Introduction: Hydroxyurea is a potent therapeutic agent for sickle cell anemia (SCA), and treatment at maximum tolerated dose (MTD) is becoming the standard of care. Hydroxyurea exerts its disease-modifying effects primarily through induction of fetal hemoglobin (HbF), although the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which hydroxyurea increases HbF expression remain unclear. Children with SCA treated with hydroxyurea at MTD have substantial phenotypic variation, however, as some have higher HbF responses than others. We hypothesized that unknown quantitative trait loci modulate the pharmacological induction of HbF, so we performed a large genome wide association study (GWAS) of hydroxyurea-associated HbF responses for children with SCA treated prospectively with dose escalation to MTD.
 Methods: We analyzed genomic DNA from 831 children with SCA enrolled in pediatric research trials from the US (HUSTLE, SWiTCH, TWiTCH), the Caribbean (EXTEND, SACRED) and sub-Saharan Africa (REACH, NOHARM); all of these trials reported robust treatment responses with average HbF >20%. Study participants received hydroxyurea with dose escalation to MTD based on mild myelosuppression. Whole blood DNA was genotyped using the H3Africa SNP array (Illumina) with whole exome sequencing (WES) using NimbleGen VCRome 2.1 capture reagents and the Illumina HiSeq2500 platform. A transformed z-score for each study cohort gave a standardized measure of HbF induction relative to their steady-state level and their treatment HbF level at MTD. These standardized z-score HbF values were then used as a continuous variable for association testing using single-locus mixed model (EMMAX) adjusted for population stratification, using age, hydroxyurea dose at MTD, and sex as co-variates. We first performed an initial GWAS discovery using hydroxyurea response data from four distinct African populations (n=377). Single nucleotide variants (SNVs) with nominal significance (p<0.001) in the discovery step were then selected for replication using an additional African cohort (n=168). Variants that were significant in both the discovery and replication cohorts were then verified using a cohort of US (n=200) and Caribbean (n=86) children with SCA, identifying genomic loci with consistent associations for HbF induction across all cohorts.
 Results: In the discovery GWAS step, no variant passed genome wide significance (p<10-8) for the MTD HbF phenotype, including no significant associations with known genetic modifiers of endogenous HbF (BCL11A, HBS1L-MYB, HBG2). A total of 2057 low frequency and common SNVs had at least nominal association (p<0.001) with the hydroxyurea treatment responses, of which 44 were also significant (p<0.05) and with the same direction of association with HbF induction in the replication cohort. In the final verification step, these 44 significant variants were then tested in additional independent SCA cohorts with at least three demonstrating a strong effect (Table 1). The rs10978155 variant in the PTPRD gene and the rs55695413 variant in the RPH3AL gene were both consistently associated (p<0.05) with lower HbF treatment responses. Another variant (rs75442556) near the ELL2 gene approached statistical significance (p=0.08) in the verification cohort and was also associated with lower HbF expression. The allele frequencies for these PTPRD, RPH3AL, and ELL2 variants were 0.32, 0.017, and 0.25, respectively, and did not affect baseline HbF levels. Children with these PTPRD, RPH3AL, and ELL2 genetic variants still had substantial HbF induction, but achieved lower hydroxyurea MTD HbF levels on average by 2.9%, 9.8%, and 2.7%, respectively.
 Conclusions: This large GWAS using global cohorts of children with SCA and robust prospective HbF phenotype data has identified genetic predictors of HbF hydroxyurea treatment responses. Three novel genetic loci, PTPRD, RPH3AL, and ELL2 have SNVs associated with lower HbF responses. PTPRD is a protein tyrosine phosphatase receptor involved in cellular processes such as cell growth and differentiation, while RPH3AL, a rabphilin 3A like protein, is known to be involved in calcium-ion-dependent exocytosis. ELL2 is an elongation factor for RNA polymerase II and could modify RNA processing under the cytostatic effects of hydroxyurea. These genes and variants will be investigated to determine how they impact individual HbF responses to hydroxyurea treatment.

 Aygun: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute: Research Funding; bluebird bio: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding; National Institute of Nursing Research: Research Funding; Patient-Centered Outsomes Research Institute: Research Funding.


ABSTRACT The analysis of conversations during design activity can facilitate deeper insights into design thinking and its relation to creativity. A semantic analysis approach was employed to explore the semantic content of communication and information exchange between students and instructors. The goal was to examine design conversations in terms of abstraction, Polysemy, Information Content, and Semantic Similarity measures, and analyze their relation to the creativity of final solutions. These design outcomes were assessed according to their Originality, Usability, Feasibility, Overall Value, and Overall Creativity. Consequently, 35 design conversations from the 10th Design Thinking Research Symposium (DTRS10) dataset were analyzed. The main results showed that Information Content and Semantic Similarity predicted Originality, and Information Content alone predicted Overall Creativity. Likewise, Abstraction predicted Feasibility, while Semantic Similarity, Information Content, and Polysemy predicted Overall Value. In context of instructors, Semantic Similarity predicted Usability, and Polysemy predicted Feasibility. For students, Semantic Similarity predicted Overall Value. On the whole, Semantic Similarity and Information Content were the most prolific measures, and therefore could be considered for promoting creativity in the design studio. The implications of using support tools such as automated systems are also discussed.


Vertically extended, high velocity dispersion stellar distributions appear to be a ubiquitous feature of disc galaxies, and both internal and external mechanisms have been proposed to be the major driver of their formation. However, it is unclear to what extent each mechanism can generate such a distribution, which is likely to depend on the assembly history of the galaxy. To this end, we perform 16 high-resolution cosmological-zoom simulations of Milky Way-sized galaxies using the state-of-the-art cosmological magnetohydrodynamical code AREPO, and analyse the evolution of the vertical kinematics of the stellar disc in connection with various heating mechanisms. We find that the bar is the dominant heating mechanism in most cases, whereas spiral arms, radial migration and adiabatic heating from mid-plane density growth are all subdominant. The strongest source, though less prevalent than bars, originates from external perturbations from satellites/subhaloes of masses log10(M/M⊙) ≳ 10. However, in many simulations the orbits of newborn star particles become cooler with time, such that they dominate the shape of the age–velocity dispersion relation and overall vertical disc structure unless a strong external perturbation takes place.


Since the origin of earth temperature has played a significant role in the beginning of life on this planet. Continuous increase in the temperature of the earth is referred to as global warming that may have long term effect. Increased use of fossil fuels; use of natural gas and coal; population explosion; industrial wastes and agricultural fertilizers along with anthropogenic activities contribute to global warming. Increased level of Carbon dioxide (CO2) also has a negative impact on the marine ecosystem. The outcomes of global warming include rise in sea levels and expansion of tropical and sub-tropical deserts. Importantly, the risk of contracting diseases both in human and animals increases. Increase in global temperature primarily by human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels, has lead to the emergence of threat of diseases in human and animals particularly those of vector borne diseases like Blue tongue, West Nile, Japanese encephalitis, Dengue, Hanta virus etc. Species extinctions due to change in habitats and transport of livestock facilitates movements of viruses and arthropods (especially ticks) from one place to another. Variation of temperature and humidity have lead to increased growth of bushy plants, thereby increasing rodent population thus causing an increased risk of contracting various rodent borne infections (viz. Leptospirosis; Plague etc.). El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) signal on vector-borne diseases due to changes in temperature have direct effects (in form of flood, famine, drought and extreme weather conditions of heat and cold) and indirect effects (in terms of changes in transmission and outbreaks of infectious diseases, especially of the diseases transmitted by vectors and vehicles) on human health. To mitigate the effect of global climatic change on infectious disease incidences and geographic spread, combined efforts consisting of mitigation to reduce further emissions of greenhouse gas; adaptation of intervention measures to reduce the damage caused by warming and geo-engineering (recycling) to reverse global warming must be properly implemented. In addition, vector control, improved reporting of animal diseases affected by climate change, strengthening of surveillance and disease investigation capacities in human and animal population, association and coordination of Medical and Veterinary institutions with various non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as well as international professional bodies and animal welfare organizations are all crucial to prevent and control emerging infectious diseases linked to global warming. Researchers, scientists, professional, environmentalist, administration, government and persons must work together to overcome this threat. The present paper describes the problem of global warming in general, its causes and multi-dimensional impacts, effect on animal productivity, interaction between climate change, pathogen and vectors, and presents a special focus on important emerging pathogens / infectious diseases of animals and humans being flaring up due to fluctuating environmental conditions, appropriate prevention and control measures to be followed to combat global warming in the current scenario and future perspectives.


The decision of the 2016 British referendum on EU membership to take the United Kingdom out of EU will have significant and lasting consequences. For the United Kingdom and its relations with European neighbours, for the constitutional fabric of the British State, and for the EU itself at a time of rising public anxiety over the future of the European project. The consequences of this decision will have no greater impact however, than on the still-fragile peace process known as the Belfast Agreement of 1998 negotiated by parties representing the provinces' principal cultural communities and the governments of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. This historic event brought to an end decades of political violence and centuries of sectarian bitterness, or so it was thought by participants on every side. Brexit throws the future of that peace process into doubt.

