Optometry has not traditionally emphasized basic science research. With the increasing responsibilities taken on for the health care of our patients, it is essential that optometry develop its own scientific base of knowledge on which to rely. The need for good scientific investigators, the need for support for basic science research, as well as the importance of long-range planning for basic science research in optometry are discussed.


The presence or absence of fucose, galactose, rhamnose, and xylose as well as the ratio of glucose to mannose after hydrolysis of purified yeast cell walls are valuable characters to assign yeasts or yeast states of Ascomycetes and Basidiomycetes phylogenetically. The coupling of pellicular anion-exchange resins (Dionex CarboPac PA-1) with pulsed amperometric detection provides a simple, quick, selective, and sensitive method for the analysis of yeast cell wall carbohydrates. Phragmobasidial smut fungi of monocotyledonous (Ustilago s. str., Sporisorium) and dicotyledonous (Microbotryum, Sphacelotheca) host plants cluster in two different, phylogenetically distinct yeast types, the Microbotryum type and the Ustilago type. In contrast, all smut fungi with simple holobasidia (Entyloma, Melanotaenium) from monocots and dicots investigated so far, exhibit a cell wall carbohydrate spectrum characteristic for the Ustilago type. Ustilentyloma fluitans, although a phragmobasidial smut fungus on grasses, whose smut spores and parasitic symptoms resemble Entyloma species, display the neutral sugar pattern of the Microbotryum type. The close phylogenetic relationship between the Graphiolales, Ustilaginales s. str. (phragmobasidial smuts of monocots), and Exobasidiales was substantiated further by additional strains. The presence of xylose and balanced amounts of glucose and mannose is characteristic for yeast states of the Dacrymycetaceae. The production of extracellular amyloid compounds (EAC) as well as the cell wall carbohydrate pattern point to a Tremella type affinity of Atractogloea stillata, Itersonilia perplexans, and Sterigmatosporidium polvmorphum. A meiosporangial evolution starting from coccal yeast basidia (Sterigmatosporidium) via transversely (auricularioid) septate (Atractogloea) to longitudinally divided phragmobasidia (Tremella) and simple holobasidia (Cystofilobasidium) was substantiated further within the Tremella type. The complex holobasidia (Collybia) of the Homobasidiomycetes evolved polyphyletically from longitudinally septate phragmobasidia via partially divided holobasidia (Carcinoryces). On the basis of the cell wall carbohydrate composition of approximately 250 yeasts and yeast stages of Ascomycetes and Basidiomycetes, seven distinct yeast types are described and interpreted phylogenetically.


Twenty seven 2 to 3 month old Wister albino male rats were used to determine the serum lipids of rats fed ration containing boiled egg yolk (BEY), cooked beef burger (CBB) and alfalfa leaf meal (ALM). The treatments were T 1 basal diet as control (mixture of wheat bran, corn, maize oil, premix, calcium bicarbonate and salt), T 2 basal diet supplemented with 15g BEY + 45g CBB daily and T 3 basal diet supplemented with 15g BEY + 45g CBB + 5g alfalfa leaf meal daily. The experiment was arranged in a completely randomized design (CRD) with 3 treatments each replicated three times with 3 rats per replicate, and the experiment lasted for six weeks. Blood samples were collected for determined serum cholesterol, triglyceride, low density lipoprotein (LDL) and high density lipoprotein (HDL). The result showed that feeding lipids source (T 2 = egg yolk and beef burger) caused a significant increased (P < 0.01) serum cholesterol, triglyceride, low density lipoprotein and high density lipoprotein of rats than control diet (T 1 ). Feeding alfalfa leaf meal (T 3 ) significantly (P < 0.01) decreased serum cholesterol, triglyceride and low density lipoprotein. Moreover, alfalfa leaf meal (T 3 ) significantly (P < 0.01) increased serum high density lipoprotein of rats.


