyzed. Results: miRNA-30c was significantly lower in CRC tissues specimens compared with matched normal adjacent tissue (P<0.001). MiRNA-30c was positively correlated with tumor size (P=0.012), TMN stage (P=0.002) and lymph node metastasis (P=0.004). The univariate analysis showed CRC patients with low miRNA-30c had distinctly shorter overall survival (P<0.001) than patients with high miRNA-30c expression level. The multivariate analysis was performed and informed that low miRNA-30c expression (P<0.001) might be an independent prognostic predictor for poor prognosis. Conclusion: miRNA-30c could predict the prognosis of colorectal cancer which is helpful to choose reasonable treatment measures.


: Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) was extracted and purified from the urine of four patients with hydatidiform mole. The immunological activities of the hCG-hydatidiform mole by hCG radioimmunoassay (RIA) ranged from 9,380 to 9,700 IU/mg, and the biological activities measured by the immature rat ovarian weight method ranged from 7,250 to 7,780 IU/mg. The results of the amino acid compositions of all the hCG-hydatidiform moles were practically identical with those of hCG-normal pregnancies. The carbohydrate moiety of the hCG-hydatidiform mole was also suspected to be almost similar to that of hCG-normal pregnancies by the results of their in vitro and in vivo biological activities. It was demonstrated that hCG-hydatidiform mole was composed of alpha and beta subunits (similar to a hCG-normal pregnancy) when hCG-hydatidiform mole was separated into subunits by SDS disc electrophoresis after treatment with mercaptoethanol. The RIA system of hCG-hydatidiform mole can be established. The concentrations of hCG in sera of normal pregnant women and patients with trophoblastic diseases assayed by hCG-hydatidiform mole RIA were equivalent to those obtained by a standard hCG RIA. Hence, a standard hCG-immunoassay method used in the management of hCG is concerned.


BACKGROUND
The need for nonobstetric abdominal surgical interventions in pregnant females arises periodically in practice and can be a source for concern for both the patient and the surgeon because of the risk of adverse outcome.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
To determine the indications for, and assess maternal and fetal outcome following nonobstetric abdominal surgeries in Jos University Teaching Hospital.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
This was a retrospective cross-sectional study analyzing clinical records of pregnant women, who had nonobstetric abdominal surgeries in Jos University Teaching Hospital between January 2007 and December 2011.

RESULTS
Fifty patients had nonobstetric abdominal surgery during the study period (January 2007 to December 2011). The ages of the women ranged 15-49 years with a mean of 29 ± 8.13 years. Intraoperative findings in the patients were consistent with acute appendicitis in 43 (86%) patients, two patients (4%) had ruptured spleen while one patient each (2.0%) had a transverse colon injury, postoperative adhesion bands, ruptured uterus and urinary bladder, and mesenteric injury. One (2.0%) mother died after surgery. 38 (76%) had spontaneous deliveries, and there were 11 miscarriages (22%) and 1 perinatal death. The perinatal mortality rate was 0.093/1000 deliveries. The mean hospital stay was 5.52 days.

CONCLUSION
Nonobstetric abdominal surgeries in pregnant women are an infrequent occurrence at Jos University Teaching Hospital but when they do occur, they are indicated by acute appendicitis in pregnancy.


The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of organizational commitment on work performance in the context of Omani governmental organizations. Organizational commitment through its affective commitment, normative commitment, continuance commitment, motivates employees to work for the good of the organization. There are various studies that discuss organizational commitment, and work performance, yet it is hardly to see the research done on interrelationship between organizational commitment subscales and employees' work performance specifically in Omani context. Thus, the paper is an attempt to fill this gap in the literature. Organizational commitment questionnaire was used to measure organizational commitment. Contextual and task performance were used to measure work performance. Quantitative survey method was applied and a sample of 335 middle-level managers of Omani public civil service organizations was selected to answer the instrument. Analysis of moment structures was utilized to analyze the collected data and test the research questions, and hypotheses. The techniques of data analysis comprised a confirmatory factor analysis, and a structural equation modeling analysis. The empirical results indicate that all organizational commitment subscales (affective, normative, and continuance) have a significant impact on work performance dimensions, contextual and task performance.


This thesis examines the visual cultures that developed in tandem with the violent crises of power that were endemic to Victorian imperialism. It looks primarily at the colonial artists and photographers who were working in British India and its borderlands from around the time of the 1857 Indian Uprising up until the Amritsar Massacre of 1919, arguing that image making was increasingly instrumental not only in mediating imperial violence, but also in moulding it. Of particular concern is the martial resonance of British aesthetic discourse in moments of crisis, as well as the entanglement of artistic and military imperatives that was characteristic of the photographing- and sketching-in-the-field that took place during episodes of unrest and their traumatic aftermaths. The case studies all lay great emphasis on how the formal conventions of aesthetic practices could affect the nature of the engagement of Briton and Indian alike with imperial violence, encouraging ways of looking and acting within a crisis that were consonant with established visual tropes.

