The Electrocardiography (ECG) is a tool measuring the electrical excitation of the heart that is extensively used for diagnosis and monitoring of heart diseases. The ECG signal reflects not only the heart activity but also many other physiological processes. The respiratory activity is a prominent process that affects the ECG signal due to the close proximity of the heart and the lungs and, on the other hand, due to neural regulatory processes. In this paper, several means for the estimation of the respiratory process from the ECG signal are presented. The results show a strong correlation of the voltage difference between the R and S peak of the ECG and the lung's volume and pressure. Correlation was also found for some features of the vector ECG, which is a two dimensional graph of two different ECG signals. The potential benefit of the multiparametric evaluation of the ECG signal is a reduction of the number of sensors connected to patients, which will increase the patients' comfort and reduce the costs associated with healthcare. In particular, it is relevant for sleep monitoring, where a reduction of the number of different sensors would facilitate a more natural sleeping environment and hence a higher sensitivity of the diagnosis.


The extensive application of digital technology and the development of technology have brought new opportunities for traditional exhibition space design. In the past, particular places were displayed mostly through text, display board, video and device, etc. The traditional exhibition way has very important significance for cultural dissemination but has shortcomings in preparation space experience restoration. The application of new technology can help the exhibition space design present in a new way. The author defines this method as the semi-virtual exhibition space, and in the construction of this space, the virtual display medium is arranged according to the space position of reality. The content of space-time change and site behavior change is aided by the designed script. This kind of exhibition space construction has raised higher requests to the designer, regardless of the designer's own knowledge structure, and adapts the new technology innovation. Both need to adapt to the challenges brought about by this development. This paper expounds this new concept and discusses how to construct a new knowledge system.


On-farm analysis was conducted to compare management systems for the milking herd, heifer replacements and calves in five large and four small dairy cattle farms in the provinces of Batangas, Laguna and Quezon in the Philippines. Farm capacity in terms of number of dairy cows, land area, number of workers and farm's daily milk production was higher in large dairy cattle farms (20 or more cows) than small farms (less than 20 cows). However, the differences in daily milk yield per cow, number of cows per hectare and per worker suggest the limitations and opportunities to improve basic farm management in order to improve efficiency of production in large and small dairy farms. Breed of cattle, milking collection system and milking practices were different between large and small farms. There were also differences in reproductive management practices, calving management, housing and feeding systems and herd health program and disease problems. The milking herd, replacement heifers and calves in large farms had generally better body condition and animal cleanliness scores than those in small farms. This study suggests that on-farm analysis should be used regularly by local dairy farmers, consultants, students and extension agents to generate specific recommendations for individual large and small dairy cattle (and buffalo) farms. Economics of production should be considered in the future to compare farm profitability among dairy cooperatives, individual private farms, commercial farms and institutional farms. Keywords: dairy cattle farms, management systems, on-farm analysis


The present study compares needed prerequisites for the application of cavitation resistant bronzes by applying different coating techniques, such as cold spraying, HVOF spraying, warm spraying and arc spraying. By optimization to optimum cavitation resistance, the deposited coatings can increase the service life of ship rudders significantly and even serve as repair processes for ship propellers. The given overview aims to support the selection of processes when specifying the target properties to be set with regard to cavitation protection. By using high-pressure warm spraying and cold spraying, properties similar to those of cast nickel aluminum bronze were achieved, however at relatively high costs. In contrast, coatings produced by using HVOF and arc spraying have erosion rates that are only about four respectively three times higher as compared to cast nickel aluminum bronze, while far outperforming bulk shipbuilding steel. Hence, their properties should be sufficient for acceptable service life or docking intervals for ship rudder applications. Propeller repair might demand for better coating properties as obtained by cold spraying. With respect to costs, HVOF and arc spraying in summary might represent a good compromise to reach coating properties needed in application.


The multi flexible body dynamical simulation model of dynamical vibration absorption lathe tool with large length to diameter ratio is built up according to the actual experiment lathe tool by using the software ADAMS and ANSYS. The experiment data which are consistent with the simulation result verify the correctness of the multi flexible body dynamical model. Aiming at reducing the peak value of system frequency response, the dynamical vibration absorption system is optimized. The optimized frequency curve shows that the system frequency response is improved obviously. On this basis the influence of the mass of heavy turning body on the vibration system is discussed. Also, the relationship of the mass of heavy turning body and the optimal system parameters including equivalent stiffness coefficient and equivalent viscous damping coefficient is studied. This offers the design considerations about the structure of the dynamical vibration absorption lathe tool with large length to diameter ratio.


The parents of a retarded child have a serious problem, which merits the best thought of their physician. Many physicians have little interest in the problem and do not bring to these parents such aid as is possible. This situation is unfortunate. It is not within the province of this article to consider the differential diagnosis of mental retardation. There is need for caution in diagnosing mental deficiency in the child who has a sensory handicap, such as deafness, a motor handicap, such as spastic paralysis, or a handicap in a special type of learning, such as reading disability. A false diagnosis of feeblemindedness is a serious mistake. A physician will be less likely to find himself in embarrassing error if he will avail himself, if possible, of the services of an adequately trained clinical psychologist in treatment of all patients with suspected mental retardation, except perhaps the grossest. Moreover,


The influence of carnosine on quantal content of the e.p.p. of the frog cutaneous pectoris muscle was studied. The e.p.p. quantal content decreased in presence of carnosine (8 mmol/l). Removal of carnosine from the incubation medium potentiated synaptic transmission as compared with its level prior to addition of carnosine to the medium (after-potentiation). Depressant presynaptic action of carnosine did not depend on external Ca+2 concentration or initial level of evoked quantum secretion whereas the after-potentiation only occurred in conditions of decreased Ca+2 concentration in the medium. In the blockade of cyclic nucleotides phosphodiesterase with theophylline, carnosine induced the same effects as in the experiments without theophylline. However, the presence of theophylline in the medium during removal of carnosine prevented the after-potentiation. Possible mechanisms of presynaptic effects of carnosine are discussed.


Abstract. The efficient implementation of positioning algorithms is investigated for Global Positioning System (GPS). In order to do the positioning, the pseudoranges between the receiver and the satellites are required. The most commonly used algorithm for position computation from pseudoranges is non-linear Least Squares (LS) method. Linearization is done to convert the non-linear system of equations into an iterative procedure, which requires the solution of a linear system of equations in each iteration, i.e. linear LS method is applied iteratively. CORDIC-based approximate rotations are used while computing the QR decomposition for solving the LS problem in each iteration. By choosing accuracy of the approximation, e.g. with a chosen number of optimal CORDIC angles per rotation, the LS computation can be simplified. The accuracy of the positioning results is compared for various numbers of required iterations and various approximation accuracies using real GPS data. The results show that very coarse approximations are sufficient for reasonable positioning accuracy. Therefore, the presented method reduces the computational complexity significantly and is highly suited for hardware implementation.


Tuberculosis (TB) is a serious disease of public health concern, mainly in low- and middle-income countries. Most of these countries have challenges in diagnosis and treatment of TB in people with smear-negative pulmonary tuberculosis (SNPTB), which remains a significant public health challenge because of the global burden of the disease. We evaluated the epidemiology and clinical presentation of SNPTB in a cohort of patients with high HIV burden. The study was a cross-sectional study among patients with SNPTB in four major hospitals that care for TB/HIV patients in north-central Nigeria. All patients 18 years and above who were newly diagnosed as SNPTB, or patients with SNPTB who had not taken TB drugs for up to 2 weeks irrespective of their HIV status were recruited. Demographic data (sex, age), smoking status, and medical history (clinical form of TB, symptoms at admission, diagnostic methods, presence of comorbidities, prior TB treatment) were obtained using a semi-structured questionnaire. Detailed clinical examination was also done on all the study subjects. Baseline results of packed cell volume, HIV test and sputum acid fast bacilli done during TB screening were retrieved from the patients' case notes and recorded. Also, the base line Chest X-ray films taken during TB screening were reviewed and reported by two radiologists blinded to each other's reports. The Xpert MTB/RIF tests and sputum culture (using LJ medium) were done in a TB reference laboratory. A total of 150 patients with SNPTB were studied. Majority of the patients were female 93 (62%). The median age of the patients was 36.5 years with greater percentage of the patients within the ages of 25–44 years 92 (61.3%). Twenty-two (14.7%) of the patients had previous TB treatment. History of cigarette smoking was obtained in only 7(4.7%) of the patients while 82 (64.1%) were HIV positive. All the patients had a history of cough for over a period of at least three weeks, while, 27 (18%) reported having hemoptysis. About 87 (58%) had fever and 110 (73.7%) had anemia, while weight loss and night sweat were reported in 98(65.3%) and 82 (54.7%) of the patients respectively. Chest x rays were reported as typical of TB in only 24 (16%) of the patients. Of the 150 sputa sample analyzed, 21/150 (14.0%) and 22/150 (14.7%) where Gene Xpert and sputum culture positive respectively. The sensitivity and specificity of Gene Xpert assay were 81.8% (18/22; 95% CI 61.5 to 92.7%) and 97.4% (112/115; 95% CI 92.6 to 99.1%), respectively. The study found cough, fever and anemia to be the commonest presentation in patient with SNPTB in a high HIV burden patient's population. There is also relatively high culture positivity among the patients. This underscores the need to expand the facilities for culture and confirmation in TB centers across the country.