The EU was an important guarantor of that historic reconciliation, and a paradigm too for peaceful coexistence and 'ever-closer' integration within a framework of multi-level governance. As such, it that offered a positive exemplar of what can be achieved by the setting aside of ancient quarrels. The EU has continued to play a signal role as a key agency for facilitating and funding projects on the ground that have consolidated the peace process and minimized inter-cultural conflict, gradually replacing outright animosity by rising political trust. The most signal achievement here was to reduce the visible 'fact' and symbolism of a 'hard' border between the two Irelands. Brexit threatens to reintroduce what had become an invisible and mostly insignificant border, and by doing so sending the peace process into reverse. The paper reviews how the imminent threat to peace in this turbulent region might be avoided, reviews competing proposals for border management, if a return to violence is not to be the most calamitous consequence and casualty of Brexit.


The paper discusses a theoretical and experimental approach to the validation of high performance shock absorbers, based on a flexible and innovative procedure. This type of components needs specific and unconventional tests, in order to detect the actual fluidic performances under very diversified and heavy working conditions. Usually standard shock absorbers are experimentally identified through force-displacement maps, obtained by means of sinusoidal or quasi-sinusoidal excitations, mechanically generated. This technique is unsatisfactory to know the behaviour of high performance components: a flexible identification procedure, based on an innovative workbench, able to develop more detailed and specific analyses, is proposed. Testing of advanced products designed for racing cars and motorbikes are discussed and compared.


The authors identify three kinds of organizations for linking arts, social action, and the provision of helping to people who are marginalized or who experience oppression within dominant cultures. Those organizations involve the development of artists who often possess marginalized status, those that link the arts and social action, particularly for protest, and ones producing innovations in social arrangements, helping processes, and/or group support. What they hold in common is the incorporation of the arts to advance the human spirit in the face of societal oppression. For each kind of organization, the authors offer distinctive ways of viewing their cultures that integrate the arts and social action, especially through the production and communication of dissent at individual, group, and/or community levels. The authors highlight how the organizations can reflect counter movements within society in which the arts amplify voice and agency of organizational members who may work in concert to deploy the arts as a tool of social action. Through the incorporation of the arts to represent utopian or dystopian conditions, the organizations can challenge society with ways of embracing human differences, particularly by offering aesthetic visions of human vitality, demonstrating alternative cultures of social support, building prototypes of social innovation, and nurturing the human spirit of people whom mainstream society can degrade through neglect or even abuse.


Abstract Some design schemes of model-free controllers which do not require any system models have been considered in the last decade. FRIT(Fictitious Reference Iterative Tuning) method that directly computes the control parameters from the operating data have been proposed as the one of model-free controllers. FRIT has some useful practical features. One is that it does not require system identification. Another is that the control parameters can be directly computed using only a set of closed loop input/output data and the desired output signal. The calculations of the control parameters needs the optimization of the cost functions. The ordinary approach is the gradient method. However, this calculations derives only linear parameters. Therefore, the applications of FRIT are limited for linear systems. In this paper, a new approach to the discrete FRIT-based nonlinear PID control is proposed. The neural network is utilized for the optimization of FRIT. PID parameters are adequately adjusted corresponding to the nonlinear properties. The conventional schemes by using the neural networks require the information of system Jacobian to update weighting factors. This proposed method can calculate the control parameters without the information of system Jacobian or system parameters except for the information about the time-delay.


Identification of intracellular targets of anticancer drug candidates provides key information on their mechanism of action. Exploiting the ability of the anticancer (C^N)-chelated half-sandwich iridium(III) complexes to covalently bind proteins, click chemistry with a bioorthogonal azido probe was used to localize a phenyloxazoline-chelated iridium complex within cells and profile its interactome at the proteome-wide scale. Proteins involved in protein folding and actin cytoskeleton regulation were identified as high affinity targets. Upon iridium complex treatment, HSP90 folding activity was inhibited in vitro and major cytoskeleton disorganization was observed. We used a wide array of imaging and biochemical methods to validate selected targets and obtain a multiscale overview of the effects of this complex on live human cells. We demonstrate that it behaves as a dual agent, inducing both electrophilic and oxidative stresses in cells that account for its cytotoxicity.


We present a model of endogenous firm growth with R&D investment and innovation as the engine of growth. The objective of our analysis is to present a framework that can be used for microeconometric analysis of firm performance in high-tech industries. The model for firm growth is a partial equilibrium model drawing on the quality ladder models in the macro growth literature, but also on the literature on patent races and the discrete choice models of product differentiation. We examine to what extent the assumptions and the empirical content of our model are consistent with the findings that have emerged from empirical studies of growth, productivity, R&D and patenting at the firm level. The analysis shows that the model fits well empirical patterns such as (i) a skewed size distribution of firms with persistent differences in firm sizes, (ii) firm growth (roughly) independent of firm size (the so-called Gibrat's law) and (iii) R&D investment proportional to sales, as well as a number of other empirical patterns.


Stochastic learning automata (SLA) theory is used to model the learning behavior of commuters within the context of the combined departure time route choice (CDTRC) problem. The SLA model uses a reinforcement scheme to model the learning behavior of drivers. A multiaction linear reward-ϵ-penalty reinforcement scheme was introduced to model the learning behavior of travelers based on past departure time choice and route choice. A traffic simulation was developed to test the model. The results of the simulation are intended to show that drivers learn the best CDTRC option, and the network achieves user equilibrium in the long run. Results indicate that the developed SLA model accurately portrays the learning behavior of drivers, while the network satisfies user equilibrium conditions.


Schwannoma is a benign, encapsulated perineural tumour originating from the schwann cells of the neural sheath of peripheral motor and sensory nerves. It may develop at any age but is extremely rare in paediatric age group. The tumour is frequently located on the head and neck region, the tongue being the most common site followed by the palate, floor of mouth, buccal mucosa, lips and jaws. Schwannomas rarely occur in the lip area and it is exceedingly rare in the upper lip. The lesion is usually solitary but can be multiple when associated with neurofibromatosis. The diagnosis is usually confirmed after biopsy and anti-S100 protein immuno-histochemical staining is usually used to identify the tumour. In the present study the patient was a 14-year-old young girl with the schwannoma on the upper lip which is probably the third such case in a paediatric age group being reported and was excised without any recurrence at 2 year after excision.


The purpose of this paper is to enhance the importance of ventilation regarding energy use and stablishing methods in order to obtain as much data as possible about the behavior patterns of ventilation and infiltration in buildings. The current Spanish regulation Royal Decree 235/2013 establishes all new-construction, rented or sold buildings must be in possession of the Energy Performance Certificate. There are several examples of dedicated software to calculate it, and the aspiration of this study is to integrate the influence of ventilation in the official Energy Performance Certificate Software developed by the Department of Energy located in the University of Seville. This new feature includes Multi-zone ventilation in pressures and Multi-zone ventilation in air flows. In addition, it allows the user to consider the effect on the demand of energy of the real pressures and air flows given in the different zones compared to the single-zone model for ventilation integrated in the official tool. The structure of this article is summarized as follows:


Here, we report the synthesis of two-dimensional (2D) layered metal-organic framework (MOF) nanoparticle (NP) superstructures via an ice-templating strategy. MOF NP monolayers and bilayers can be obtained by regulating the concentration of colloidal MOF NPs without any external fields during self-assembly. Adjacent polyhedral MOF NPs are packed and aligned through crystalline facets, resulting in the formation of a quasi-ordered array superstructure. The morphology of the MOF layers is well preserved when subjected to pyrolysis, and the obtained carbon NPs have hollow interiors driven by the outward contraction of MOF precursors during pyrolysis. With the advantages of large surface areas, hierarchical porosity, high exposure of active sites, and fast electron transport of the 2D layered structure, the mono- and bilayered carbon NP superstructures show better oxygen reduction activity than isolated carbon particles in alkaline media. Our work demonstrates that ice-templating is a powerful strategy to fabricate superstructures of various MOFs and their derivatives.


Early detection of significant cardiac dysfunction in patients at high cardiovascular risk is a relevant clinical problem. Biomarkers that are elevated by cardiac dysfunction may simplify diagnostic algorithms. Within the ongoing Diast-CHF trial, 1590 outpatients with a risk factor for or history of heart failure underwent cardiovascular examination, comprehensive echocardiography and blood sampling for the measurement of seven biomarkers (MR-proANP, NT-proBNP, CT-proAVP, hsCRP, CT-proET-1, MR-proADM and PIIINP). Patients had relevant systolic dysfunction (SD) when left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) was 50 % and echocardiographic signs of elevated filling pressures were present. Compared to a control group of healthy subjects (KG) biomarker concentrations were significantly elevated in subgroups with cardiac dysfunction (SD, DD). The diagnostic ability of the single biomarkers was analyzed by measuring the area under the receiver operator characteristics curve (AUC). Of all seven biomarkers, natriuretic peptides (MR-proANP, NT-proBNP) had the highest AUC when discriminating between subgroups (SD/DD vs. KG, SD vs. KG, DD vs. KG). Biomarkers were less accurate to diagnose DD than SD. To understand the additive value of novel biomarkers, we constructed a model by multivariate binary logistic regression, using variables indicative of a risk for the development or presence of heart failure consisting of medical history, physical examination plus conventional laboratory testing. Regarding the diagnostic ability of the single biomarkers we only added NT-proBNP and MR-proANP. Presence of SD/DD was predicted by the clinical model with reasonable accuracy (0,704). Adding biomarkers, NT-proBNP alone improved the statistical model to a final AUC of 0,738, MR-proANP provided no further increase in AUC. The AUC for the prediction of SD was 0,810 for established predictors, adding NT-pro-BNP raised the AUC to 0,840. For the detection of DD AUC for conventional predictors was 0,715, adding MR-proANP and NT-proANP yielded a total AUC of 0,741. In conclusion, combining multiple biomarkers was only useful for the detection of DD. Although discrimination was improved, the information gained was little.
In our study a multimarker approach yielded limited improvement for the detection of SD/DD over established predictors of cardiac dysfunction.