Recently, the total number of distributed generation such as photovoltaic generation systems and wind turbine generation systems connected to a distribution network has drastically increased. Distributed generation using renewable energy can reduce the distribution loss and emission of CO2. However, the distribution network with the distributed generators must be operated while maintaining the reliability of the power supply and power quality. In this paper, the authors propose a computational method to determine the maximum output of a distributed generator under operational constraints [(1) voltage limit, (2) line current capacity, and (3) no reverse flow to bank] at arbitrary connection points and hourly periods. In the proposed method, a three‐phase iterative load flow calculation is applied to evaluate the above operational constraints. The three‐phase iterative load flow calculation has two simple procedures: (Procedure 1) addition of load currents from the terminal node of the feeder to root one, and (Procedure 2) subtraction of voltage drop from the root node of the feeder to terminal one. In order to check the validity of the proposed method, numerical simulations are performed for a distribution system model. Furthermore, the characteristics of locational and hourly maximum output of a distributed generator connected to a distribution feeder are analyzed using several numerical examples. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 167(2): 38–47, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/eej.20610


The c-type cytochromes are defined by the occurrence of heme covalently linked to the polypeptide via thioether bonds between heme and the cysteine sulfhydryls in the CXXCH motif of apocytochrome. Maintenance of apocytochrome sulfhydryls in a reduced state is a prerequisite for covalent ligation of heme to the CXXCH motif. In bacteria, a thiol disulfide transporter and a thioredoxin are two components in a thio-reduction pathway involved in c-type cytochrome assembly. We have identified in photosynthetic eukaryotes nucleus-encoded homologs of a prokaryotic thiol disulfide transporter, CcdA, which all display an N-terminal extension with respect to their bacterial counterparts. The extension of Arabidopsis CCDA functions as a targeting sequence, suggesting a plastid site of action for CCDA in eukaryotes. Using PhoA and LacZ as topological reporters, we established that Arabidopsis CCDA is a polytopic protein with within-membrane strictly conserved cysteine residues. Insertional mutants in the Arabidopsis CCDA gene were identified, and loss-of-function alleles were shown to impair photosynthesis because of a defect in cytochrome b6f accumulation, which we attribute to a block in the maturation of holocytochrome f, whose heme binding domain resides in the thylakoid lumen. We postulate that plastid cytochrome c maturation requires CCDA, thioredoxin HCF164, and other molecules in a membrane-associated trans-thylakoid thiol-reducing pathway.


ABSTRACT There is increasing interest among social and behavioral scientists in brief measures of attitudes and personality traits. Based on factor analysis and using an existing data set (n = 400 adults), we constructed a 5- and a 10-item version of the widely used animal attitude Scale (AAS). Both versions were highly correlated with the original 20-item AAS (rs > 0.95, p < 0.001), and both versions demonstrated acceptable reliability and validity. The AAS-5 and the AAS-10 have excellent psychometric properties and offer alternatives for researchers who need convenient and short measures of attitudes related to animal welfare.


: Drugs associated with elderly individuals seen in the Emergency Department must be understood both as causal or etiologic agents of certain common presentations and as therapeutic tools. Special problems of the elderly include their increased frequency and altered patterns of drug use as compared with younger persons. They are predisposed to problems with certain drugs because of altered hepatic blood flow, renal clearance, body composition, sensitivities, and compliance that result from age. Most important, the practitioner is now provided with a set of resources, including lists of common presentations in the Emergency Department and specific drugs that must be considered to be potential etiologic or causative agents for that presentation. In addition, therapeutic agents for both physicians and elderly patients are presented in catechism.