Introduction Nevirapine (NVP) is commonly used as a component of first-line antiretroviral therapy in Indonesia. We aimed to determine the risk factors for NVP-associated rash and/or heaptotoxicity among HIV-infected patients in Indonesia. Methods A case-control study was conducted in HIV-infected patients who developed rash after taking NVP or increasing level of transaminase enzim (case) and those who did not have rash or increasing level of transaminase enzim (control). Results A total of 149 patients with a mean (SD) age of 35.2 (10.2) years; 84 (56.4%) male, 56 (37.6%) female and 9 (6.0%) transgender were included in the study. Mean body weight (SD) was 56.7 (38.8) kg. Of all, 9 (6.0%) patients had a history of AIDS-defining illness and 12 (8.1%) patients had history of drug allergy. Mean CD4 cell counts at the time of NVP initiation was 147.3 (2–615) cells/mm3. There were 49 patients in case group and 100 patients in control group. In case group,18.4%, 73.9%, 18.4% and 18.4% of patients developed grade 1, 2, 3, and 4 of rash, 57.1%, 21.4%, 7.1% and 14.3% of patients developed grade 1, 2, 3, and 4 of hepatotoxicity, respectively. Mean time to develop rash was 19.4 (5–52) days. By logistic regression, history of drug allergy (OR, 4.20; 95% CI, 0.64–27.84) body weight (OR, 1.15; 95% CI, 0.72–1.82), CD4 cells counts (OR, 0.85; 95% CI, 0.54–1.35), and AIDS-defining illness (OR, 0.99; 95% CI, 0.38–2.56) were not significantly associated with nevirapine-associated rash and/or hepatotoxicity among HIV-infected patients in Indonesia. Conclusion In Indonesia settings where patients were initiated NVP, history of drug allergy, lower body weight, and higher CD4 cell count are not the risk factors for NVP-associated rash and/or hepatotoxicity. Disclosure of interest statement Authors declare that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of the paper.


The joint workshop of the European Union Water and Global
Change (WATCH) Project and GEWEX Local Coupled Project
(LoCo) Workshop brought together experts on hydrological
land-atmosphere coupling to assess current knowledge of
land-atmosphere coupling and develop plans for future studies. Research in modelling and observing the degree of landatmosphere coupling and feedbacks on local and regional scales has been evolving since the start of the well-known GEWEX Global Land Atmospheric Coupling Experiment (GLACE).
WATCH addresses hydrological land-atmosphere coupling,
and LoCo under the GEWEX Global Land Atmosphere System
Study (GLASS) is studying local land-atmosphere coupling
to identify conditions or areas where land-atmosphere
interaction has a significant impact on the local climate. LoCo also designs model intercomparison studies. Results from the workshop included a better definition of local coupling and an outline of an overview scientific paper on the topic.


This letter describes a simple optically passive detection scheme for Bragg grating sensors. This detection scheme is based on two cavity lengths in Fabry-Perot read-out interferometers to produce two quadrature phase shifted signals from the Bragg grating sensor. Using the amplified spontaneous emission from an erbium-doped fiber amplifier as a low-coherence and high-power broad-band source, the passive detection technique is demonstrated by the use of Bragg grating sensors in dynamic strain measurements. This scheme is capable of measuring dynamic strain with a resolution of 0.1 /spl mu//spl epsiv///spl radic/(Hz) root mean square at a frequency of 500 Hz for 600 /spl mu/m cavity length in the Fabry-Perot read-out system.


Background: Liver cirrhosis is a major global health burden worldwide due to its high risk of morbidity and mortality. Role of terlipressin for the management of liver cirrhosis–related complications has been recognized during recent years. This article aims to develop evidence-based clinical practice guidance on the use of terlipressin for liver cirrhosis–related complications. Methods: Hepatobiliary Study Group of the Chinese Society of Gastroenterology of the Chinese Medical Association and Hepatology Committee of the Chinese Research Hospital Association have invited gastroenterologists, hepatologists, infectious disease specialists, surgeons, and clinical pharmacists to formulate the clinical practice guidance based on comprehensive literature review and experts' clinical experiences. Results: Overall, 10 major guidance statements regarding efficacy and safety of terlipressin in liver cirrhosis were proposed. Terlipressin can be beneficial for the management of cirrhotic patients with acute variceal bleeding and hepatorenal syndrome (HRS). However, the evidence regarding the use of terlipressin in cirrhotic patients with ascites, post-paracentesis circulatory dysfunction, and bacterial infections and in those undergoing hepatic resection and liver transplantation remains insufficient. Terlipressin-related adverse events, mainly including gastrointestinal symptoms, electrolyte disturbance, and cardiovascular and respiratory adverse events, should be closely monitored. Conclusion: The current clinical practice guidance supports the use of terlipressin for gastroesophageal variceal bleeding and HRS in liver cirrhosis. High-quality studies are needed to further clarify its potential effects in other liver cirrhosis–related complications.


Consequence modelling of high potential risks of usage and transportation of cryogenic liquids yet requires substantial improvements. Among the cryogenics, liquid hydrogen (LH2) needs especial treatments and a comprehensive understanding of spill and spread of liquid and dispersion of vapor. Even though many of recent works have shed lights on various incidents such as spread, dispersion and explosion of the liquid over land, less focus was given on spill and spread of LH2 onto water. The growing trend in ship transportation has enhanced risks such as ships' accidental releases and terrorist attacks, which may ultimately lead to the release of the cryogenic liquid onto water. The main goal of the current study is to present a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) approach using OpenFOAM to model release and spread of LH2 over water substrate, and discuss previous approaches. It also includes empirical heat transfer equations due to boiling, and computation of evaporation rate through an energy balance. The results of the proposed model will be potentially used within another coupled model that predicts gas dispersion [1]. This work presents a good practice approach to treat pool dynamics and appropriate correlations to identify heat flux from different sources. Furthermore, some of the previous numerical approaches to redistribute, or in some extend, manipulate the LH2 pool dynamic are brought up for discussion, and their pros and cons are explained. In the end, the proposed model is validated by modelling LH2 spill experiment carried out in 1994 at the Research Centre Juelich in Germany [2,3].


INTRODUCTION: Reforms have been introduced across Europe to increase prescribing efficiency with existing drugs. These include measures to lower prices of generics as well as increase their prescribing versus originators and patented products in a class or related class. This is essential to maintain comprehensive health care in Europe given continued pressures. The alternative is insufficient funds for new innovative drugs and increasing drug volumes with ageing populations. OBJECTIVE: To review the influence of measures and initiatives to increase the prescribing and dispensing of generics at low prices on ambulatory care prescribing efficiency. In view of this, provide guidance as authorities strive to introduce further reforms to meet their goals. METHODOLOGY: A narrative review of published papers combined with case histories. RESULTS: The different supply- and demand-side measures have reduced generic prices to as low as 2% to 3% of pre-patent loss prices in some cases as well as appreciably enhanced their utilisation. As a result, prescribing efficiency has increased without compromising care. In some cases, the reforms have led to expenditure actually falling despite appreciably increased volumes. CONCLUSIONS: Increasing use of generics at low prices will help maintain the European ideals of comprehensive and equitable health care. However, countries will continually need to learn from each other.


One of the clearest lessons to emerge from decades of research on personnel selection is that the traditional face-to-face job interview is terrible for predicting future job performance. The sad truth is that no selection tool is perfect, and future performance cannot be predicted precisely, but the traditional interview is particularly bad. Fortunately, it is easy to improve the predictive validity of the job interview by structuring it around hard-to-fake tests of key skills and abilities that actually predict future performance. There are also other tools as accurate as a structured interview and substantially less expensive to administer.


This thesis provides an initial analysis of possible relationships between the social progress of secondary school boys and their residential environment. Key factors in the physical environment are identified using a specially developed questionnaire and these are further explored following discussions in the group meetings. Techniques are developed for monitoring social progress under the two headings of independence and caring, and the monitoring process is carried out over a four term period. Analysis of these observations leads to a hypothesis that the physical environment does influence social development in normal secondary school boys, and it further suggests that the social environment is a major factor in this development. The research leads to positive action to improve a relatively poor part of the school's physical environment, and suggestions are made as to how the social environment in boarding schools may be further enhanced.


Embedded systems architectures have traditionally often been investigated and designed in order to achieve a greater throughput combined with minimum energy consumption. With the advent of reconfigurable architectures it is now possible to support algorithms to find optimal solutions for an improved energy and throughput balance. As a result of ongoing research several online and offline techniques and algorithm have been proposed for hardware adaptation. This paper presents a novel coarse-grained reconfigurable symmetric chip multiprocessor (SCMP) architecture managed by a fuzzy logic engine that balances performance and energy consumption. The architecture incorporates reconfigurable level 1 (L1) caches, power gated cores and adaptive on-chip network routers to allow minimizing leakage energy effects for inactive components. A coarse grained architecture was selected as to be a focus for this study as it typically allows for fast reconfiguration as compared to the finegrained architectures, thus making it more feasible to be used for runtime adaption schemes. The presented architecture is analyzed using a set of OpenMP based parallel benchmarks and the results show significant improvements in performance while maintaining minimum energy consumption.