This paper presents a composite performance index for communication networks with variable link-capacities. This index is based on link reliabilities and multiple-capacity link-states. Source-to-terminal success is the ability to provide connectivity with a certain traffic-carrying capacity. This index is useful for determining the performance of networks with links operating with residual traffic-carrying capacity and gives a good idea of the available resources for a particular s-t connection. An algorithm is given to evaluate the composite performance index. >


Gastric cancers associated with pregnancy are rare and often diagnosed at advanced stages where curative therapies are not possible. The outcomes have generally been very poor with death occurring within months of diagnosis. Suspicion and early endoscopy are necessary for early diagnosis. We herein report a case of advanced disseminated gastric cancer presenting in the third trimester with pre-eclampsia and death occurring less than a month after diagnosis.


SIR,-Your leading article (10 January, p 55) outlines the present feelings and facts concerning home and hospital confinement but does not differentiate between confinement in the relatively large consultant obstetric unit and the relatively small general practitioner unit. The GP unit can offer a more homely environment with continuity of care by the GP obstetrician (who will be present at the birth and has often been known by the mother for a long while) and by midwives she knows. There is evidence that this may produce a bonus of easier and less complicated delivery which needs critical analysis and may be very important. Good results can be obtained, as shown by our published experience at Sherborne' and by other reports. Midwifery remains the art of the unexpected despite attempted selection, as recognised by obstetricians and illustrated by the finding of Dr C A Cox and his colleagues (p 84) "half the babies with problems at birth occurred in the obstetric low risk group." Interested and suitably qualified GPs working in GP obstetric units with essential operation and anaesthetic facilities, with consultant backing, could have a vital and increasing part to play in obstetric care and confinement, combining good obstetrics with the benefit of a homely environment and continuity of care. This concept of care has interested the Conference of Local Medical Committees and is considered to warrant full investigation-no doubt in co-ordination with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. The pending decrease in the number of foreign-trained doctors who fill such a high proportion of junior hospital appointments may well necessitate a change in the pattern of obstetric care. JOHN HEARD Yeatman Hospital, Sherborne, Dorset


OBJECTIVE This report reviews the case of a missed cervical spine fracture in a patient presenting for chiropractic manipulative therapy. A review of the literature suggests that radiographic examinations performed in emergency care settings following cervical spine trauma are often incomplete for the purposes of screening for contraindications to manipulative therapy. Sensitivity of the standard radiographic cervical spine series for detecting fracture suggest an unacceptable high level of false negatives and chiropractors are cautioned to requisition and review all X-rays and ensure a complete radiographic series before initiating treatment. CLINICAL FEATURES A 65-yr-old woman presented to a chiropractic office for examination and treatment of cervical spine injuries suffered in a deceleration type motor vehicle accident. Hospital X-rays were reported normal for fracture. Subsequent radiographs of the cervical spine demonstrated the presence of a posterior arch fracture of C2. INTERVENTION AND OUTCOME The patient was referred for further imaging and was treated conservatively with bracing of the cervical spine. Follow-up 5 months later demonstrated substantial recovery with some residual stiffness and headache. CONCLUSION Radiographs taken at emergency care settings are often incomplete for the purposes of screening for contraindications to manipulation. This case demonstrates that chiropractors should be extremely cautious in initiating manipulative therapy in those patients having sustained previous cervical spine trauma and who have had prior X-rays that have been reported normal.


The seismic design of optimal damped outrigger structures relies on the assumption that most of the input energy will be absorbed by the dampers, whilst the rest of the structure remains elastic. When subjected to strong earthquakes, nevertheless, the building structure may exhibit plastic hinges before the dampers begin to work. In order to determine to which extent the use of viscously damped outriggers would avoid damage, both the host structure's hysteretic behaviour and the dampers' performance need to be evaluated in parallel. This article provides a parametric study on the factors that influence the distribution of seismic energy in tall buildings equipped with damped outriggers: First, the influence of outrigger's location, damping coefficients, and rigidity ratios core‐to‐outrigger and core‐to‐column in the seismic performance of a 60‐story building with conventional and with damped outriggers is studied. In parallel, nonlinear behaviour of the outrigger with and without viscous dampers is examined under small, moderate, strong, and severe long‐period earthquakes to assess the hysteretic energy distribution through the core and outriggers. The results show that, as the ground motion becomes stronger, viscous dampers effectively reduce the potential of damage in the structure if compared to conventional outriggers. However, the use of dampers cannot entirely prevent damage under critical excitations.


Background: Our aim was to make right and informative decision about choosing the most cost-effectiveness heterogeneous infectious waste treatment methods and devices. Methods: In this descriptive study, decision tree analysis, with 10-yr time horizon in bottom-up approach was used to estimate the costs and effectiveness criteria of the employed devices at provider perspective in Iranian hospitals. We used the one-way and scenario sensitivity analysis to measure the effects of variables with uncertainty. The resources of data were national Environmental and Occupational Health Center Survey (EOHCS) in 2012, field observation and completing questionnaire by relevant authorities in mentioned centers. Results: Devices called Saray 2, Autoclave based, and Newster 10, Hydroclave based, with 92032.4 (±12005) and 6786322.9 (±826453) Dollars had the lowest and highest costs respectively in studied time period and given the 5–10% discount rate. Depending on effectiveness factor type, Newster 10 with Ecodas products and Saray products respectively had the highest and lowest effectiveness. In most considered scenarios, Caspian-Alborz device was the most cost-effectiveness alternative, so for the treatment of each adjusted unit of volume and weight of infectious waste in a 10 year period and in different conditions, between 39.4 (±5.1) to 915 (±111.4) dollars must be spent. Conclusion: The findings indicate the inefficiency and waste of resources, so in order to efficient resource allocation and to encourage further cost containment in infectious waste management we introduce policy recommendation that be taken in three levels.


The objective of the current study was to examine the factors that affect the work and personal life balance of women working in various NGOs working in the Sindh province of Pakistan. The sample consisting of 125 female staff was chosen and the survey instrument was used for the collection of data. The designed conceptual model of this study was tested with path modeling software of smart PLS. In this study, three key hypotheses relating to organizational support, employee engagement and personality were developed and tested. Various collinearity tests were applied to assess the normality of data. Then, the reliability, validity, measurement and structural model was examined. Using Smart PLS software, the results show that 73% of the total variance was explained by organizational support, employee engagement and personality. Furthermore, it was also found that the highest contribution to the variance came from organizational support.


In contrast to middle age, it is unclear whether blood pressure (BP) in older persons is associated with cerebral small vessel disease (cSVD). The authors evaluated the association of BP with signs of cSVD as well as gray and white matter integrity in older persons. In 220 participants aged 75 years and older from the Discontinuation of Antihypertensive Treatment in the Elderly (DANTE) study, cSVD was assessed with conventional magnetic resonance imaging, and microstructural integrity with diffusion tensor and magnetization transfer (MT) imaging. BP measures were not associated with cSVD. However, lower systolic and diastolic BP and mean arterial pressure were associated with decreased gray matter MT ratio peak height and MT ratio in cortical gray matter. Mean arterial pressure was also associated with increased gray matter diffusivity. A lower level of BP was especially associated with worse gray matter integrity. Results suggest that not only upper but preferably lower thresholds of BP values should be observed in older persons.


The article discusses the World Wide Web (Internet), focusing on using the WWW to support commerce-electronic marketing and digital publishing. Businesses are increasingly using the Web for advertising and electronic catalog based retail sales. Immediate benefits from the use of the technology include the ability to monitor and track the behavior of one's customers, provided by access statistics the WWW server maintains. In addition, many aspects of managing customer interaction can be automated, for example, submission and collection of customer surveys, billing, and so forth. In the future, more organizations will use the net for innovative ways of providing online magazines and electronic commerce. Although the approximately 20 million Internet users represent only a small fraction of the world population, the dramatic growth of the market in recent years will continue to lure commerce online.<<ETX>>


To explore the role of Marangoni effects in the pool boiling heat transfer of binary mixtures, experiments have been conducted with water/2-propanol mixtures at three different concentrations under normal gravity with different orientations of the heater surface. The system pressure was subatmospheric (∼5.5 kPa) and the bulk liquid temperature was near the saturation temperature of the fluids tested. The molar concentrations of 2-propanol tested were 0.015, 0.025, and 0.1. These concentrations of 2-propanol are selected because their strong variation of surface tension with concentration gives rise to high surface tension gradients near the heater surface during nucleate boiling. Boiling curves were obtained both for an upward-facing and a downward-facing heater surface. For each concentration of 2-propanol, the critical heat flux has been reached in both orientations of the heater surface. Models of pool boiling heat transfer and the critical heat flux condition for binary mixtures are tested to correlate the data. Comparison of boiling curves and CHF obtained at different orientations of the heater surface indicates that there is strong gravity independent mechanism of boiling heat transfer in these mixtures


Teachers, speech and language therapists, teaching assistants and nursery nurses are required to work together in a range of contexts in Foundation Stage (FS) school settings in the UK. In some cases these groups of practitioners are mutually involved in the implementation of a strategy or intervention and in the use of a particular tool or resource with children in these settings. The use of graphic symbols with children in the FS of education is increasingly common in mainstream and special school settings and is an activity that may involve any combination of practitioners in these professional groups. Graphic symbols are used with a wide range of children for a diverse range of purposes. A study was conducted in which the experiences of teachers, speech and language therapists, teaching assistants and nursery nurses using graphic symbols in FS school settings were explored. Practitioners in each of these groups working in the East Midlands region of the UK were interviewed about their experiences of using graphic symbols. The findings of this study encompassed a thematic framework and theoretical model depicting the patterns and themes emerging in the practitioners' accounts. The proposed theoretical model suggests that practitioners are influenced by their unique professional reasoning processes, as well as the ways they perceive their own professional role and the roles of others. This article introduces the proposed theoretical model reflecting the factors influencing the collaborative implementation of graphic symbols in these FS school settings. Implications for collaborative practice in schools are considered.


PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to examine relationships between change fatigue, resilience, and job satisfaction among novice and seasoned hospital staff nurses.

BACKGROUND
Health care is typified by change. Frequent and vast changes in acute care hospitals can take a toll on nurses and cause change fatigue, which has been largely overlooked and under-researched.

DESIGN AND METHOD
A descriptive correlational design was employed with 521 hospital staff nurses in one midwestern state. Participants completed three online surveys: (a) Change Fatigue Scale, (b) Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, and (c) McCloskey/Mueller Satisfaction Scale.

FINDINGS
In a multiple regression model, job satisfaction had a statistically significant negative association with change fatigue (p < .001) and significant positive association with resilience (p < .001). A linear trend was found with hospital size (number of beds) and change fatigue (p = .001) and education level and resilience (p = .03).

CONCLUSIONS
The results are consistent with job satisfaction among hospital nursing staff being negatively influenced by change fatigue and positively influenced by resilience, although reverse causal connections are also possible. Change fatigue may be increased by larger hospital size (number of beds), and resilience may be increased by higher educational level of hospital staff nurses.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE
The study advanced the nursing knowledge on change fatigue, resilience, and job satisfaction of staff nurses working in acute care hospitals. Engaging in strategies aimed at preventing change fatigue in nursing staff can enhance workplace environments, job satisfaction, and retention of nurses.


Abstract Spatial patterns in socioeconomic data reveal issues and trends that would otherwise be missed by data aggregation to political or other units. Geographic Information System (GIS) tools provide display and analysis capabilities that are underutilized by many social scientists. The present article combines field-based surveys that maintain locational information with GIS tools to examine gender roles, responsibilities, and workloads in a spatial context for a case-study watershed in Nepal. Adult women outworked men by an average of 3.8 hours per day. Spatial differences in workloads are related to road access, with women living near the road working longer days, and men near the road participating more in "typically" female tasks such as collecting drinking water. Households with poor access have larger landholdings, greater total production, and are more reliant on subsistence agriculture. Households with road access use more agrochemicals, have smaller landholdings, and are more reliant on off-farm employment to meet their families' needs. GIS helps communicate these spatial trends more clearly and quantifies key issues when combined with statistical analysis. The use of field-based participatory techniques, aerial photographs and quantitative GIS and statistical analysis is infrequent in gender analysis but provides social scientists with powerful tools for investigating variability. In this study, the significant influence of the road on socioeconomic issues was highlighted, along with the need to focus development activities spatially.


This paper examines the use by those living in impoverished neighborhoods of color in Syracuse, NY, of artifacts and rituals of memorialization in response to intense ongoing violence. This work is part of a longitudinal, community-university action anthropology collaboration on trauma due to neighborhood violence. This Rust Belt city of 145,000 residents had 30 murders in 2016, the highest murder rate in New York State and one of the highest nationwide. Since at least 2009, the majority of Syracuse's homicides resulted from neighborhood violence in which adolescent and young adult members from competing turf areas carry out ongoing feuds. Neighbors, coworkers, family members, and friends of murder victims face trauma, including emotional and somatic symptoms. There is little public recognition of the deep pain and grief experienced by community members. In response, community memorialization takes place through a process of acknowledging key events with symbols, folk art, martyrdom, and language. These artifacts express shared values, even when those values are contrary to and in resistance to values of the larger society. We compare these practices to those seen in civil conflict areas to suggest that such memorialization may unfortunately fuel ongoing violence through processes of social contagion.


: Intraductal component is a risk factor for local recurrences of ductal carcinomas after breast-conserving therapy. Up to the present, only microcalcifications have been recognised as a mammographic sign of the intraductal component. The authors examined 67 ductal carcinomas; in addition to microcalcifications they paid attention to spicula at the margin of the tumors. These have been examined histologically and it has been shown that in 91% of the cases the spicula contain more or less marked intraductal carcinomatous tissue. Even in 23 cases (34.3%) the spicula consisted entirely of intraductal components. Microcalcifications in this respect are of less diagnostic importance. In 29 cases there were additional invasive foci which were not evident macroscopically and in four cases intramammary lymph node metastases were discovered radiologically only. The slice-specimen radiography carried out by the authors provides additional help in evaluating of accurate pathologic margins of "lumpectomy".


Background
Muscle activity contributes to the enhancement of facial aging deformity, blepharospasm, cerebral palsy spasticity, trismus, torticollis, and other conditions. Myotomy of the involved muscles in order to reduce the deformity has variable success rates due to muscle healing and regeneration of activity.

Objectives
The goal of this study was to investigate whether blocking striated muscle activity with Botulinum toxin (BtxA) during the healing time after myotomy alters the healing process and reduces long-term muscle activity.

Methods
Eighteen Sprague Dawley rats where divided into 3 groups: group A (n = 7) underwent myotomy of their Latisimus Dorsi muscle; group B (n = 7) underwent myotomy and injection of BtxA into their severed muscle; group C (n = 4) injection of BtxA only. Muscle strength was tested periodically using a grip test.

Results
Starting at week 16 and until the termination of study at week 22, group B (Myotomy + BtxA) showed significant reduction in muscle power compared to the two control groups.

Conclusions
Addition of BtxA injection into a muscle immediately after myotomy may interfere with muscle healing and contribute to a more successful long-term result.


Objectives: To measure right and left cardiac output in fetuses with enlarged NT and normal karyotype in the second and third trimesters and to verify whether hemodynamic changes could occur in these fetuses in comparison to fetuses with normal NT. Methods: Echocardiography (Aloka SSD alpha10) was performed in 40 fetuses with NT ≥ 95th percentile, normal cardiac and extracardiac anatomy and normal karyotype (Group A) at 20–22 and 30–32 weeks of gestational age (GA). Diameters of the aorta (Ao) and pulmonary artery (Pa), time averaged maximum velocities in Ao and Pa, immediately downstream from the valves, were obtained in order to measure left (LCO) and right cardiac output (RCO). RCO/LCO ratios and combined CO (RCO + LCO) (CCO) were calculated and compared to reference values obtained in 42 normal fetuses with normal NT at comparable weeks (Group B). Results: Mean GA at birth and mean neonatal weight in Group A were 40 weeks and 3430 g, in Group B 39 weeks and 3195 g. No significant differences were found between cardiac output of Group B and Group A at 20 weeks, whereas the Table shows the high statistical differences between cardiac output in Group A and B at 30–32 weeks, with a strong positive correlation with nuchal enlargement.


The article covers features of govenmental and public control in providing sanitary epidemiologic well-being of population and consumers' rights protection. Based on analysis of contemporary legislation, the authors evaluated terms "control" and "supervision", having different legal nature. The authors determined specific traits and define subjects and objects for public control in relationships aimed to provide sanitary epidemiologic well-being of population, evaluated legislative basis of citizens' claims to Rospotrebnadzor, pointed at difficulties in implementation of public control in connection with necessity to create new organizational and legal mechanisms widening control possibilities.


The study focuses on the influence of English language in Macedonia, which is a multilingual, multicultural, and multiethnic country, situated in Southeast Europe. More precisely, the study investigates and compares the role of English inside and outside the classroom in two different environments. Firstly, in Tetovo as a multilingual place where quite a lot of people very easily shift from the local languages in use (Albanian, Macedonian and Turkish) and English when necessary, and secondly, in Prilep, as a mainly monolingual place, where from the local languages, mostly Macedonian is used. The study uses both quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative data collection includes learners' questionnaires. The qualitative data phase includes descriptive research by using interviews. Finally, the study identifies several important issues regarding the positive and negative influence of English and compares the participants' attitudes towards the role and the influence of English in a multilingual vs. monolingual environment. The findings of the study are expected to be of use to policy makers in the country and wider, the local government, educational institutions, current and future English teachers and students.


The influence of carcass characteristics and organoleptic properties of organically raised broiler chickens were investigated in a twelve-week feeding and management trial. Conventional birds (control) group A and organically raised birds (groups B, C and D from which organic millet, sorghum and wheat have been excluded from their diets respectively). 180 day-old Ross broiler chicks were randomly distributed into (4) experimental diets in a completely randomized design (CRD). Each treatment group was replicated into three with 15 birds per replicate. Organic birds were allowed a three hour foraging daily on experimental quadrants. At the end of 8 th week, meats from 108 chickens (27 birds) from each treatment were slaughtered for assessment of carcass characteristics and organoleptic properties. The results indicated that the different dietary treatments have effect on carcass characteristics and organoleptic properties. Conventional birds shows highest values for live weight, breast, thigh weights and as expected organoleptic properties while organic broilers demonstrated higher values for organ weights. It was concluded that organic broilers seems to be a possible alternative to the conventional methods since the carcass traits and the organoleptics properties of broiler chickens fed organically had been established and feed must not be 100% organic diets with consideration of crude protein and energy requirement of broilers to meet up with the demand of consumer towards organic meat. Therefore, further research is needed to explore the best broiler chickens that will show more response to organic feed in derived savanna environment of Nigeria. Keywords: Organic farming, primal cut, visceral organs and organoleptic properties, ross broilers .