The conventional magnitude scale M suffers saturation when the rupture dimension of the earthquake exceeds the wavelength of the seismic waves used for the magnitude determination (usually 5–50 km). This saturation leads to an inaccurate estimate of energy released in great earthquakes. To circumvent this problem the strain energy drop W (difference in strain energy before and after an earthquake) in great earthquakes is estimated from the seismic moment M_0. If the stress drop Δσ is complete, W = W_0 = (Δσ/2μ)M_0 ∼ M_0/(2×10^4), where μ is the rigidity; if it is partial, W_0 gives the minimum estimate of the strain energy drop. Furthermore, if Orowan's condition, i.e., that frictional stress equal final stress, is met, W_0 represents the seismic wave energy. A new magnitude scale M_w is defined in terms of W_0 through the standard energy-magnitude relation log W_0 = 1.5M_w + 11.8. M_w is as large as 9.5 for the 1960 Chilean earthquake and connects smoothly to M_s (surface wave magnitude) for earthquakes with a rupture dimension of about 100 km or less. The M_w scale does not suffer saturation and is a more adequate magnitude scale for great earthquakes. The seismic energy release curve defined by W_0 is entirely different from that previously estimated from Ms. During the 15-year period from 1950 to 1965 the annual average of W_0 is more than 1 order of magnitude larger than that during the periods from 1920 to 1950 and from 1965 to 1976. The temporal variation of the amplitude of the Chandler wobble correlates very well with the variation of W_0, with a slight indication of the former preceding the latter. In contrast, the number N of moderate to large earthquakes increased very sharply as the Chandler wobble amplitude increased but decreased very sharply during the period from 1945 to 1965, when W_0 was largest. One possible explanation for these correlations is that the increase in the wobble amplitude triggers worldwide seismic activity and accelerates plate motion which eventually leads to great decoupling earthquakes. This decoupling causes the decline of moderate to large earthquake activity. Changes in the rotation rate of the earth may be an important element in this mechanism.


Summary When chick embryo cells were infected with fowl plague virus, the rate of protein synthesis fell to 30 to 40% of controls by 8 hr after infection. This effect was prevented by ultraviolet irradiation of the virus, but more slowly than the capacity to produce infectious virus. The inhibition of protein synthesis was not delayed by incubation of the cells with 1 µg./ml. of puromycin for 5 hr, but addition of 50 µg./ml. of puromycin or cycloheximide delayed development of the inhibitory effect. No inhibition developed in cells which had been incubated with partially purified interferon before infection. Addition of p-fluorophenylalanine did not affect the development of the inhibition, which was also unaffected by addition of actinomycin or by ultraviolet irradiation of the cells. The effect was thought to depend upon the synthesis of a virus-directed protein using the RNA of the infecting virus.


Hometown of Oversea-Chinese is a special phenomenon in the history of Chinese near-modern development, mainly in the east and south coast of China. At the beginning of last century, a large number of coastal residents moved overseas for living. After decades of efforts, they invested back hometown to build houses. These residence layouts consist both local traditional culture and foreign features, forming a special landscape. In recent years, economic globalization has promoted rapid urbanization, which leads massive population flowing from rural to urban areas. Cities eroded the countryside field and evacuated the rural labor force, leading to a large number of abandoned deteriorated urban villages, including the hometown of Oversea-Chinese. This paper focuses on the regeneration of urban villages in hometown of Oversea-Chinese. With the influence of global industrialization and rapid urbanization in recent decades in China, a large number of Oversea-Chinese residence groups have become empty and decayed urban villages gradually. However, they are different from urban villages in other parts of China, as they have unique cultural features and historical value, therefore research on the regeneration of this type of urban villages not only contribute to local economic development but also is closely related to the hot topic of how to maintain cultural differences under the process of globalization. We surveyed their formation process, historical and cultural characteristics and put forward some strategies of regeneration from the three aspects of society, economy and environment: explore history culture to strengthen the bond with Oversea-Chinese, develop cultural and creative industries and appropriate tourism to promote economic activities and improve the environment by government-led planning.