While the central focus of this thesis is the aesthetics of colonialism in South Asia, the arguments that are developed intersect with broader histories of illustrated journalism, international exhibitions, and atrocity photography. The material includes everything from draughtsmanship to oil painting, but a particular stress is placed on the agency of photographers as they operated in ways that could stage interventions in the processes of imperial conquest and counterinsurgency. Ultimately, I argue that violent colonial crises functioned to shift the terms in which wide-ranging areas of visual media were viewed and used by the British throughout the Victorian period.


Strain rate sensitivity and dynamic mechanical properties of polymeric materials are affected to a certain extent especially by the rate of loading. However, there is limited number of works reported on that particular issue. Therefore, the paper presents on static and dynamic mechanical properties of various polymeric materials across strain rate from 10-2 to 10-3 s-1. The specimen were tested using universal testing machine (UTM) for static loading and a conventional split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) apparatus for dynamic loading. From the results, the compression modulus and compressive strength of all tested specimen increased significantly with increasing strain rates. In addition, positive increment in terms of strain rate sensitivity was recorded for all tested polymers over a wide range of strain rate investigated. Meanwhile, the thermal activation volume has decreased as increasing strain rate. Of the three polymers, polypropylene shows the highest strain rate sensitivity at static region. On the other hand, at dynamic region, polycarbonate shows the highest strain rate sensitivity than that of polypropylene and polyethylene.


Cities play a crucial role in the fight against climate change. They already account for over half of the world's population and it is projected that six out of every ten people on earth will be living in cities by 2025. Cities and their residents are also responsible for approximately 80 percent of the GHGs emitted worldwide. All of this is common knowledge, endlessly discussed, widely published, and yet, incredibly, industrial and urban expansion carries on. Historically, societies unable to solve their environmental crisis have either migrated or become extinct. Early societies may have even achieved a better consistency among their resource extraction, transformation, use, life cycle, and flow, a viscosity more in tune with their ecosystems than our own. This research reviews how the natural world has provided ideal models of resource balance that have evolved over millions of years. Native ecosystems are composed of an abundance of life forms that utilize local resources in a way that is synergistically supportive of each other. Therefore, cities themselves must be viewed as complex ecological systems and this attitude must include any approach to designing cities and managing their use of resources. No cities in the world have yet to succeed in fully implementing a complete, integrated, circular metabolism resource plan. However, the two most important emerging cities in Europe are examined in this research. The author presents 2 city case studies, both pertaining to circular metabolism for local municipalities. The way these cities implement resource saving strategies and globally benchmark the life-cycle of their urban systems are examined. The author also discusses how they are biomimicking nature towards becoming carbon-neutral cities of the future.


Monitoring and assessment must underpin development of a new international agreement Increasing exploration and industrial exploitation of the vast and fragile deep-ocean environment for a wide range of resources (e.g., oil, gas, fisheries, new molecules, and soon, minerals) raises global concerns about potential ecological impacts (1–3). Multiple impacts on deep-sea ecosystems (>200 m below sea level; ∼65% of the Earth's surface is covered by deep ocean) caused by human activities may act synergistically and span extensive areas. Cumulative impacts could eventually cause regime shifts and alter deep-ocean life-support services, such as the biological pump or nutrient recycling (2, 4, 5). Although international law and national legislation largely ignore the deep sea's critical role in the functioning and buffering of planetary systems, there are promising developments in support of deep-sea protection at the United Nations and the International Seabed Authority (ISA). We propose a strategy that builds from existing infrastructures to address research and monitoring needs to inform governments and regulators.


Finite element model of the elbow interiorly impacted by flat-nosed missile was established using ANSYS/LS-DYNA. The Cowper-Symonds model was adopted. The rupture strain failure criterion was used to define the failure process. Numerical values were compared with experimental values obtained from the literature and the reliability of model was validated. The penetration failure mode of the elbow was analyzed. Factors of the critical rupture kinetic energy Er were acquired. It can be seen that the penetration failure mode is plugging induced by the extrusion and scraping dominated of axis stress. The effect of Do on Er can be neglected. Er increases with the increase of t/Do, Dm/t and R/Do when the missile mass m is invariable. The effect of m on Er should consider the factors of m and critical rupture velocity Vr.