Using an inverse technique for the array electromagnetic propagated resistivity logging (EPRL) data, a fine interpretation can be obtained about the resistivity distribution of an invaded profile. Generally, the Gauss-Newton algorithm (GN) is an efficient technique for the inverse problems; however, as a gradient-type optimization method, its accuracy and convergence depend strongly on the initial value. Even though this problem can be avoided by using a differential evolutionary algorithm (DE) as a global search optimization, it is computationally less efficient. In this paper, a hybrid inversion method of differential evolution has been developed to remove the strong dependence of the accuracy and convergence on the initial value. In this new method, an additional operation, which is designed with GN, is performed only to the best individual with a delay in the evolution processes of DE. Hence, the GN operation is used for the improvement of the convergence speed without leading to any decrease of the robustness of DE. The hybrid method is then extended to apply the inversion of EPRL data. Our results demonstrate its speed, steadiness, and efficiency of this hybrid method


Abstract The purpose of this study was to determine whether the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale (PIPPS), a teacher-rating instrument of interactive play behaviors for early childhood, was valid for urban, low-income children in kindergarten. The PIPPS demonstrated construct validity, and yielded three dimensions of interactive peer play: Play Interaction, Play Disruption, and Play Disconnection. These constructs were congruent with the dimensions found for preschool children. Concurrent validity was demonstrated with a standardized instrument assessing global social skills and academic competence. Children who displayed highly interactive peer play were given high ratings by teachers for social skills and were ranked higher in the class for academic competence. Those children who were disruptive or disconnected in play were viewed by teachers as having more problem behaviors and had lower academic achievement as compared to their peers. The PIPPS also was found to have predictive validity to first grade academic performance. Children who were reported by their teachers to have effective peer interactions during play had higher teacher ratings of academic success than children who were considered disruptive or disconnected in play. Implications for policy and practice in early childhood are discussed.


Abstract We present here the results of open-path Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy of gases emitted from the lava dome of Soufrière Hills Volcano. Although measurement campaigns have been discontinuous, they do span a three-year period and provide strong evidence of secular change in the HCl/SO2 molar ratio from ≥5 in 1996 to <0.5 in 1999. The post-1996 spectral data represent the only available measurements of gas ratios for the volcano's summit emissions, and complement SO2 emission rate data obtained by ultraviolet correlation spectroscopy (COSPEC), enhancing the interpretation of degassing at the volcano. The long-term decreasing HCl/SO2 ratio accompanied an increasing SO2 emission rate, and suggests a transition from degassing of andesitic to basaltic magma, or progressive tapping of a sulphur-rich vapour phase that was introduced by mafic magma, or that was already resident within the andesite magma reservoir. On timescales of minutes to hours, we observed variations in HCl/SO2 ratios associated with dome collapses. On 27 July 1998, for example, the HCl/SO2 ratio dropped from about 0.7 to 0.4 within minutes of a minor dome collapse. A much larger collapse event on 26 October 1998 was followed by a decrease in HCl/SO2 from 0.6 to 0.1, some 14 hours later. These changes are suggestive of transient degassing from a sulphur-rich source region - larger collapses resulted in tapping of deeper sources, with exsolved gases taking longer to reach the surface. The sustained degassing and response to dome collapse events suggest a permeable upper conduit system established by syneruptive vesiculation, and efficient transfer of volatiles out of the magma chamber by degassing-driven convection in the lower part of the central conduit. Open-path FTIR spectroscopy represents a means for remote geochemical surveillance when access to vent regions is restricted for safety reasons, yielding valuable insights into degassing mechanisms.


This study investigated the effects of prior knowledge of topics with their instructional objectives on senior secondary school class two (SS II) students. The study was carried out in Abakaliki Education Zone of Ebonyi State, Nigeria. The design of the study is quasi experimental of pretest-posttest of non-equivalent control group. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. The population of the study was 6053 Senior Secondary School class 2 (SS II) Students in thirty nine Co-educational Secondary Schools in Abakaliki Education Zone. Simple random Sampling technique was used to draw a sample size of 120 SS II Students that offer literature-in-English in four Co-educational Secondary Schools in the Zone. Two of the schools formed the treatment group, while two formed the control group. Instrument for data collection was a researcher made literature-in-English Achievement Test (LAT). Data were collected from pretest and posttest. The data collected were analyzed using statistical mean, standard deviation, and Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The result of the study revealed that the treatment group taught Literature-in-English with prior knowledge topics and instructional objectives performed better than the control group taught Literature-in-English without prior knowledge of topics to be taught with their instructional objectives. The result also revealed that the performance of the students according to gender indicated that males performed better than females amongst the treatment group. However the mean achievement difference between the males and the females was not statistically significant. Based on the findings, the researcher recommended that Literature-in-English teachers should give their students topics to be learnt and this instructional objectives prior to instruction and secondly, that authors of texts in Literature-in-English should state the instructional objectives of each chapter or topic in their books.


This article reports on prevalence of poor self-rated health and associated factors among elderly users of the Brazilian Unified National Health System (SUS) in Goiânia, Goiás State, Brazil. The article is based on a cross-sectional study with a proportional sample of elderly in the nine health districts of Goiânia. Data were collected after a pilot study and training of field staff. The measure of association was the prevalence ratio (PR) and respective confidence interval (95%CI). Multivariate analysis was performed using hierarchical Poisson regression. In 403 elderly, prevalence of poor self-rated health was 27.5% (95%CI: 23.2-32.2). The rate was 29.7% in women and 29.1% among seniors aged 60-64 years. Variables associated with poor self-rated health according to multivariate analysis were: less than one year of schooling, lack of physical exercise, use of five or more medications, and recent weight loss. The results showed high prevalence of poor self-rated health and associated factors, including both adverse social conditions and individual health and lifestyle factors.


For the last ten years I have been involved in conducting research in palliative care across a variety of health care sectors in the Australian context. I have come to regard myself as a recent participant in palliative care after reading Lewis' (2007) book on Medicine and care of the dying: A modern history. His chapter on the development of palliative care services provides a comprehensive outline of the history of palliative care globally. Lewis highlights the remarkable achievements of palliative care champions across the western world. The efforts of many to recognise the needs of the dying and provide appropriate care, as articulated and practiced by Dame Cicely Saunders in the United Kingdom, created a ripple of change and led to a holistic philosophy of palliative care. Lewis's book demonstrates how far we have come to enact this philosophy and improve care of the dying.These champions of a systematic approach to care of the dying pressured health professionals and governments alike to broaden the focus of health care from cure to care. Through my own Australian research I have witnessed the influence of federal and state governments on increasing the availability of palliative care through a policy of'mainstreaming'. This policy aims to ensure that palliative care is available for all Australians rather than only for individuals located in urban areas close to a hospice or community palliative care service. It is evident that such an approach to care has also been adopted in other countries such as Sweden and UK.In Australia in the late 1990s when 'mainstreaming' began there was concern among the palliative care community that their philosophy and principles would be diluted, misinterpreted or even abandoned, in other health care sectors. Certainly the research Professor Street and I (Street & Blackford 2001) conducted at that time suggested that there were some inherent dangers in expecting all practitioners to provide palliative care within their own health care setting. It was evident that practitioners working in palliative care units located in acute care settings grappled with providing high quality endof-life care within an overarching philosophy of cure at all costs. In aged care facilities there was conflict with a philosophy of 'living in place' when a person was dying. In practice, living in place meant that health professionals needed to recognise that the aged care facility was now the elderly person's home. This encompassed the principles of the rights of older people to choose their care and be involved in decision making. Yet what happens when a person no longer is 'living in place' but 'dying in place'? Do they stay or go to a palliative care facility? When our research took us to the Australian bush, we found that to address palliative care needs of the local community a rural health service had created a palliative care space with facilities for the family to stay so they could be close to their loved one. Such space could also be converted to a birthing unit. The irony was not lost on us that limitations of resources meant that it was a shifting space from which a child entered the world and others departed.Since the introduction of 'mainstreaming' much has been done in Australia to educate and support health care professionals to be able to provide palliative care in various health care settings. The release of the 'Guidelines for a Palliative Approach in Aged Care Settings' (Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing 2004); programs such as PEPA (Program of Experience in Palliative Approach) (http://pepa education.com) which supports health professionals to undertake work placement in a palliative care service; as well as the work of various Palliative Care peak bodies such as Palliative Care Australia and Palliative Care Victoria, has lead to a further broadening of the availability of palliative care for all Australians.However in a climate of such success we cannot be complacent. …


In real world applications, tracking target in low resolution video is a challenging task because there is loss of discriminative detail in the visual appearance of moving object. The existing methods are mostly based on the enhancement of LR (low resolution) video by super resolution techniques. But these methods require high computational cost. This cost further increases if we are dealing with events detection. In this paper we present an algorithm which is able to detect unusual events without such type of conversion and well suited for enhancement of security of ATMs where conventional low resolution cameras are generally used due to their low cost. Proposed algorithm only uses close morphological operation with disk like structuring element in the preprocessing steps to cope up with low resolution video. It further uses rolling average background subtraction technique to detect foreground object from dynamic background in a scene. Our proposed algorithm is able to recognize the occurrence of uncommon events such as overcrowding or fight in the low resolution video simply by using statistical property, standard deviation of moving objects. It is fast enough because it process low resolution frames and could be helpful in surveillance system for enhancing the security of ATMs where conventional camera of low resolution are still used. It does not use any classifier and avoids the requirement of training the system initially.