In numerical modelling of rainfall caused runoff in urban sewer systems an essential parameter is the hydrological reduction factor which defines the percentage of the impervious area contributing to the surface flow towards the sewer. As the hydrological processes during a rainfall are difficult to determine with significant precision the hydrological reduction factor is implemented to account all hydrological losses except the initial loss. This paper presents an inconsistency between calculations of the hydrological reduction factor, based on measurements of rainfall and runoff, and till now recommended literature values for residential areas. It is proven by comparing rainfall-runoff measurements from four different residential catchments that the literature values of the hydrological reduction factor are over-estimated for this type of catchment. In addition, different catchment descriptions are presented in order to investigate how the hydrological reduction factor depends on the level of detail regarding the catchment description. When applying a total survey of the catchment area, including all possible impervious surfaces, a hydrological reduction factor of approximately 0.5 for residential areas with mainly detached houses is recommended– contrary to the literature recommended values of 0.7–0.9.


We present our contribution to the general-purpose-processor-(GPP)-based radio. We describe a baseband software-defined radio testbed for the physical layer of wireless LAN standards. All physical layer functions have been successfully mapped on a Pentium 4 processor that performs these functions in real time. The testbed consists of a transmitter PC with a DAC board and a receiver PC with an ADC board. In our project, we have implemented two different types of standards on this testbed, a continuous-phase-modulation-based standard, Bluetooth, and an OFDM-based standard, HiperLAN/2. However, our testbed can easily be extended to other standards, because the only limitation in our testbed is the maximal channel bandwidth of 20 MHz and of course the processing capabilities of the used PC. The transmitter functions require at most 714 M cycles per second and the receiver functions need 1225 M cycles per second on a Pentium 4 processor. In addition, baseband experiments have been carried out successfully.


The complex behaviour of dynamical systems can be discovered through the study of observed scalar time series via reconstruction of a suitable state space. Reconstruction can readily be achieved thanks to Takens embedding theorem and further insights about a system can be found by constructing complex networks based on the proximity to each other of these reconstructed states. An example of such a proximity network is the so-called phase space network which is a type of recurrence network. The structure and properties of these networks, including small induced subgraphs within them, describe the spatial distribution of reconstructed states in a way different from, but related to, correlation dimension. Beyond the makeup of the reconstructed states the time structure inherent in the time series is typically ignored in any subsequent analysis of proximity networks. Here, we construct proximity networks but retain information about the time structure of the reconstructed state space trajectory and hence assign time as an attribute of the nodes of the network. We show that metrics capturing the change in structure of induced subgraphs along the trajectory can qualitatively track behavioural changes of the system dynamics subject to a bifurcation parameter in a manner similar to time-averaging estimation methods of dynamical invariants. Moreover, we demonstrate that these new methods retain the capability of monitoring system change in the case of irregularly sampled data.


Twitter is one of several social networks with the highest numbers of users in Spain. In spite of this, how are communicative relationships developed in the digital environment among influencers who have emerged on the Internet? These personalities have a stronger influence on children and young people than traditional celebrities. The aim of this work is to study the communicative interaction generated on the profiles of Spanish influencers with the most followers on Twitter, based on the number of content items generated and the responses they receive from users. The polarity and sentiment conveyed by these communications have also been analysed. By processing publications in real time using machine learning based on sentiment analysis, 48,878 tweets and retweets from five influencers were studied over a period of 40 days. The results show that the publications reached nearly 200 million followers, and despite being fourth in terms of the number of followers, @IbaiLlanos is the influencer who leads the conversations on Twitter with the highest number of tweets, retweets, and audience share. Among the most popular topics, sporting events stand out. This study has also confirmed that the most frequently stated emotion is surprise, and that positive messages prevail over those that are negative and neutral with regard to polarity. Nevertheless, the linear regression data has verified that the main trend is toward publishing negative messages, with a lower statistical correlation, which is a behaviour that might possibly be duplicated on other social networks.


Examination of materials collected from Indonesia, New Caledonia and vicinity, now deposited in the Museum National d´Histoire Naturelle, disclosed three additional undescribed species of chirostylids belonging to the Uroptychus spinimarginatus group. The group is now shifted to a distinct genus Uroptychodes. Uroptychus grandirostris Yokoya, 1933, which can be transferred to Uroptychodes, has been a problematic species because of the brevity of the original description and the loss of the type material. However, a recent finding of a specimen, which is in poor condition, very much like the illustration of U. grandirostris by Yokoya (1933: Fig. 29), but different from the description of U. grandirostris given by van Dam (1939) for one of the type specimens, suggests that the type material of U. grandirostris includes at least two species. In this paper a neotype is selected for U. grandirostris . The genus Uroptychodes now contains 10 species. All these species are reviewed and a key to the species of the genus is provided.


A fully integrated 5 GHz phase locked loop- (PLL-) based frequency synthesizer is designed in a 0.24 /spl mu/m CMOS technology. A voltage-controlled differential injection-locked frequency divider (VCDILFD) is used as the first frequency divider in the PLL feedback loop to reduce power consumption and eliminate the need for an off-chip frequency divider. The total synthesizer power consumption is 32 mW. The phase noise is measured to be -101 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset frequency. The PLL bandwidth is 300 kHz and the measured spurious level at the adjacent channel is less than -54 dBc.


The Philippines is at a crossroad. It can choose to continue to follow current unrealistic policies that despite good intentions have been shown to be actually detrimental to the poor. Or, it can elect to try another development path to get a better chance at reducing poverty. This study proposes a 12-point agenda, conveniently referred to as the Jobs Expansion and Development Initiative (JEDI) for poverty reduction. JEDI has two objectives. One is to expand gainful jobs through the acceleration of labor intensive production, particularly, the manufacturing of tradable commodities. The other is to improve investments in education and other human capital development and sustain total factor productivity gains. These objectives require inter alia minimum wage reform, which should be undertaken immediately, while investors are looking for new places to locate labor-intensive production and the Philippine economy is getting another look as a potential destination. The study recognizes the Filipinos` aspirations for secure jobs with decent wages. But it challenges the idea that imposing minimum wages and other current labor regulations should be the weapons of choice. They do not work; worse, there is preponderant evidence of its detrimental consequences. Alternatives should, therefore, be considered, such as better education, increased labor-intensive manufacturing, and greater opportunities for training on the job. Arguably, alternatives like these might take time. Consequently, bridging social protection programs need to be implemented in the meantime to help the poor directly with their subsistence needs. For this, instead of imposing mandatory minimum wages, the paper points out that it would be better to use direct and temporary income subsidy, carefully targeted to extremely poor households to meet suitable norms that society considers a public good. Such an approach would be both efficient and equitable, conforming to the general principle of public economics that a public good should be financed by general tax revenues. The study concludes that the time has come for the country to leave the beaten path and try new approaches that would rebalance current labor laws and practices to expand gainful jobs and minimize unintended consequences detrimental to the poor, the young, the women, the less educated, and the unorganized workers.


Report presents the results of an investigation of full-scale nose-slot cowlings conducted in the NACA 20-foot wind tunnel to furnish information on the pressure drop available for cooling. Engine conductances from 0 to 0.12 and exit-slot conductances from 0 to 0.30 were covered. Two basic nose shapes were tested to determine the effect of the radius of curvature of the nose contour; the nose shape with the smaller radius of curvature gave the higher pressure drop across the engine. The best axial location of the slot for low-speed operation was found to be in the region of maximum negative pressure for the basic shape for the particular operating condition. The effect of the pressure operating condition on the available cooling pressure is shown.


Summary Subject and purpose of work: The article explores the issue of protected areas in the Podlaskie Province with particular reference to Natura 2000 areas. Its purpose is to investigate the familiarity of those areas as well as the perception of their attractiveness among the inhabitants of the Podlaskie Province. Materials and methods: Surveys conducted in the study involved 275 adult inhabitants of the Podlaskie Province. The selection of the research sample was accidental. Results: The meaning of the Natura 2000 concept was widely known among the respondents. These areas were considered to be attractive to tourists and quite often visited by the respondents. The most popular were the Bialowieza, Augustow and Knyszyn Forests. Hiking, cycling and canoeing were held most often in those areas Conclusions: Natura 2000 areas in the Podlasie Province constitute a valuable and popular tourist destination. What they need is proper tourism organization so as to give visitors an opportunity to get acquainted with their most important values, as well as ensure sustainable tourism and area protection.


The frameworks for finite element (FE) model of bone tissue available in pervious literatures, to some extent, are expert-oriented and give rise to a considerable deviation in geometric model and assignment of material property. The objective of this study is to develop a new framework to reconstruct accurate individual bone FE model based on CT images rapidly and conveniently. In image-processing, automatic segmentation of the region of interest (ROIs) improves the efficiency. The idea of enclosed volume of interest (VOI) overcomes the drawback of geometric ambiguity in Marching Cube (MC) method. Geometric model is easily obtained by a STL translator and smooth operator in home-made program. In the material property assignment, two templates for hexahedron and tetrahedron FE models, respectively, are put forth to smoothing an abrupt change of material property in the region from cortical to cancellous. K-mean algorithm is introduced to cluster material properties to improve partition performance. Finally, the new framework is demonstrated by the implementation of a femoral FE model.


BACKGROUND
Arterial stiffness assessed by pulse wave velocity (PWV) predicts all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in diabetic patients with end-stage renal disease. We studied the preventive effects of a 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitor, fluvastatin, on arterial PWV values in this population.

METHODS
Twenty-two patients with normal serum lipid levels received fluvastatin (20 mg/day p.o.) or a placebo for 6 months. Their serum lipid levels, serum levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), arterial PWV, and ankle brachial indexes (ABI) were determined before, and 3 and 6 months after taking the medication to evaluate arterial stiffness.