In brains of higher vertebrates, the functional segregation of local areas that differ in their anatomy and physiology contrasts sharply with their global integration during perception and behavior. In this paper, we introduce a measure, called neural complexity (CN), that captures the interplay between these two fundamental aspects of brain organization. We express functional segregation within a neural system in terms of the relative statistical independence of small subsets of the system and functional integration in terms of significant deviations from independence of large subsets. CN is then obtained from estimates of the average deviation from statistical independence for subsets of increasing size. CN is shown to be high when functional segregation coexists with integration and to be low when the components of a system are either completely independent (segregated) or completely dependent (integrated). We apply this complexity measure in computer simulations of cortical areas to examine how some basic principles of neuroanatomical organization constrain brain dynamics. We show that the connectivity patterns of the cerebral cortex, such as a high density of connections, strong local connectivity organizing cells into neuronal groups, patchiness in the connectivity among neuronal groups, and prevalent reciprocal connections, are associated with high values of CN. The approach outlined here may prove useful in analyzing complexity in other biological domains such as gene regulation and embryogenesis.


Foot deformity is a common problem among Thai people. It is resulted from various causes. The deformity may lead to pain and discomfort of feet and legs. The foot condition can be evaluated using plantar pressures and foot deformity measures, depending on the therapists. This paper presents a design of digital podoscope, a screening tool for patients with foot deformity. Built on a commercial optical scanners, our design is smaller than the camera based system. The scanned foot image is color-mapped by a software to calculate the foot index. The system was tested with twenty-five participants who have been diagnosed with foot abnormality. The data show a comparable results with the standard method. Our further study is to develop an algorithm for automatically assessing the deformity and calculating the foot index.


We improve thermal tolerance of a Co/Pt based synthetic ferrimagnetic (SyF) reference layer in a CoFeB/MgO-based perpendicular anisotropy magnetic tunnel junction by employing a surface modification treatment (SMT) using Ar plasma on a Pt buffer layer underneath the SyF layer. A higher perpendicular anisotropy and more robustness against annealing for the SyF reference layer is observed by the employment of SMT. From the cross-sectional scanning transmission electron microscope of the magnetic tunnel junction and atomic force microscopy on the Pt buffer layer, SMT has no significant effect on the surface roughness of the Pt buffer layer. On the other hand, X-ray diffraction analysis reveals that SMT increases the lattice spacing of the Pt buffer layer and shrinks that of the Co/Pt multilayer, which are maintained after annealing at 400 °C. Those structural changes could lead to the improvement of perpendicular anisotropy and thermal tolerance against annealing. A high-resolution Rutherford backscattering analysis reveals that Ar ions used for SMT penetrate to the Pt buffer layer, resulting in variation of the lattice spacing for the Pt buffer layer and Co/Pt multilayer. In addition, suppression of Fe diffusion from the CoFeB reference layer to the bottom Co/Pt multilayer is observed by using energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry, which also contributes to the higher thermal tolerance against annealing. The present observation reveals that the employment of SMT enables one to obtain both high perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and high robustness against annealing through crystallographic change of the Co/Pt multilayer and suppression of Fe diffusion from CoFeB layer into the Co/Pt multilayer.We improve thermal tolerance of a Co/Pt based synthetic ferrimagnetic (SyF) reference layer in a CoFeB/MgO-based perpendicular anisotropy magnetic tunnel junction by employing a surface modification treatment (SMT) using Ar plasma on a Pt buffer layer underneath the SyF layer. A higher perpendicular anisotropy and more robustness against annealing for the SyF reference layer is observed by the employment of SMT. From the cross-sectional scanning transmission electron microscope of the magnetic tunnel junction and atomic force microscopy on the Pt buffer layer, SMT has no significant effect on the surface roughness of the Pt buffer layer. On the other hand, X-ray diffraction analysis reveals that SMT increases the lattice spacing of the Pt buffer layer and shrinks that of the Co/Pt multilayer, which are maintained after annealing at 400 °C. Those structural changes could lead to the improvement of perpendicular anisotropy and thermal tolerance against annealing. A high-resolution Rutherford backscattering ...


Tourist activity aligns among the most dynamic and most propulsive economic branches, with multiple effects. It implies tourism's strong movable function in wide spectrum of activities. Among more significant characteristics of modern tourist demand, important for tourism development in rural areas, definitely inserts an observation that the demand enlarges towards non-urban rural and protected natural regions, mountains, spas and villages with more significant healthy-recreational and cultural-historical values. Parallel with that increase requirements for ecological quality and healthy-recreational function of receptive spaces, which must be appropriate for moving, recreation and possibility for applying chosen activities. Therefore, sustainable tourism should make optimal utilization of surrounding natural resources, sustaining important ecological processes and supporting preservation of heritage and biodiversity, while socio-cultural authentication of specific community/household protects their cultural inheritance and traditional values and contributes to understanding and tolerance of other cultures.