This study departed from the indication of the low success of rural development, especially in sub district Rainis Talaud Islands. This is presumably related to the low quality of village government officials, so that the research aims: (1) to analyze the relationship between the quality of human resources with the village government official development success. (2) to clarify, whether the success of the development will increase if an increase in the quality of human resources village officials. (3) to determine the influence / contribution of human resource quality village government officials to the success of development in the District Rainis. The results of the analysis of the data showed that: (1) That the average quality village government officials, such as: the level of formal education, skills, health / nutrition and rural development success rates in their respective villages, also is in the category "medium". (2) human resources quality factor Village officials have a significant relationship with the successful development, while, the functional relationship between the quality of human resources personnel with the success of rural development in Sub-linear patterned Rainis sifaknya positive and contributive. Keywords: Quality of human resources personnel, successful rural development


Compound castings between aluminum and steel have great potential for applications in the automotive industry. However, due to large differences in thermal and mechanical properties between steel and aluminum, and the formation of stable aluminum oxides at the interface, it is difficult to form high strength metallic bonding between the two metals. In this work, A356/steel compound castings were produced through a gravity casting process. Various metal coatings, including galvanizing, aluminizing and brass-coating, were applied on the steel inserts to ensure that the A356 aluminum melt could react sufficiently with an oxide-free steel surface, resulting in a high-quality metallurgical bond. The reaction layer formed between the alloys was investigated using Optical Microscopy (OM), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS). In addition, Vickers Micro-hardness was measured across the aluminum-steel interface. Results showed that metallurgical bonding could be achieved with all three coatings. However, for the brass-coated components only local bonding areas were found. In the aluminized and galvanized components, thick reaction layers consisting of binary Al-Fe and ternary Al-Fe-Si phases formed in the aluminum-steel interface. Between the A356 aluminum and aluminized layer, nearly no reaction layer formed. The mechanism for the formation of the various intermetallic phases at the reaction layers are discussed.


Carbonate hydroxyapatite (CHA) bioceramics can be synthesised to contain sodium ions as a co-substituted ion, or as sodium-free compositions. It is unclear, however, which composition would produce the optimum biological response. The aim of this study was to find a reliable method to produce sodium co-substituted and sodium-free CHA compositions that would have the same level of carbonate substitution, and to characterise the effects of the two different substitutions on the structure of the CHA samples. After sintering at 900oC in a CO2 atmosphere, all samples contained approximately equal amounts of carbonate groups on the A- and B-sites, as observed by FTIR. The sample produced with NaHCO3 and the sodium-free sample (CHA1) have comparable carbonate contents, whereas the sample produced with Na2CO3 contains significantly more carbonate, probably due to the excess sodium ions allowing more carbonate co-substitution. The sodium-free CHA sample, however, has significantly smaller unit cell parameters compared to both sodium co-substituted CHA samples, and also to HA. This characterisation of the samples shows that the sodium-free CHA sample (CHA1) and the sample produced with NaHCO3 would provide CHA compositions for biological testing with similar carbonate contents and distributions, but with structural differences due to the sodium substitution.


A case of intrauterine fetal demise was monitored over a 5-week period with serial sonographs and simultaneous radiographs. The diagnosis could not be established from the radiographs even 7 weeks postmortem. However, the initial sonographs established the diagnosis and subsequently presented a picture of increasing degeneration. Possible explanations for this are suggested.


Is it possible that the essence of peace is negated in peace education? And is it possible that even against its own will peace education calls for the negation of its negation? In peace education no serious attempts have been made to elaborate its most central concepts. 'Pacifism', 'violence', 'counter-violence' and 'emancipation', 'culture of peace', among others, have still not been probed. Peace education, actually, is a serious threat to human edification. Peace for the eternal Jew, for the enduring improviser, is a condition of the one who found his way: an endless path of a nomad that has Love but no other 'home', dogma or quest for 'home-returning' into thingness, the continuum or the Same. He will never find and never search for 'peace' as an end of Diasporic existence and terminality of the suffering of the nomad. He will be at peace with his mission of avoiding history within history, of overcoming the temptation to be part of the collective 'I'/consensus/pleasure machine/truth, and often he will be tired, ridiculed, punished or executed. But he will be also rewarded, each moment anew, for being at peace with his refusal of 'peace': he will be a freer and a richer improviser that his co-poiesis with the world, the Other, and he himself gives birth to Love. As such, the eternal improviser is mature enough to meet the alterity of other free nomads and Diasporic humans, as well as the gifts of other free-minded spirits. They too, as Nietzsche tell us, feel at home on the mountain, in the forest, and within their loneliness. But for the eternal improviser there is more and there is less than the rewards of the eternal Nietzschean nomad. This is so since the Nietzschean nomad is rewarded with presents and finally finds harmony in himself and the right path to the freedom of reason. The eternal improviser, however, is a more consistent Nietzschean than the Nietzschean nomad and is never appeased, domesticated or rewarded by any 'home'. Homelessness, eternal Diaspora and improvisation worthy of the name cannot offer any 'reward' or rest in the (right) paved way, be it 'external' or 'internal', transcendent or immanent. Here counter-education reintroduces peace as a realization of Love and worthy togetherness with the cosmos, with the Other, with worthy suffering and with one's self.


Six lactating dairy goats were utilized in a replicated 3 x 3 Latin square design to examine the effect of increased postmilking prolactin concentrations on lactational performance. Thirty minutes after each milking, either placebo or pituitary-derived ovine prolactin at 2 mg/h or 4 mg/h was infused via jugular cannula for 2 h. Goats were housed in a controlled environment at 19 degrees C and a cycle of 16 h light and 8 h dark. Mean plasma prolactin concentrations after milking were increased 100 and 180% for 2 and 4 mg/h prolactin infusion, respectively. Milk yield was slightly but significantly increased by 2 mg/h prolactin infusion compared with placebo and 4 mg/h prolactin infusion. However, milk composition and yields of milk components were not influenced by treatments. No differences in dry matter intake, digestibility of the diet, or N retention were observed. Circulating concentrations of glucose, nonesterified fatty acids, insulin, and glucagon were not altered.


The main objective of this work is to help combat food losses in the production chain, which is one of the main problems of the food industry today, incorporating also sustainability concepts. According to the FDA each year about 1,300 million tons of food are thrown. Food is wasted mainly at household levels, which is why the choice of the sustainable design of an intelligent interconnected packaging for domestic use is made. To achieve this, the exploration of different technologies, materials, methodologies and innovative frameworks is carried out. Regarding materials, the possibility of using biodegradable, recycled, recyclable and bioplastics was studied, along with the research of the intelligent technology to use, which ended up being sensors. As to methodologies, Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and Cradle to Cradle philosophy (C2C) are studied. Intelligent packaging systems are an option to contribute to minimization of food waste. The correct use of tools such as the LCA, along with the principles of the C2C, and the research on materials and technologies to be used can help designers to reach an optimal solution, minimizing environmental impacts.


The contact fatigue and surface damage of prealloyed (Fe-0.85Mo, Fe-1.5Mo) and diffusion bonded (Ni-free, low-Ni, high-Ni) powder metallurgy (PM) steels were investigated. Materials subjected to contact stress fail due to the nucleation of subsurface cracks (contact fatigue cracks), nucleation of brittle surface cracks, and surface plastic deformation. The occurrence of these contact damage mechanisms was predicted using theoretical models, which were developed by assuming that crack nucleation is preceded either by local plastic deformation (contact fatigue and surface plastic deformation) or local brittleness (brittle surface cracks ) of the metallic matrix. With reference to the mean yield strength of the matrix (mean approach) or the yield strength of soft constituents (local approach), the models predict the theoretical resistance of materials to the formation of damage mechanisms. The models were then verified using experimental evidence from lubricated rolling-sliding contact tests.
In addition, the effect of compact density and microstructures of materials on the resistance to contact damage mechanisms was investigated. Density and microstructure were modified by varying green density, alloying elements, sintering temperature and time, and applying strengthening treatments: carburizing and shot peening on prealloyed (homogenous microstructure) and carburizing, sinterhardening and through hardening on diffusion bonded (heterogeneous microstructure) steels.
The theoretical resistance to subsurface and surface crack nucleation in prealloyed materials was predicted using the mean approach since the microstructure is homogeneous. But the local approach is applied for diffusion bonded materials (Ni-free and low-Ni); exceptionally, the mean approach was applied for some homogeneous microstructure of Ni-free material sintered at a prolonged time. However, the models have a limitation in predicting the contact damage mechanisms in a high-Ni material. This issue may require further investigation to modify the model.
Shot peening provides higher resistance to the nucleation of surface cracks. High compact density, high sintering temperature and time, and sinterhardening improve the resistance to contact damage mechanisms for Ni-free and low-Ni materials.


Water trucking is a commonly implemented, but severely under-researched, drinking water supply intervention in humanitarian response. To fill this research gap, we conducted three mixed-methods water trucking program evaluations in Democratic Republic of the Congo and Bangladesh, including interviews, water point observations, household surveys, focus groups, and water quality testing. Results indicated the programs had complex implementation structures involving multiple agencies and limited infrastructure to properly collect, treat, and deliver water. All programs met water access indicators, did not meet water quantity indicators, and inconsistently met water quality indicators. FCR declined through the water chain; and household water E. coli concentrations were associated with household FCR, receiving behavior change messages, storage container type, and distance from distribution point. Users appreciated water trucking, especially compared to previous water sources, and expressed desires for increased quantity, improved quality, and consistent delivery. If water trucking programs are implemented, it is recommended to: have the financial resources to install sanitary collection and distribution infrastructure, establish a management team of all implementation partners, ensure sufficient water quantity is delivered, ensure recommended FCR levels at distribution points, monitor FCR throughout distribution, and complete behavior change communication activities about the program and safe water storage with users.