RESULTS
At the beginning of the follow-up, there were no differences in age, blood pressure, body mass index, serum haemoglobin A1c level, serum CRP level, serum lipid levels, PWV or ABI between the placebo- (n=10) and the fluvastatin-treated patients (n=12). After 6 months, the PWV and the serum oxidized low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) level increased significantly (from 1969+/-140 to 2326+/-190 cm/s and 70.4+/-13.8 to 91.8+/-15.5 U/l, respectively) in the placebo-treated patients. However, the fluvastatin group had a significantly reduced PWV (from 1991+/-162 to 1709+/-134 cm/s), oxidized LDL-C serum levels (from 89.0+/-9.6 to 73.0+/-5.8 U/l) and CRP serum levels (from 0.97+/-0.32 to 0.26+/-0.16 mg/dl) compared with those in the placebo group.

CONCLUSIONS
Long-term administration of fluvastatin prevents further worsening of arterial biomechanics in haemodialysis patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, even in the presence of serum lipid levels in the normal range.


A titanium oxide-selenide (TiO1.1Se0.9) composite material was successfully obtained on a flexible substrate of carbon cloth (CC); this TiO1.1Se0.9/CC electrode was used as the counter electrode (CE) in a dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC). Each carbon fiber in the CC was wrapped with a composite layer of TiO1.1Se0.9, and the composite layer contained TiO1.1Se0.9 nanospheres and one-dimensional (1D) nanorods. Thus, each carbon fiber with its TiO1.1Se0.9 layer has a hierarchical core–shell structure, in which the carbon fiber acts as a one-dimensional conductive core for electron transfer and the TiO1.1Se0.9 layer around the fiber functions as an electro-catalytic shell. In iodide-based electrolyte, the DSSC with the TiO1.1Se0.9/CC exhibits a power conversion efficiency (η) of 9.47%, which is higher than cells with CEs of Pt/CC (7.75%) and pristine TiO2/CC (4.90%). Under dim light conditions, the best TiO1.1Se0.9/CC electrode rendered its cell an η of 10.00% at 0.5 sun and the best η of 10.39% at 0.1 sun. In cobalt-based electrolytes, a DSSC with the TiO1.1Se0.9/CC shows an attractive η of 10.32% at 1.0 sun, the best η of 10.47% at 0.5 sun, and an impressive η of 10.20% at 0.1 sun. The earth abundant and low-cost TiO1.1Se0.9 is a promising alternative to Pt for the CE of a DSSC in both iodide and cobalt electrolytes.


A study has been made of ouabain binding and the formation of phosphoprotein from ATP and inorganic phosphate (Pi) with plasma membranes from rabbit and guinea-pig kidney cortex. The aim of the work was first to see whether apparently conflicting results in the literature arise from membranes being prepared by different methods and, secondly, to evaluate the results in relation to the Na pump mechanism. Three different methods were used to prepare membranes, types A, Au and B. The preparations differed markedly when ouabain binding was supported by Mg alone both in the amount bound and in the affinity. Mgdependent binding was influenced by 1 mM Pi but the extent of stimulation varied according to the preparations. The main effect of Pi was to decrease the equilibrium dissociation constant marginally for type A membranes but eightfold for type B membranes. In contrast, the maximum number of binding sites was little affected. The membrane affinity for ouabain in relation to Mg and Pi therefore depended on the method of preparation. In the reaction with Mg-ATP, type Au and B membranes were both phosphorylated to about the same extent. On the other hand, they reacted differently with Pi, type B membranes being phosphorylated (in the presence of Mg and ouabain) to the same extent as with ATP, whereas under the same conditions, type Au membranes gave only 15 % of the phosphorylation found with ATP. The phosphoprotein, however formed, whether from ATP or Pi, or type Au or type B membranes, migrated in the same way on gel electrophoresis to give a relative molecular mass of approximately 90000. With each preparation, over a tenfold range of ATPase activity, there was a constant value of 1.2 in the ratio of the maximum phosphorylation by ATP compared with the maximum number of ouabain-binding sites. These results show that membranes prepared in different ways exhibit some consistent properties of the Na pump but also striking anomalies. In view of likely morphological differences in the preparations, it is concluded that the inconsistent features, notably the responses to Mg and Pi, are an unreliable guide to the pump mechanism.


In living cells, reactive oxygen species (ROS) are formed continuously as a consequence of metabolic and other biochemical reactions as well as external factors. Antioxidant defence systems to counter this cannot provide complete protection from the noxious effects of ROS which includes oxidative damage to DNA. Experimental studies in animals and in vitro have suggested that ROS are an important factor in carcinogenesis. There is a crucial balance between free-radical generation and antioxidant defence as a force in disease prevention. An imbalance between protection against free radicals and their generation can be associated with the pathogenesis of a wide variety of diseases. Since oxidative/electrophilic stress is generally perceived as one of the major causes for the accumulation of mutations in the genome, antioxidants are believed to provide protection against cancer. A number of natural and synthetic antioxidants are known to retard chemical carcinogenesis in experimental animal models, and epidemiological studies suggest that a diet rich in plant products containing natural antioxidants may be a deterrent to carcinogenicity. Some prospective assessment of the effect of supplemental antioxidants such asvitamin C, vitamin E, selenium and carotenoids can be recommended for the maintenance of health and the prevention of disease as well as a diet rich in fruit and vegetables.


How a constitution works is determined as much – likely much more – by the bottom-up forces of the dynamics of participation than by the explicit top-down design contained on the pages of a constitution. The formal institutional design of the original US Constitution has changed over time largely in a more open and democratic direction. But changes in the dynamics of participation are even more profound and likely have a greater role in determining the real constitutional structure of the United States. The direction of these changes is not so clearly democratic. My main purpose is to establish an analytical framework to pinpoint the determinants of constitutional structure and understand the dynamics of that structure. Constitutions like all law and public policy are about substance, but, especially for constitutions, substance must manifest primarily in issues of structure. To show why, the first section explores the advantages and disadvantages of confederation and contrasts the protection of slavery with another example of constitutional substance, the Bill of Rights. The second section confronts the profound questions surrounding the interaction between institutional design and the bottom-up forces of political participation including an examination of the choices made by the Framers of the US Constitution and the evolution of the US constitutional structure over time. The last section examines the limited and diminishing role of the courts and constitutional judicial review in the US constitutional structure and in constitutional structures in general.


A morphologically complex word (MCW) is a hierarchical constituent with meaning-preserving subunits, so word-based models which rely on surface forms might not be powerful enough to translate such structures. When translating from morphologically rich languages (MRLs), a source word could be mapped to several words or even a full sentence on the target side, which means an MCW should not be treated as an atomic unit. In order to provide better translations for MRLs, we boost the existing neural machine translation (NMT) architecture with a double- channel encoder and a double-attentive decoder. The main goal targeted in this research is to provide richer information on the encoder side and redesign the decoder accordingly to benefit from such information. Our experimental results demonstrate that we could achieve our goal as the proposed model outperforms existing subword- and character-based architectures and showed significant improvements on translating from German, Russian, and Turkish into English.


. Microenvironment of sperm and its precursors includes various immune cell populations. This indicates not only their importance for immune privileged state within testes, but it concerns a regulatory role of these structures in performance of the most important physiological functions. Despite sufficient knowledge on the immune privileged state in the organ, the regulatory function are scarcely studied, and existing literature virtually does not cover the issues of local spermatogenesis regulation by various components of testicular microenvironment in the course of their regeneration. Purpose of the present study was to define the reactions of connective tissue in rat testis following traumatic lesion. Materials and methods: the study was carried out in mature male Wistar rats. Experimental animals were divided into 2 groups: intact animals and animals with blunt trauma to the left testicle. The animals were removed from the experiment on the 7 th and 30 th days. Blunt trauma was simulated by squeezing the organ with forceps with a force of 15 N for 3 seconds. For histological examination, the testes were excised, preparations were made by the standard scheme, stained with hematoxylin/ eosin, toluidine blue (to identify mast cells), and according to Van Gieson (to detect collagen fibers). Distinct components of connective tissue and spermatogenesis were evaluated in testicular preparations. Quantitative indexes were calculated using the ImageJ program. Total testosterone levels in the blood were determined by chemiluminescence technique. Statistical evaluation was performed with Statistica 8.0 software. Comparison of groups was performed using Mann–Whitney test. We have found that restoration of spermatogenesis in the damaged testis did not occur within 30 days after the injury. While the reaction of connective tissue was noted in the both testes, it was more pronounced in the damaged organ, and manifests as changes in testicular microvasculature, stimulation of fibroblastic response, multidirectional effects of mast cells and Leydig cells, depending on the duration of exposure. Changes in various components of microenvironment in the damaged testis led to similar changes in the intact organ. The mechanism of this change is usually associated with effect of antisperm antibodies and development of autoimmune processes, but another possible mechanism for impairment of spermatogenesis in the second paired intact organ may include effects of connective tissue microenvironment upon the spermatogenic epithelial cells. organ, regeneration, damage, connective tissue, mast cells, Leydig cells, testosterone, blood vessels


During basic design development for new FPSO projects in Brazilian pre-salt exploration, digital technologies were employed, in order to achieve constructability design requirements, construction and commissioning specification checks. Due to its benefit cost, schedule, quality, and overall project objectives and deep influence in platform safety and operability, in a process explained in Figure 1.
 Those digital technologies, such as the use of databases, computer aided engineering (CAE), analysis tools, 3D simulations and consistency check, were identified in constructability reviews and were developed to achieve the best constructability procedures and solve construction inconsistencies between several involved disciplines in posterior detailed design, procurement and commissioning phases. This manuscript aims to present the use of digital technologies to support constructability analysis in offshore oil & gas production facility – surface installations - projects of Petrobras.