Collaboration between academic literacies (AcLits) specialists and subject specialists is still a significant issue in student support because AcLits practitioners now need to negotiate the advantages of both stand-alone and embedded courses. This paper focuses on some challenges of one such a collaboration between the provider of AcLits courses (the Language Centre) and the Department of Chemistry and Polymer Science at an institution of higher education. The t heory of f raming (as in Scheufele, 2013) is used to explain some of the frustration experienced during this collaboration. The study also draws on New Literacies Studies in suggesting that student autonomy in constructing knowledge is negated when focus is placed on academic skills that students lack instead of the contribution students can make towards their own learning. Where previous AcLits collaborations have sometimes used the deficit model (Smit, 2012) to measure the impact of interventions, this study attempts to show that the collaboration itself aids deep learning. However, some challenges have to be overcome, of which an important one is the measurement of impact when the deficit model is not used. Whereas ATLAS. ti has often been used to analyse data sets , this investigation opts for open coding to explicate the frames relevant to this kind of collaboration. Analysis of the findings shows that students perceived this collaboration as a valuable learning experience despite all the challenges experienced. The paper concludes by suggesting that identification, explication and management of the challenges of collaboration thus proved well worth the effort.


BACKGROUND
Incompatible Insect Technique (IIT) is a population suppression approach based on the release of males with manipulated Wolbachia infection inducing egg inviability in wild females. We here present results of multiple field releases of incompatible ARwP males carried out in 2019 in a 2.7-ha green area within urban Rome (Italy) to assess the effect on Ae. albopictus egg viability. Data are compared with results obtained in 2018, when the approach was tested for the first time in Europe.

RESULTS
An average of 4,674 ARwP males were released weekly for 7 weeks, resulting in a mean ARwP/wild male ratio of 1.1:1 (versus 0.7:1 in 2018). Egg-viability dynamics in ovitraps significantly varied between Treated and Control Sites, with an estimated overall reduction of 35% (versus 15% in 2018). The estimated proportion of females classified as mated with ARwP males was 41.8% and the viability rate of eggs laid by these females (9.5%) was on average significantly lower than that of females only mated with wild males (87.8%); however, high variability in fertility was observed. Values of ARwP male competitiveness were 0.36 and 0.73 based on the overall viability rate of eggs in ovitraps and on female fertility, respectively, i.e. well above the conventional 0.2 threshold for an effective suppressive impact in the field.

CONCLUSIONS
Results further support the potential of IIT as a tool to contribute to Ae. albopictus control in the urban context, stressing the need of larger field trials to evaluate the cost-efficacy of the approach in temperate regions.


Abstract Retaining a child at grade level has become increasingly popular, consistent with the emphasis on accountability and standards in elementary education. This article provides a comprehensive review of the research examining the academic and socioemotional outcomes associated with grade retention. Following a brief historical overview of previously published literature reviews, a summary of studies published between 1990 and 1999 is provided. A systematic review and meta-analysis of 20 recent studies includes: outcome variables (i.e., achievement and socioemotional adjustment), age or grade of retained population, matched or controlled for variables in analyses with comparison groups, and the overall conclusion regarding the efficacy of grade retention. Results of recent studies and this meta-analysis are consistent with past literature reviews from the 1970s and 1980s. In addition to a summary of the results, the discussion addresses the disparity between educational practice and converging research regarding grade retention and suggests directions for practice. This review encourages researchers, educational professionals, and legislators to abandon the debate regarding social promotion and grade retention in favor of a more productive course of action in the new millennium.