Abstract Background Adult patients presenting with skeletal discrepancies may refuse surgical intervention. Materials and methods Thirty-two patients who declined orthognathic correction of their maxillo-mandibular dysplasia and who were without signs of temporomandibular dysfunction (TMD) were offered mandibular repositioning as a non-invasive alternative. Simulating a skeletal correction, it was explained that the approach was based on results described in case reports. Before commencing treatment, initial records, lateral and frontal head films, study casts and photos were obtained (T0) and the mandible was repositioned to camouflage a retrognathic skeletal discrepancy or a mandibular transverse asymmetry by means of an occlusal build-up using Triad™ gel. Results Three months later (T1), 23 patients had adapted to the new occlusion reflected by an absence of functional disturbance and without fracture of the composite occlusal build-up. Mandibular position in these patients was maintained by additional orthodontic treatment and an adjustment of the occlusion to the built-up postured position (T1). The skeletal changes occurring during repositioning were assessed on sagittal and frontal head films while intra-articular changes occurring during a two-year follow-up period (T2) were evaluated on images constructed from CBCT scans. No significant change, either in the direction of relapse or in the direction of further normalisation of condylar position, were observed during the two-year observation period. Conclusion Mandibular repositioning is a non-invasive intervention that may be considered a valid alternative to surgery in selected patients. Morphological variables from the radiographs taken at T0 and the results of the initial clinical evaluation of dysfunction yielded only vague and insignificant indicators regarding the predictability of the adaptation. A CBCT scan at T0 might have contributed to the identification of the patients who would likely accept the repositioning.


Michael Ignatieffs provocatively titled collection of essays, Human Rights As Politics and Idolatry [hereinafter Human Rights], is a careful examination of the theoretical underpinnings and contradictions in the area of human rights. At bottom, both of his primary essays, Human Rights As Politics and Human Rights As Idolatry, make a claim that is perhaps contrary to the instincts of human rights thinkers and activists: namely, that international human rights can best be philosophically justified and effectively applied to the extent that they strive for minimal ism. Human rights activists generally argue for the opposite conclusion: that international human rights be construed as broadly as possible, both in terms of the substantive rights protected and to whom those rights should apply. Ignatieff argues that a minimalist conception of human rights is necessary for human rights to have maximum moral force and acceptance, and he adduces persuasive geopolitical evidence in support of his conclusions. Taken together, these essays advance a minimalist conception of human rights limited to those rights necessary to protect human "agency"; that is, those rights strictly necessary to protect a person's ability to make choices with dignity. In doing so, Ignatieff seeks to defend human rights from criticisms of Western cultural imperialism and lack of moral grounding, while demonstrating that human rights activists need not retreat into cultural relativism to make such a defense. Readers should understand that Ignatieff, despite taking human rights activists to task for certain inconsistencies, is attempting to support human rights by providing a consistent and principled theoretical basis for them. In short, Ignatieffs critique is best seen as a good-faith challenge intended to strengthen the international human rights movement, even if the reader does not agree with his ultimate conclusions.


The electricity power generation plays the important role of every business or industrial, since it must be supplied to cove with the full consumption on demand sites. To keep with constant operating point of electric power generation of thermal process, the maintenance is the most crucial technique for preserving the deterioration or damage of equipments. In this research the thermal power plant of Electric Generation Authority of Thailand (EGAT) is selected to develop the maintenance system. Historical maintenance data of each unit of thermal plant must be retrieved. The data are classified and identified in four levels such as units, systems, equipments, and component. The data is characterized to database manner by using SQLserver and Visual C# 2005 is used for implementing the user program interfacing. The criteria level applies the combination of Failure Mode Effect Analysis (FMEA) and AHP approaches to find the critical ranking priority of failure mode relating to three criteria such as maintenance cost, man per hour working, line priority. In summary of this research, we analyze and develop the software for maintenance priority and management for thermal power plant. The developed software can help the maintenance team for making decision in spare part management and it is friendly-user to pursuit the maintenance policy focused on critical maintaining equipments in overall systems


Background Medical students at our institution undertake high fidelity simulation training in their third year. As students, they spend most of their time on the periphery, but in the simulated clinical setting, they are often placed directly into the centre of their community of practice as the "lead clinician." Using the educational theory of legitimate peripheral participation (Lave and Wenger 1991), we investigated how our students interact with this new environment, and the impact on them of this new role. Methodology We undertook 2 focus groups with year 3 students (six students in each). Questions were derived from a thematic analysis on a series of reflective essays written by a previous cohort of third years about their experiences in the simulation. Data was audio recorded and interpreted using the lens of symbolic interactionism. Results The 6 themes elicited from the students' reflective essays were: the simulation lab environment; immersion in the scenario; teamwork; professionalism; stress; and communication. Students put a strong emphasis on roles and clear delegation of tasks providing them with a positive attitude towards the scenario. Students felt consistently that scenarios with a clear structure/leadership, were much more realistic. They reported feeling helpless when they did not have a role, and related this to leadership. The presence of a leader who designated roles felt more "real". Conclusion and recommendations When put into the centre of their community of practice, medical students need a leader and clear roles to avoid feeling stressed. This may be due to previous hospital experiences with clearly defined and hierarchical structures. Students may benefit from an explicit explanation of any change in role. We conclude that whilst peripheral participation has a role in medical education, students seem to assign more value to active, central participation in simulated clinical settings.


IZA DP No. 12214 MARCH 2019 Firms and Wage Inequality in Central and Eastern Europe* Recent studies show that firms are playing an increasingly important role in shaping wage inequality in advanced economies. We contribute to this literature by analysing wage inequality patterns and their firm dimension in Central and Eastern European countries. We use large, linked employer-employee datasets with data from the 2002-2014 period. We find that unlike in many other advanced economies, wage inequality levels have decreased in CEE countries, and particularly in those countries that previously had the highest wage inequality levels. The relative size of the between-firm component varied substantially across countries, and was largest in countries with the highest wage inequality levels. We further estimate the recentered influence function (RIF) regression and the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition in order to investigate the micro-level determinants of wage inequality. Our findings indicate that the changes in wage inequality levels were mainly attributable to returns to workplace characteristics. JEL Classification: D22, J31, J40


Causal networks are essential in many applications to illustrate causal relations in dynamical systems. In a view of statistics, Granger Causality (GC) gives a definition for causal ordering of time series, which implies a parametric model for stationary processes. In a systematic view, Dynamical Structure Function (DSF) is proposed to provide a general parametric representation for linear causal networks based on state space representations. It is difficult to determine which definition should be adopted for a particular application. By introducing an intermediate form of DSF, this article connects GC for stationary processes with DSF. Both GC and DSF essentially represent the same notion of causality but with important differences with respect to how they encode latent variables. This article also addresses the relations between graphs defined by GC and DSF. Furthermore, the uniqueness of parametric representations is addressed, which is essential in network inference. Results from different fields are surveyed and categorized into two categories - networks with exogeneity and networks without exogeneity. Limitations on sufficient conditions to guarantee exact identification are discussed under different assumptions on systems. In the end, a figure is used to summarize the relationships between various representations of causal dynamical networks and their identifiability conditions in LTI systems.


Permafrost soils act as large sinks of organic carbon but are highly sensitive to interference such as changes in land use, which can greatly influence dissolved carbon loads in streams. This study examines the effects of long-term land reclamation on seasonal concentrations of dissolved carbons in the upper reaches of the Nenjiang River, northeast China. A comparison of streams in natural and agricultural systems shows that the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration is much lower in the agricultural stream (AG) than in the two natural streams (WAF, wetland dominated; FR, forest dominated), suggesting that land use change is associated with reduced DOC exporting capacity. Moreover, the fluorescence indexes and the ratio of dissolved carbon to nitrogen also differ greatly between the natural and agricultural streams, indicating that the chemical characteristics and the origin of the DOC released from the whole reaches are also altered to some extent. Importantly, the exporting concentration of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and its proportion of total dissolved carbon (TDC) substantially increase following land reclamation, which would largely alter the carbon cycling processes in the downstream fluvial system. Although the strong association between the stream discharge and the DOC concentration was unchanged, the reduction in total soil organic carbon following land reclamation led to remarkable decline of the total flux and exporting coefficient of the dissolved carbons. The results suggest that dissolved carbons in permafrost streams have been greatly affected by changes in land use since the 1970s, and the changes in the concentration and chemical characteristics of dissolved carbons will last until the alteration in both the traditional agriculture pattern and the persistent reclamation activities.