The proliferation of mobile devices ushers a new era of financial services. Although various users already adopted mobile banking systems, their insufficient utilization of systems become a pressing issue. Encouraging individuals to engage in extended use, that is, applying more available system features to support their financial tasks, is an efficient approach for financial institutions to extract value from customers' alreadyin-use mobile banking systems. However, a relevant theoretical account for such discretionary post-adoptive usage is still in its infancy. Based on the switching cognitive gears perspective, this study proposes four types of triggers (i.e., new tasks, changes in system environments, other people's uses, and deliberate initiatives) that will prompt the active cognitive processing of individuals that leads to their extended use of mobile banking systems. We further propose the methodology to operationalize extended use and empirically validate the research model, and then discuss the possible theoretical contributions and practical implications.


Characteristic parameter values of seismic isolators deviate from their nominal design values due to uncertainties and/or errors in their material properties and element dimensions, etc. Deviations may increase over service life due to environmental effects and service conditions. For accurate evaluation of the seismic safety level, all such effects, which would result in deviations in the structural response, need to be taken into account. In this study, the sensitivity of the probability of failure of the structures equipped with nonlinear base isolation systems to the uncertainties in various isolation system characteristic parameters is investigated in terms of various isolation system and superstructure response parameters in the context of a realistic three-dimensional base-isolated building model via Monte Carlo Simulations. The inherent record-to-record variability nature of the earthquake ground motions is also taken into account by carrying out analyses for a large number of ground motion records which are classified as those with and without forward-directivity effects. Two levels of nominal isolation periods each with three different levels of uncertainty are considered. Comparative plots of cumulative distribution functions and related statistical evaluation presented here portray the potential extent of the deviation of the structural response parameters resulting from the uncertainties and the uncertainty levels considered, which is expected to be useful for practicing engineers in evaluating isolator test results for their projects.


Background: The European Palliative Care Research Collaboration is developing clinical guidelines on cachexia in patients with advanced cancer. A systematic review on the use of fish oil/omega-3-fatty acids (n-3-FA)/eicosapentaenoic acids (EPA) in advanced cancer patients suffering from cancer cachexia was performed as part of the guideline development. Methods: The systematic literature search in Medline on the use of fish oil/n-3-FA/EPA identified 244 papers, with 38 publications included in the final evaluation. Some smaller trials, often unrandomized and without a control group, reported a good effect of n-3-FA in patients with advanced cancer and cachexia. However, the results of the larger randomized controlled trials could not support the positive results, as they mostly did not find a significant effect. Results: Adverse effects such as abdominal discomfort, fish belching, fish aftertaste, nausea and diarrhoea were reported with a low incidence. No serious adverse effects were documented, but adverse effects often had an impact on quality of life. This often limited dose escalations or even led to discontinuation of n-3-FA. Conclusion: There is not enough evidence to support a net benefit of n-3-FA in cachexia in advanced cancer. On the other hand, adverse effects were infrequent, with no severe adverse effects. The results from the review led to a weak negative GRADE recommendation.


After the outbreak of the respiratory tract disorder COVID-19 caused by an infection with the new type of coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), and the subsequent epidemic in various regions of China, the virus is now around the world. Disconcerted consumers have asked the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) whether the virus can also be transmitted to humans via food and imported products, such as children's toys, mobile telephones, objects such as door handles, tools, etc., as well as dishes and cutlery. Against this background, the BfR has summarised the most important questions and answers on the topic.


Recent research has focus on examining the security of collaborative filtering (CF) recommender system. Segment attack concentrates on a targeted set of users with similar tastes. In this paper, we examine the effectiveness of segment attack against our topic-level trust based recommendation algorithm that incorporate topic-level trust model into traditional collaborative filtering algorithm. The results of our experiments conducted on well-known dataset show that segment attack is more effective against topic-level trust based recommendation algorithm than against classical user-based CF algorithm.


Purpose To evaluate the results of nasolacrimal polyurethane stent implantation for the treatment of primary acquired nasolacrimal duct obstruction and the effects of obstructed nasolacrimal stent on subsequent dacryocystorhinostomy (DCR). Methods This study was designed as a nonrandomized, prospective clinical trial. Stent implantation was attempted in 53 obstructed lacrimal drainage systems of 47 patients. Stent placement was performed in a retrograde fashion through the external nare over a guide wire, which was introduced from the upper punctum. Occluded stents were removed either with nasal endoscopy or during DCR. External DCR surgery with silicone intubation was performed in cases with stent failure. Results The mean follow-up period was 23.4 months. The success rate of stent implantation was 60.4%, 37.5%, and 31.2% at 6-, 12-, and 18-month follow-up, respectively. Stent obstruction developed in 33 eyes. Twenty underwent external DCR with silicone intubation. During DCR surgery, varying degrees of chronic inflammatory reaction were detected in the lacrimal sac and nasolacrimal duct. The mean follow-up period after DCR was 10.3 months. Epiphora was relieved with DCR in all but one eye. Conclusions The success rate of nasolacrimal polyurethane stent implantation for the treatment of primary acquired nasolacrimal duct obstruction is low and may induce inflammation and fibrous tissue formation. Although this may cause further difficulties in subsequent lacrimal surgery, epiphora could be relieved with meticulous technique.


In sheep, inflammation not only functions in cervical dilation at parturition, but also plays an important part in the non-pregnant ewe cervix, as demonstrated by the high level of expression of interleukin (IL)-8 at oestrus. Ewes artificially induced to ovulate have significantly lower levels of IL-8 gene expression at oestrus compared with natural oestrus, indicating an inhibition of inflammation and function, offering an explanation for the low rates of conception in vaginally inseminated synchronised ewes. To identify potential pro-inflammatory agents to combat the anti-inflammatory effects of hormonal synchronisation of oestrus, we have investigated the role of proteinase-activated receptor (PAR)-1 and PAR-2. To localise and measure the level of expression of these receptors, ovine-specific probes were derived for PAR-1 and PAR-2 and used for quantitative in situ hybridisation in the ovine cervix. Both PAR-1 and PAR-2 were expressed in the luminal epithelium of the cervix throughout the oestrous cycle, with expression being highest at oestrus. The gene expression of PAR-2 at oestrus was approximately 30% higher than that of PAR-1. Artificial synchronisation of oestrus by either an intravaginal progesterone sponge or prostaglandin F2+/- injections did not inhibit PAR-1 or PAR-2 expression at oestrus; rather, in the case of PAR-2, progesterone synchronisation increased it. Both synchronising procedures increased the expression of PAR-1 and PAR-2 during the luteal phase of the cycle. Therefore, agonists of PAR-1 and PAR-2 may be potentially useful pro-inflammatory agents countering the inhibition of inflammation by hormonal synchronisation.


Recognition of the significant advantages of minimizing surgical trauma has resulted in a substantial increase in the number of minimally invasive (MI) cardiac surgical procedures being performed. Synchronously, technological advances in optics, instrumentation and perfusion technology have facilitated routine totally endoscopic robotic cardiac surgery using the da Vinci((R)) telemanipulation system (Intuitive Surgical Inc). This technology has been applied to many cardiac surgical procedures, in particular, mitral valve repair (MVP) and totally endoscopic coronary artery bypass grafting (TECAB), allowing the surgeon to operate through 5 mm port sites rather than a traditional median sternotomy. In this rapidly evolving field, we review the clinical results of robotic cardiac surgery.


The Postcoloniality of Pakistani Literature in English is manifest in all the works produced both by the local and the diasporic writers representing the nation. Multifarious postcolonial dimensions of these literary yields, ranging from the personal exilic agonies to the collective traumas triggered by displacement, have been explored. Among these sociocultural dimensions represented in the creative works and theorized in the critical works, the notions of the Third Space and exilic consciousness remain the central ones. Invoking Homi Bhabha's theoretical articulations on the issue, the researchers engage with Nadeem Aslam's Maps for Lost Lovers for an understanding of the condition of the characters oscillating between the native and adopted cultures. This is a qualitative study and the method of textual analysis has been used. Through a thorough analysis of the text of the novel, the perplexing positionality of the characters living in the third space, as represented by Aslam, has been exposed and critiqued. To contribute to the understanding of the Pakistani diasporic community's problem, the findings have been located in the broader cultural context.


De novo genetic mutations represent a major contributor to pediatric disease, including autism spectrum disorders (ASD), congenital heart disease, and muscular dystrophies1,2, but there are currently no methods to prevent or predict them. These mutations are classically thought to occur either at low levels in progenitor cells or at the time of fertilization1,3 and are often assigned a low risk of recurrence in siblings4,5. Here, we directly assess the presence of de novo mutations in paternal sperm and discover abundant, germline-restricted mosaicism. From a cohort of ASD cases, employing single molecule genotyping, we found that four out of 14 fathers were germline mosaic for a putatively causative mutation transmitted to the affected child. Three of these were enriched or exclusively present in sperm at high allelic fractions (AF; 7-15%); and one was recurrently transmitted to two additional affected children, representing clinically actionable information. Germline mosaicism was further assessed by deep (>90x) whole genome sequencing of four paternal sperm samples, which detected 12/355 transmitted de novo single nucleotide variants that were mosaic above 2% AF, and more than two dozen additional, non-transmitted mosaic variants in paternal sperm. Our results demonstrate that germline mosaicism is an underestimated phenomenon, which has important implications for clinical practice and in understanding the basis of human disease. Genetic analysis of sperm can assess individualized recurrence risk following the birth of a child with a de novo disease, as well as the risk in any male planning to have children.