Advertisement can be a source of information for the viewers to understand and appreciate the product being marketed. Same goes to advertisement of medicine and medicinal products. Consumers may gain some knowledge through advertisement and making them able to make inform decisions in purchasing medicine for the treatment of their illnesses or in maintaining their general health. However, to achieve this objective, advertiser must also be a responsible party. A truthful, fair, ethical, accurate and balance information and claims in an advertisement will definitely benefits the viewers and consumers. In ensuring this system works well, a proper and extensive controls is needed. Whether through legal frameworks or effective administrative measures, this aim could only be achieved if it is done in proper manner and efficiently. The current legal frameworks in Malaysia may have some flaws and shortcomings. This research intends to explore these issues. With that findings, further recommendations could be made for the regulators and legislators to deliberate about. In doing so, there is nothing wrong for us to look around on what other countries are doing and how does they manage medicine advertisement in their country. Australia being a well-developed nation and inheriting the same common law system like in Malaysia, is chosen in this study. Australia's law on medicine advertising is explored and understood. In the end, this study will bring forward certain issues that require quick corrections while at the same time suggesting some applicable measures or concept done by Australia to be applied locally, either in term of legal frameworks or non-legal approaches of medicine advertisement control. Ultimately, the whole purpose of this study and the control of medicine advertisement in general, is for the benefits of the public health which in turn, would give impact to the nation as a whole, either economically or in their social behavior.


Field data are used to illustrate that, other things constant, regression results using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) converge to Tobit estimates as the number of zeros in the regressand decrease. Tobit estimates are theoretically superior to OLS estimates when using censored data. However, if little difference exists between OLS and Tobit estimates, OLS may be operationally acceptable. OLS may even be optimal in a bounded rationality sense because the extra cost of using Tobit analysis may be less than the extra benefits from a very slight increase in accuracy.


Conductive adhesives are composites of polymer matrixes and metal fillers (conductive elements). Silver (Ag) flakes are widely used as fillers for electrically conductive adhesives (ECAs). Generally, there is a thin layer of organic lubricant coated on the commercial Ag flake surface. This lubricant layer is needed for eliminating the Ag particle agglomeration while dispersing the Ag filler into the polymeric resin. Therefore the lubricant influences rheology, conductivity, and other properties of ECA's. The nature of the lubricant on a Ag flake and the interaction between the lubricant and the Ag flake surface were studied by diffuse reflectance infrared spectroscopy (DRIR). Thermal decomposition of the lubricant was studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). In addition, the effects of some chemical compounds on lubricant removal and the enhancement of conductivity of the ECA were also investigated. It was found that 1) a chemical bonding was formed on the Ag flake surface between the lubricant and Ag; 2) the short chain acids replaced the long chain lubricants; 3) an ether and a poly(ethylene glycol) enhanced electrical conductivity by partially removing the Ag flake lubricants.


Abstract High-performance coatings are currently used in automotive racing engine applications and are being considered for commercial fleet applications. Because crankcase lubricants were designed for steel surfaces, the change to these new materials may result in different boundary lubrication mechanisms. The aim of the present study is to investigate the friction and wear properties of a series of commercial coatings using simple component-blend lubricants as well as commercial lubricant formulations. The tribological testing revealed that some of the commercial coatings possess advantageous friction and wear properties when compared with steel. The study also stresses that in many cases the use of these coatings results in increasing wear on the steel counterpart.


Purpose: Practice-based research networks (PBRNs) provide an important approach to implementing primary care research at the community level, thus increasing the relevance and utility of research findings for routine primary care practices. PBRNs expend considerable time and energy in the recruitment, engagement, and retention of network clinicians and practices to establish this community-based primary care research laboratory. This study assessed factors motivating PBRN clinicians to participate and stay involved in practice-based research in their primary care office setting. Methods: We invited practicing clinicians across the United States who are affiliated with a PBRN to share their stories regarding motivations to participate in practice-based research. Using qualitative methods, we categorized the stories into the main motivation for participation and the perceived impact of participation. Results: We collected 37 stories from clinicians affiliated with 12 PBRNS located in 14 states. Motivations for participation in practice-based research included themes associated with personal satisfaction, improving local clinic-based care, and contributing to community- and system-level improvements. Sources of personal satisfaction corresponded to the 3 psychological needs postulated by Deci's and Ryan's Self-Determination Theory: competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Conclusions: These stories from PBRN clinicians describe the values, motivations, and unique paths that clinicians took as they chose to participate and stay active in a PBRN. Their voices have the potential to influence others to participate in practice-based research.