The role of fibrinogen as a cofactor for platelet aggregation was examined by measuring the binding of 125I-labeled human fibrinogen to gel-filtered human platelets both before and after platelet stimulation by ADP and epinephrine. Platelet stimulation by ADP resulted in the rapid, reversible binding of fibrinogen to receptors on the platelet surface. Fibrinogen binding increased as the concentration of ADP was increased from 0.1 to 2 microM, reaching a plateau at higher ADP concentrations. Binding occurred only after platelet stimulation and in the presence of divalent cations. However, fibrinogen binding did not occur to ADP-stimulated platelets from three patients with Glanzmann's thrombasthenia. Analysis of fibrinogen binding as a function of increasing fibrinogen concentration demonstrated that maximal platelet stimulation exposed approximately or equal to 45,000 binding sites per platelet with a dissociation constant of 80--170 nM. These fibrinogen binding parameters were essentially the same whether ADP or epinephrine was the platelet-stimulating agent. Thus, these studies demonstrate that platelet stimulation by ADP and epinephrine exposes a limited number of fibrinogen receptors on the platelet surface. Furthermore, these data suggest that the fibrinogen molecules bound to the platelet as a consequence of platelet stimulation are directly involved in the platelet aggregation response.


Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) play a role in oxidative stress and VEGF regulation, which are closely related to age-related macular degeneration (AMD). PPAR γ expression and its downstream molecules were examined in fat-1 mice (transgenic mice that convert n-6 to n-3 fatty acids), Ccl2(-/-)/Cx3cr1(-/-) mice (an AMD model), ARPE19 cells (a human retinal pigment epithelial cell line, RPE, a cell type with a critical role in AMD), and human eyes with and without AMD. PPAR α, β, and γ, VEGF and receptors were determined by immunohistochemistry in the mice models, humans, and ARPE19 cells. Transcripts of PPARs, VEGF, MMP-9 and HO-1 were determined by RQ-PCR. PPARs were constitutively expressed in normal neuroretina and RPE of humans and mice. PPAR γ expression was increased in fat-1 and Ccl2(-/-)/Cx3cr1(-/-) mice. VEGF was decreased in fat-1 mice but increased in Ccl2(-/-)/Cx3cr1(-/-) mice. VEGF receptors were stable. VEGF, MMP9 and HO-1 transcript levels were increased in ARPE19 cells under H(2)O(2) - induced oxidative stress. Human AMD retinas exhibited higher PPAR γ. The findings of increased expression of PPAR γ and its downstream proteins (VEGF, MMP9, and HO-1) in H(2)O(2)-treated ARPE19 cells, Ccl2(-/-)/Cx3cr1(-/-) mice, and human AMD eyes, but decreased VEGF in fat-1 mice, suggest that PPAR γ may play a role in AMD.


Everyone who studies history would love to visit the past. Few of us would like to stay for long, I suspect – if unfamiliar viruses did not finish us off within days, the superstitious locals might – but a visit would be nice. The ability to do so would settle a multitude of questions: did Anne Boleyn have a double-nail on her pinkie? What lumbered across the road in front of the Spicers' car as they drove by Loch Ness in 1933? Did Lizzie Borden take an axe? Sadly, we can never know the answers. Lacking time machines, historical fiction – by necessity speculative and based on modern interpretations of human behaviour in previous generations – offers our best means of visualising the past and its people. Questions remain, however, about how close our interpretations can come to what we consider to be historical truth, if such a thing exists. As I have found, the gap between writing non-fiction history and historical fiction need not be as wide as I had once supposed.


Objective. To identify factors related to the health care spending of patients with laryngeal disorders. Study Design and Setting. Retrospective analysis of data from a large, nationally representative administrative US claims database. Subjects and Methods. Patients with a laryngeal disorder based on International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification codes from January 1, 2004, to December 31, 2008, and who were continuously enrolled for 12 months were included. Age, sex, comorbidity, geography, provider type, visit type, and type of laryngeal pathology were collected. To identify which factors were related to the direct costs, a generalized linear regression with gamma distribution was used. Results. Of almost 55 million individuals in the database, 309,300 patients with a laryngeal disorder and 12 months of follow-up data were identified (mean (SD) age, 47.3 (21.3) years; 63.5% female). Age, sex, geographic region, number of comorbid conditions, type of provider, visit type, and laryngeal pathology were significantly associated with the health care expenditures (all P values \.05). Costs increased with increas- ing age and were greater for male patients, higher in the South and Northeast compared with the West and North-central regions, greater in 2008 compared with 2004, higher for inpati- ent compared with outpatient care, higher with increasing number of comorbid conditions, and lower if a patient was treated by a primary care physician only. Among the various laryngeal pathologies, the greatest direct costs were for laryn- geal cancer and patients with multiple diagnoses. Conclusion. This study identified multiple factors associated with the health care expenditures of patients with laryngeal disorders.


It has been shown in many cases that a notable aerodynamic stability enhancement can be achieved using circumferential grooves on transonic compressors. This advantage, however, often involves degradation in efficiency at design point conditions. In order to analyze the correlations between efficiency, surge margin and other flow quantities on the one hand and the geometric parameters related to circumferential grooves on the other, an automated multi objective geometry optimization of circumferential grooves for a transonic compressor has been performed. For the surge point determination an iterative approach was used to change the static back pressure until the numerical surge limit was determined with a sufficiently small uncertainty. As a result of the optimization two different types of grooves have been identified. The first type is comparatively small and located only little downstream the leading edge of the rotor. It is capable of increasing the surge margin, while only slightly decreasing efficiency. The second groove type is located more towards the trailing edge and significantly bigger in cross sectional size. It can improve the efficiency of the rotor, but at the same time blockage is generated. Combining the two groove types, also the effects combine, resulting in an increased surge margin and increased efficiency. Applying more than one groove of type one further increases the surge margin compared to a single groove, however the gain is limited. Important groove parameters of optimized grooves are further studied, regarding their sensitivity. The working principles and flow phenomena of the grooves increasing the surge margin are analyzed in detail.


Anti-inflammatory modalities are commonly used for the treatment of various musculoskeletal injuries. Although inflammation was originally believed to interfere with skeletal muscle regeneration, several recent studies have highlighted the beneficial effects of inflammatory cells on muscle healing. This discrepancy is attributable to an evolving understanding of the complex inflammatory process. To better appreciate the paradoxical roles of inflammation, clinicians must have a better comprehension of the fundamental mechanisms regulating the inflammatory response. In this perspective article, cellular, animal, and human studies were analyzed to summarize recent knowledge regarding the impact of inflammation on muscle regeneration in acute or chronic conditions. The effect of anti-inflammatory drugs on the treatment of various muscle injuries was also considered. Overall, this work aims to summarize the current state of the literature on the inflammatory process associated with muscle healing in order to give clinicians the necessary tools to have a more efficient and evidence-based approach to the treatment of muscle injuries and disorders.


The authors report on 125 patients who underwent endoscopic third ventriculostomy for obstructive hydrocephalus in three Italian Neurosurgical Centers. The series includes 77 cases of primary aqueductal stenosis, 33 with triventricular hydrocephalus due to external tumor compression, and 15 with tetraventricular hydrocephalus. The operations were carried out mainly under general anesthesia, using a flexible endoscope. Decrease of size of the third ventricle and the presence of a signal void at the level of the fenestration are the main postoperative MRI findings. Signs of intracranial hypertension, increased head circumference and Parinaud syndrome respond more frequently to the endoscopic treatment. The overall rate of good results (shunt-independent patients) in this series is 86.4%; primary aqueductal stenosis (93.5%) and triventricular hydrocephalus due to external compression (84.8%) are associated to the higher rate of good postoperative results than tetraventricular hydrocephalus (53.3%). Because of the very low invasivity of this technique, the absence of postoperative mortality and the scarce and usually transient postoperative complications, the authors advise to enlarge the indications for endoscopic third ventriculostomy to all patients with obstructive hydrocephalus when the third ventricle is large enough and there are no alterations of the CSF resorption.


PURPOSE The effects of four different self-adhesive resin cement materials on cell viability and apoptosis after direct and indirect exposure were evaluated using different cell culture techniques. MATERIALS AND METHODS Self-adhesive cements were applied to NIH/3T3 mouse fibroblasts by the extract test method, cell culture inserts, and dentin barrier test method. After exposure periods of 24 h and 72 h, the cytotoxicity of these self-adhesive materials was evaluated using the MTT assay (viability) and the Annexin-V-FITC/PI staining (apoptosis). RESULTS The lowest cell viability was found in cells exposed to BeautiCem SA for 24 h in the extract test method. Cell viability was reduced to 70.6% compared to negative controls. After the 72 h exposure period, viability rate of cell cultures exposed to BeautiCem SA decreased more than 2- fold (29.5%) while cells exposed to RelyX U200 showed the highest viability rate of 71.4%. In the dentin barrier test method, BeautiCem SA induced the highest number of cells in apoptosis after a 24 h exposure (4.1%). Panavia SA Cement Plus was the material that caused the lowest number of cells in apoptosis (1.5%). CONCLUSION The used self-adhesive cements have showed different cytotoxic effects based on the evaluation method. As exposure time increased, the materials showed more cytotoxic and apoptotic effects. BeautiCem SA caused significantly more severe cytotoxic and apoptotic effects than other cements tested. Moreover, cements other than BeautiCem SA have caused necrotic cell death rather than apoptotic cell death.


This paper studies the two-hop transmission relying unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) relays which is suitable to implement in the internet of things (IoT) systems. To enhance system performance in order to overcome the large scale fading between the base station (BS) and destination as well as achieve the higher spectrum efficiency, where non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) strategies were typically applied for UAV relays to implement massive connections transmission. In particular, outage probability is evaluated via signal to noise ratio (SNR) criterion so that the terminal node can obtain reasonable performance. The derivations and analysis results showed that the considered fixed power allocation scheme provides performance gap among two signals at destination.The numerical simulation confirmed the exactness of derived expressions in the UAV assisted system.