OBJECTIVE
To describe how people with HIV understand and experience the problem of adhering to antiretroviral medication regimens.

DESIGN
We performed a qualitative study based on interviews with HIV-infected patients, including 46 clients of AIDS service organizations, who were sampled according to age, ethnicity, and injection drug use history, and a convenience sample of 15 patients. Interviews were conducted in English or Spanish and were audiotaped and transcribed.

PARTICIPANTS
Of 52 respondents who had prescriptions for antiretroviral therapy, 25 were randomly selected for in-depth analysis. Of these, 5 reported having an AIDS diagnosis, 15 reported symptoms they attributed to HIV, and 5 reported having no symptoms of HIV disease.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS
Investigators prepared structured abstracts of interviews to extract adherence-related data. One investigator compared the abstracts with the original transcripts to confirm the interpretations, and used the abstracts to organize and classify the findings. Most subjects (84%) reported recent nonadherent behavior, including ceasing treatment, medication "holidays," sleeping through doses, forgetting doses, skipping doses due to side effects, and following highly asymmetric schedules. Initially, most reported that they were not significantly nonadherent, and many did not consider their behavior nonadherent. Only a minority clearly understood the possible consequences of missing doses. Most said they had not discussed their nonadherence with their physicians.

CONCLUSIONS
Many people rationalize their difficulty in adhering to HIV treatment by deciding that the standard of adherence they can readily achieve is appropriate. Physicians should inquire about adherence-related behavior in specific detail, and ensure that patients understand the consequences of not meeting an appropriate standard.


We present an innovative, simple, and versatile hydrophobic valve enabling all-important complex liquid manipulations on self-powered, channel-based microfluidic devices and as such being extremely valuable for the design of highly demanding point-of-care (POC) platforms. The presented hydrophobic valve is made of filter paper treated with a fluorinated compound (i.e., Aquapel) and shows both superhydrophobic properties (contact angle up to 155°) and high resistance to liquid pressure (up to 9 kPa), while retaining gas permeability and utter fabrication simplicity. Whereas this valve can be integrated in any channel-based system and can be used both as a vent, to delay liquid displacement on chip, or as a barrier, to stop the liquid flow in a certain direction, in this work we demonstrate some of its capacities by combining it with our in house developed self-powered SIMPLE and iSIMPLE platforms. First, we integrated it with the infusion iSIMPLE pump, thus generating completely fail-proof activation regardless of how the operator is actuating the system. Second, we used hydrophobic valves as both barrier and vent in the same microfluidic chip, which allowed the combination of two SIMPLE pumps for splitting one sample in two parallel channels. This attribute is fundamental for achieving multiplex analysis on completely autonomous microfluidic platforms. Finally, we achieved an unprecedented liquid manipulation for a self-powered microfluidic platform, namely, shuttling of liquid, after a single user activation by combining for the first time SIMPLE and iSIMPLE with the developed hydrophobic vent and barrier, all in a single chip. These results convincingly demonstrated that the developed hydrophobic valve combined with SIMPLE/iSIMPLE presents an essential building block for an ideal POC system, which is self-powered, inexpensive, and robust and can perform complex bioassays upon a single user activation.


In these turbulent times, we propose the importance of developing the psychological capital dimension of resiliency. After providing the theoretical background and meaning of psychological capital in general and resiliency in particular, the authors present proactive and reactive human resource development (HRD) strategies for its development. The proactive HRD includes increasing psychological assets, decreasing risk factors, and facilitating processes that allow human resources to enhance their resilience. The reactive HRD largely draws from a broaden-and-build model of positive emotions and self-enhancement, external attribution, and hardiness. The article includes specific guidelines for HRD applications and an agenda for future needed research.


Preissmann Slot concept is one of the most extensively accepted numerical approaches in unsteady free surface pressurized flow. However Courant's stability condition has imposed this method with limitation on the size of the time step. The slot concept produces large wave celerity and a corresponding strict time step limitation with too small slot width, while inaccuracies may result with too large slot width. The equations for a surcharged flow which form the lateral model are derived incorporating the relaxation effect and compared with corresponding equations of slot model. The friction loss is evaluated in slot model by introducing the coefficient, which modifies the slot model. The pair of differential equations of Slot Model and Modified Slot Model are solved and presented in forms for direct substitution into FORTRAN programming for numerical analysis. The numerical result justifies Modified Slot Model to be more efficient for the modeling of transient flow in sewer network.


In this paper, we consider a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system operating over unknown frequency-selective fading channels. Joint maximum-likelihood (ML) estimation of carrier frequency offset (CFO) and MIMO channel coefficients is prohibitively complex for practical purposes. To overcome this difficulty, we resort to the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm and propose a novel scheme for joint ML estimation of CFO and channel parameters which is suitable for practical applications. Moreover, the Cramer-Rao bounds (CRB) for both CFO and channel estimators are developed. Computer simulations show that the proposed algorithm achieves almost ideal performance compared with the CRB for both channel and frequency offset estimations.


A comparison of the separation and quantification capabilities of capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) using direct and indirect detection of organic anions was conducted. A conventional CZE separation (normal polarity, electroosmotic flow toward the cathode) of phenol, benzoic acid, and 2,4-dihydroxybenzoic acid utilized direct UV absorption at 215 nM. A separation of myo-inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate and myo-inositol hexakisphosphate utilizing a reversed polarity and an electroosmotic flow modifier (flow toward the anode) was monitored by indirect UV absorption at 250 nM. The separation buffers utilized in this study consisted of 50 mM borate buffer (pH 8.3) and IonPhor Anion PMA Electrolyte Buffer (pH 7.7) (Dionex Corp., Sunnyvale, CA, U.S.A.) for studies utilizing direct and indirect detection methods, respectively. The effect of separation voltage on the theoretical plate numbers observed for the separations was linear for both the direct and indirect systems. Sample introduction parameters investigated included electromigration injection voltage and duration, and gravity injection duration. The conventional CZE separation using direct detection gave superior precision and better agreement with theoretical predictions than the separation using indirect detection. Both systems were evaluated for quantitative accuracy using electromigration, pressure, and gravity sample introduction modes. The conventional CZE system showed superior performance with regard to sensitivity and limits of detection. Accuracy and precision in the quantitation of known standards was greatest for both systems when the gravity sample introduction mode was used.


Implementing an enterprise system involves capturing all information necessary to make business processes work in an integrated fashion, and reflecting this integration in source code. Enterprise resource planning implementations should also exploit reuse of existing system elements. ERP tools typically work on top of a framework, using prefabricated modules to create customized variants of the system. Among the free and open source ERP systems, only ERP5 offers a comprehensive set of tools tailored to its framework that, together with other off-the-shelf tools, provide support for creating new modules and entire new systems.


In recent times several researches have been focusing on non-dairy products as alternative to dairy products for the development of potential probiotic products. Different level of successes have been achieved in that regard. Fermentation of sterilized tigernut by 3 Log10CFU/g lactic acid bacteria (LAB) isolated from ogi resulted in higher LAB count (5.17-7.34 Log10CFU/g) than using unsterilized tigernut (4.76-5.41 Log10CFU/g). However, there was slight difference in LAB count between unsterilized and sterilized tigernut fermented by larger LAB inoculum (6 Log10CFU/g). The LAB isolates identified as Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus brevis were used as mixed culture in three different combinations A, B and C to ferment tigernut-milk drink for 72hr at 45 C. During the fermentation period (0-72hr), the pH of tigernut-milk drink Treatment A, B, C and D being the uninoculated reduced from6.40-4.36, 6.05-4.10, 6.0-4.04 and 6.345.40, respectively. The total culturable lactic acid bacterial count increased from 2.73-5.60 Log10CFU/ml, 2.72–5.45Log10CFU/ml,2.75-5.96 Log10CFU/ml in tigernut-milk drink Treatment A, B and C, respectively between 0-60 hr. Between 60-72 hr, reduction in culturable lactic acid bacteria occurred in tigernut-milk drink treatment A, B and C except treatment D. No culturable LAB were isolated between 0-24 hr in Treatment D.Between 36-72hr,culturable LAB count in Treatment D increased from 2.34-3.81Log10CFU/ml. Between 0-72 hr, TTA increased from 0.09-0.79 %, 0.090.73%,0.10-0.79 % and 0.09-0.16 % in tigernut drink Treatment A, B, C and the uninoculated, respectively. Within the same period, percentage lactic acid produced increased from 0.11-0.95 %, 0.12-0.87 %, 0.11-0.85% and 0.11-0.19 % in tigernut-milk drink Treatment A, B, C and D, respectively. The increase in culturable LAB count in all the tigernut-milk drink treatments makes it a suitable vehicle for delivering probiotic LAB.


This paper describes a 2.5 V 100 MS/s 8 bit subranging Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC). To achieve such low voltage operation and high-speed conversion rate at the same time, a "pre-linearization input buffer" and "level up DAC/subtractor" have been newly developed. These circuits prevent voltage drops on the internal analog signal path and make the supply voltage reduction possible. The ADC also uses a simple encoder scheme "noise immunity encoder" that is resistant to bubbling error for thermometer code.


The effect of heat treatment in superalloy CM247LC on tensile properties at various temperatures has been investigated. In the case of equiaxed poly-crystal specimen, the aged condition (HTA condition) has higher strength than the solution treated and aged condition (HTSA condition) at low temperature. The HTSA condition exhibits higher strength than HTA condition in directionally solidified specimen in all temperature range. Shearing of γ´ particle is a principal deformation process at the low temperature, and cutting of fine secondary γ´ particle plays important role in the early stage of deformation in the HTA poly-crystal specimen. Tangles of short misfit dislocations form at the γ/γ´ interface during the high temperature deformation due to the partial loss of coherency at the interface. The rafting of γ´ increases tensile strength of the HTSA specimen at and above 871°C.


Lanthanide doped KRE2F7 (RE: rare earth) nanocrystals have recently emerged as a new type of upconversion host material due to their distinct crystal structure and tailorable upconversion emissions. However, the controlled synthesis and upconversion fine-tuning through host lattice manipulation have not been well explored. Herein, via Li+ doping, we have systematically studied the morphology and upconversion luminescence evolution of KSc2F7:Yb/Er nanocrystals. An ∼21 times luminescence enhancement and a red to green ratio of ∼22 were obtained, which was caused by Li+ induced local crystal field variation around the doped lanthanide ions. The understanding of Li+-induced KSc2F7:Yb/Er nanocrystal manipulation has paved a new avenue for functionality improvement via high content impurity doping, which should inspire even wider exploration of nanocrystal engineering, especially luminescent nanocrystals.


Abstract. Rice is an important cereal crop and part of daily diet not only in India but also throughout Asia. Agriculture is highly dependent on the variations in temperature, precipitation and solar radiation and long-term climate patterns. The pattern of changing climate in last 30 years indicate that predictable and possible changes in rainfall and temperature can reduce agriculture outputs and yields particularly for rice and wheat significantly. The main aim of this research paper is to study the Kharif Rice Productivity in Hisar, Haryana under changing climate. The study focuses on the impacts of climate change namely intensity, timings and spatial distribution of rainfall. Kharif rice is more vulnerable to meteorological drought due to growing uncertainties in monsoon rains under the changing climate patterns. The study of seasonal changes in precipitation at decadal scale for observed and CORDEX projected precipitation for the selected region was done to understand the impacts of climate change. Along with this, DSSAT Crop Simulation Model was run to quantify the water stress in the years with more negative rainfall departure and to identify the reasons for variability in yield. DSSAT model was able to simulate phenological events and final grain yield at maturity stage with reasonable accuracy under varied weather conditions. The analysis of the simulated results indicates the association between yield and rainfall amount and its distribution during the season and different phenological growth stages of rice. The results further indicate that water stress at important stages such as Booting, Heading and Flowering majorly impact the final yield.


The phenomenon of urbanization is recognized all around the world: cities are growing, changing, renewing. For over a century, these transformations were possible thanks to numerous technical and technological progresses. Among the characteristic components of urban environment, the vertical construction is experiencing a more or less accepted success, according to the regions, populations or cultures. More present on the North American continent since their birth, and more recently implanted in the Asian countries, towers were for a long while a land and economical result. Today, the stakes have evolved and the towers are well-known for their strong symbol of economic power with a local, global or international influence. Among European cities, Paris is showing less enthusiasm concerning tower construction on its territory and is having trouble to develop high-rise projects. Nevertheless, more and more projects of this kind are proposed – especially in the strategies of the Greater Paris consultation – but they are hardly approved. This is why it is necessary to question oneself about the means to find a judicious establishment and an adapted program, allowing a good insertion of a tower in the urban fabric, at the building, district or city scale. We first establish a method which relates and analyses typological and contextual criteria, allowing the situation's assessment and the impacts' evolution of a tower project in the sustainable city. These criteria are mainly used as a support of decision making and are consequently useful for the creation of case studies, easier to understand for elected members and citizens, since they clearly expose the issues.


The conventional wisdom among scholars and policymakers holds that international regulatory coordination is more likely to arise when regulatory authority at the domestic level is consolidated within a single body rather than dispersed across an array of agencies. Many prominent participants in the ongoing debate over U.S. regulatory reform-including former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker-have cited this supposed connection between domestic regulatory consolidation and cross-border coordination as a reason to reduce the number of U.S. agencies that share supervisory authority over the financial sector. Scholars, however, have not rigorously tested this hypothesis. This Note is a first step toward filling this gap. It examines how changes in U.S. domestic regulatory structures across the commercial banking, securities, and insurance sectors have shaped cross-border coordination over the last twenty-five years. These case studies suggest a surprising conclusion: contrary to the conventional wisdom, regulatory consolidation at the domestic level appears to be negatively correlated with cross-border coordination. When regulatory authority is fragmented among several agencies at the domestic level, U.S. financial regulators turn to their cross-border counterparts in order to circumvent roadblocks erected by domestic rivals. By contrast, in areas where a single regulatory agency enjoys consolidated control over a particular policy matter at the domestic level, that agency is less willing to restrict its policymaking discretion through an international agreement.


Cooperatives have been used as examples of successful collective action activities. However, member free riding within cooperatives and other collective action groups continues to be a challenge. The board of directors and management of United Producers Inc. confronted the member free riding issue when creating a restructuring plan after their Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. The plan integrated three strategies which have been proposed to mitigate free riding in large groups; coercion, a federated organizational structure, and selective incentives. This article compares Mancur Olson's theoretical framework for addressing free riding behavior with United Producers Inc. restructuring plan.


Relationships between total bulk milk somatic cell score (SCS) and milk fat and protein contents and acidity were investigated in the Khorasan Razavi Province, a region that contributes 6.83% of total milk production in Iran. A total of 1476 samples were analysed. Data were obtained by randomly collecting 123 samples of bulk tank milk from 41 dairy farms during April 2006 to March 2007, every month. Milk was analysed for titratable acidity, protein and fat contents and somatic cell counts (direct microscopic cell count and with Somatos, Russia). Microscopic and Somatos somatic cell counts were comparable. Results showed that the season of raw milk production did not have a significant effect on acidity. Milk fat content increased gradually from spring to winter and there were significant differences (P < 0.05) between spring and other seasons. Higher levels of milk protein fractions were observed during the autumn and winter than in other seasons. The highest total bulk milk somatic cell counts were observed in July. Total bulk milk SCS had significant effects (P < 0.05) on acidity and fat and protein contents. Moreover, the level of acidity and fat in milk decreased with increasing SCS. A significant positive relationship was observed between total bulk milk SCS and the protein content of milk. Elevated SCS were associated with lowered milk quality in Holsteins in the Khorasan Razavi Province.


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Despite extensive studies on the ecology and evolution of the freshwater microcrustacean Daphnia, there is little understanding of the evolutionary history of the genus. Past attempts at reconstructing phylogenetic relationships among Daphnia species have been highly controversial, mainly because of the poor taxonomy of the genus. However, following a revised taxonomy of the daphniid fauna of North America, we conducted a comprehensive appraisal of systematic relationships within the genus through the analysis of sequence diversity in 503 b.p. of the 12S rRNA gene of the mtDNA. The large sequence divergence among its 34 North American members indicates that the genus Daphnia originated during the Mesozoic, even though many lineages exhibit extreme morphological stasis. Results from both cladistic and phenetic analyses indicate the presence of three subgenera comprised of 15 species complexes. Only four of these lineages have shown active speciation over the past 3 Ma, suggesting that cladogenesis in the genus has been constrained. Our study also reveals that interspecific hybridization occurs between taxa which show very large sequence divergence (up to 14%), suggesting that reproductive isolation within the genus evolves slowly.


Adventitious root formation was stimulated with foliar application of indolebutyric acid (IBA) from 1000 to 1500 mg/liter for juvenile and 2000 to 3000 mg/liter for mature leaf bud cuttings of Ficus pumila L. IBA increased cambial activity, root initial formation, and primordia differentiation and elongation. IBA stimulated rooting when applied to juvenile cuttings at 3, 5, or 7 days after experiment initiation, but had no effect on mature cuttings when applied at day 15, the final treatment period. The interaction of IBA/gibberellic acid (GA3) did not affect early root development stages, but reduced root elongation and quality once primorida had differentiated. IBA/6-(benzylamino)-9-(2-tetrahydropyranyl)-9H-purine (PBA) inhibited rooting at early initiation stages.


Accounting information systems have an important role for the progress of a company. Accounting information systems produce financial information. Financial information is also referred to as financial statements. The accounting information system collects data in the form of transactions that occur in companies such as purchase transactions, sales transactions, cash disbursements transactions and cash receipt transactions. Information in company financial reports is needed by both internal and external parties. The financial statements must meet the requirements, that is, have quality characteristics. To run an Accounting Information System (AIS), elements are needed so that the system can run properly and correctly. namely: (1) Human resources (HR) who have been trained; (2) Financial Data Form; (3) Hardware; (4) Software; (5) Procedure; (6) communication technology network; (7) database. The quality characteristics of financial statements consist of comprehensiveness, relevance, materiality, reliability, honest presentation, substance outperforming form, neutrality, sound judgment, and completeness. The accounting information system functions to oversee all the company's financial activities and collect and store data on the company's financial activities or transactions.


We construct a fully covariant theory of massive gravity which does not require the introduction of an external reference metric, and overcomes the usual problems of massive gravity theories (fatal ghosts instabilities, acausality and/or van Dam-Veltman-Zakharov discontinuity). The equations of motion of the theory are nonlocal but respect causality. The starting point is the quadratic action proposed in the context of the degravitation idea. We show that it is possible to extend it to a fully nonlinear covariant theory. This theory describes the 5 degrees of freedom of a massive graviton plus a scalar ghost. However, contrary to generic nonlinear extensions of Fierz-Pauli massive gravity, the ghost has the same mass m as the massive graviton, independently of the background, and smoothly goes into a nonradiative degree of freedom for m→0. As a consequence, for m∼H0 the vacuum instability induced by the ghost is irrelevant even over cosmological time scales. We finally show that an extension of the model degravitates a vacuum energy density of order M4Pl down to a value of order M2Plm2, which for m=O(H0) is of order of the observed value of the vacuum energy density.


The majority of tallgrass prairie root biomass is located in the upper soil layers (0 � 25 cm), but species differences exist in reliance on soil water at varying depths. These differences have led to the hypothesis that resource partitioning belowground facilitates species co-existence in this mesic grassland. To determine if plant water relations can be linked to soil water partitioning as a potential mechanism allowing C3 species to persist among the more dominant C4 grasses, we measured differences in the source of water-use using the isotopic signature of xylem water, volumetric soil water content at 4 depths, and leaf water potentials. Data were collected for seven species representing C4 grasses, C3 forbs and C3 shrubs over three growing seasons at the Konza Prairie (Kansas, USA) to encompass a range of natural climatic conditions. C4 grasses relied on shallow soil water (5 cm) across the growing season and had midday leaf water potentials that were highly correlated with shallow soil water regardless of soil water availability at other portions of the soil profile (20, 40 and 90 cm). In contrast, C3 species only used shallow soil water when plentiful at this depth; these species increased their dependence on soil water from greater depths as the upper soil layers dried. Structural equation models describing plant water relations were very similar for the three C4 species, whereas a unique set of models and drivers were identified for each of the C3 species. These results support soil water partitioning as a mechanism for species coexistence, as C4 species in this grassland have relatively consistent dependence on water in shallow soil layers, whereas C3 species show niche differentiation in water use strategies to avoid competition with C4 grasses for water in shallow soil layers when this resource is limiting and leaf water stress is high.


Previous studies of audiovisual (AV) speech integration have used behavioral methods to examine perception of congruent and incongruent AV speech stimuli. Such studies have investigated responses to a relatively limited set of the possible incongruent combinations of AV speech stimuli. A central issue for examining a wider range of incongruent AV speech stimuli is developing a systematic method for alignment that will work with a wide variety of segments. In the present study, we investigated the use of three different landmarks (consonant-onset, vowel-onset, and minimum distance) for aligning incongruent AV stimuli. Acoustic /ba/ or /la/ syllables were dubbed onto eight visual Consonant-/a/ syllables that spanned different places and manners of articulation. The AV stimuli were presented to ten participants. Results indicated that the effect of alignment landmark was not significant. The distance measures were found to be related to visual influence. Acoustic /ba/ tokens were more influenced by visual stimuli than acoustic /la/ tokens. Visual influence on the acoustic /ba/ tokens was mainly of the McGurk-type and/or of voicing confusion; while visual influence on the acoustic /la/ tokens was mainly of the combination type (/ba/ + /la/ = /bla/).


The article provides brief epidemiological data on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, emphasizing the danger of steatohepatitis, progression of which may cause the development of hepatocellular carcinoma. The properties of ursodeoxycholic acid, which are the basis for its use in a treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, are analyzed in detail, such as cytoprotective, antioxidant, antifibrotic ones, effects on apoptosis, etc. The authors presented the results of the main evidence-based studies demonstrating the effectiveness of ursodeoxycholic acid and its combinations with other drugs in the treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis.


Adhesion molecules of leucocytes Leu-CAMs, also called beta-2 integrins, are heterodimeric glycoproteins which play a crucial role in interactions of leucocytes between themselves or with fundamental intercellular substances. They comprise 3 elements: LFA-1 (CD11a/CD18) expressed at the surface of leucocytes, and in particular lymphocytes, M01 or MAC-1 (CD11b/CD18), and p 150.95 (CD11c/CD18) expressed only on granulocytes, monocytes and macrophages. Their structure, function and regulation are studied. These 3 elements differ in the ligand(s) to which they adhere. LFA-1 intervenes in the adhesion of lymphocytes T and B and of cells presenting with the APC antigen; it therefore plays an important role in lymphoblast proliferation, T-cell cytotoxicity and immunoglobulin synthesis. M01 and p 150.95 intervene in the adhesion of particles and germs opsonized by serum complement, thereby playing a fundamental role in the body's defence against bacterial and fungal infections. They also intervene in the adhesion of leucocytes onto the vascular endothelium and in their migration through this vascular wall towards the inflammatory focus. The pathologies related to a congenital deficiency of these adhesion molecules or to the alterations they acquired are dealt with. The use of monoclonal antibodies directed against leucocyte adhesion in animal experiments opens new therapeutic vistas.


Metallothioneins (MTs) playa key role in metallic homeostasis and detoxification in most living organisms. In an attempt to study the biological functions and significance of MT in a snail, we cloned and partially characterized the MT gene from the left-handed snail, Physa acutawhich has been regarded as a potential biomonitering species for fresh water. The complete cDNA sequence of PaMT cDNA was identified from the expressed sequence tag (EST) sequencing project of Physa acuta. The coding region of 180 bp gives 60 amino acid residues including the initiation methionine and termination codon. Clustering and phylogenic analysis of PaMT with other MT amino acid sequences show that it has some identities to Helix pomatia (60%), Arianta arbustorum (58%), Perna viridis (49%), Mytilus edulis (49%), Bathymodiolus azoricus (49%), Bathymodiolus azoricus (48%) and Bathymodiolus sp, FD-2002 (48%). Time dependent induction for PaMT from P. acuta exposed with cadmium (50 ppb) indicated that PaMT was induced at 4-8 hr after exposure. It remains to further develop PaMT as a potential biomarker for water contamination in fresh water.


An approximate analytical method is presented to analyze reliability for the structure with fuzzy-random uncertainty in basic variables. On the basis of equivalent transformation from fuzzy possibility distribution (FPD) to random probability distribution (RPD), this contribution expands first order and second moment method (FOSM) for random reliability to that for fuzzy-random reliability. The expanded FOSM is illustrated by the way of the fuzzy-random low fatigue life reliability analysis about an aeronautical engine disk affected by fuzzy-random uncertainty. Comparison between the FOSM and the numerical simulation for the fuzzy-random reliability demonstrates the precision of the presented computational model.


Wei Hsien Wan builds on the work of David Horrell and Travis Williams for his argument that the letter of 1 Peter engages in a subtle, calculated form of resistance to Rome, that has often gone undetected. Whilst previous discussion of the topic has remained largely focused on the letter's stance toward specific Roman institutions, such as the emperor, household structures, and the imperial cults, Wan takes the conversation beyond these confines and examines 1 Peter's critique of the Roman Empire in terms of its ideology or worldview. Using the work of James Scott to conceptualize ideological resistance against domination, Wan considers how the imperial cults of Anatolia and 1 Peter offered distinct constructions of time and space-that is, how they envisioned reality differently. Insofar as these differences led to divergent ways of conceiving the social order, they acquired political power and generated potential for conflict. Wan thus argues that 1 Peter confronts Rome on a cosmic scale with its alternative construal of time and space, and examines the evidence that the Petrine author consciously, if cautiously, interrogated the imperial imagination at its most foundational levels, and set forth in its place a theocentric, Christological understanding of the world.


Recombinant human erythropoietin (rhuEPO) therapy has been reported to maintain corrected hematocrit values by increasing the length of red blood cell (RBC) survival. This article presents a controlled study that assessed the RBC survival before, during, and after termination of prolonged rhuEPO treatment of chronic hemodialysis patients. Two groups of 20 patients were studied. The hematocrit value of each patient was below 28 vol%. One group (Group A) was treated with rhuEPO for 1 yr and then treatment was stopped because of the unavailability of the drug. The second group (Group B) was treated for 2 yr. Epoetin beta was administered subcutaneously. The initial dose was 20 U per kg body weight three times weekly. Upon reaching the target hematocrit value of 30 to 35 vol%, the dose was individualized for each patient, to maintain target range. RBC survival was determined by the chromium-51 technique. In Group A, RBC survival was determined: (1) before, (2) at 12 months, and (3) 1 yr after cessation of rhuEPO treatment. In Group B, RBC survival was determined: (1) at 24 months of therapy, and (2) 1 yr after cessation of rhuEPO treatment. RBC survival increased significantly in both patient groups under rhuEPO treatment. After cessation of therapy, the RBC survival decreased to pretreatment values. During the correction period, reticulocyte counts increased significantly in both groups. Over the maintenance period, they slightly decreased, and after termination of rhuEPO therapy, they decreased to the pretreatment values. The results of this study could suggest the possibility that RBC survival was prolonged by the action of EPO on the erythroid progenitors, resulting in the production of RBC with improved viability.