Aim: Sex chromosome aneuploidies (SCA) are the most common chromosome aberrations in humans, their clinical recognition at birth is challenging and so underdiagnosed. We describe the clinical features of patients detected by newborn screening for SCA, to provide new findings that help clinicians suspect these disorders. Subjects and Methods: This is a transverse descriptive study of infants identified through a newborn screening pilot study for SCA in two Mexican public hospitals in Monterrey, N.L., and referred to Genetics Department for karyotyping. Seventeen patients with a diagnosed SCA were examined by a clinical geneticist. Results: Triple X Syndrome patients (3) had epicanthus and low nasal root in 100%, pre-auricular pits or tags, dysmorphic earlobes and hyper-pigmented macules in 66%. Four out of the five patients with Turner Syndrome presented mosaicism and the most frequent features were pigmented skin defects (80%), telecanthus and/or epicanthus (60%) congenital heart defects, hands or feet edema, posterior low hairline and high palate (40%). Klinefelter Syndrome patients (5), showed telecanthus or epicanthus (60%); and in 40% bilateral fifth finger clinodactyly or hypospadias was found. All patients with XYY Syndrome (4) had hypertelorism and 75% micropenis. Conclusions: Patients with SCA showed traits that most of the time are unnoticed or identified as normal variants. In this study we found that minor traits, such as the micropenis, which had not previously been reported as part of the XYY syndrome could underlie a sex chromosome anomaly, this grants particular importance to a detailed examination of newborns by health personnel.


Suggested is a cosmetic composition comprising an anti-pollution agent selected from the group consisting of sclareolide, ginger root C02 extract, E/Z-2-benzylindene-5,6-dimethoxy- 3,3-dimethylindan-1-one, purple coneflower pressed juice or mixtures thereof, in a working amount sufficient for (a) reducing or preventing air pollution induced gene expression, and/or (b) reducing or preventing a geneexpression induced or inducible by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and/or (c) reducing or preventing air pollution-induced or air pollution-inducible skin damage.


Background Perturbations in abdominal fat secreted adipokines play a key role in metabolic syndrome. This process is further altered during the aging process, probably due to alterations in the preadipocytes (aka. stromal vascular fraction cells-SVF cells or adipose derived stem cells-ASCs) composition and/or function. Since microRNAs regulate genes involved both in development and aging processes, we hypothesized that the impaired adipose function with aging is due to altered microRNA regulation of adipogenic pathways in SVF cells. Methodology and Principal Findings Alterations in mRNA and proteins associated with adipogenic differentiation (ERK5 and PPARg) but not osteogenic (RUNX2) pathways were observed in SVF cells isolated from visceral adipose tissue with aging (6 to 30 mo) in female Fischer 344 x Brown Norway Hybrid (FBN) rats. The impaired differentiation capacity with aging correlated with altered levels of miRNAs involved in adipocyte differentiation (miRNA-143) and osteogenic pathways (miRNA-204). Gain and loss of function studies using premir or antagomir-143 validated the age associated adipocyte dysfunction. Conclusions and Significance Our studies for the first time indicate a role for miRNA mediated regulation of SVF cells with aging. This discovery is important in the light of the findings that dysfunctional adipose derived stem cells contribute to age related chronic diseases.


Deserts are one of the most important dust sources in the world. Because dust content changes as a function of height at low levels in the atmosphere, this affects long‐term dust transport. In this paper, field data measured above shifting sands in the south‐eastern Tengger Desert were used to analyse the vertical distribution of sediment fluxes in the near‐surface layer (0 to 48 m). It was possible to express horizontal sediment flux as a power function, but aeolian deposition as a function of height could be expressed as an exponential function. There are two curve types for the particle size distributions in the horizontal sediment flux and aeolian deposition: bimodal and unimodal curves. For the horizontal sediment flux and aeolian deposition, heights of 24 m and 32 m, respectively, were the key heights in the size distribution curve; below these heights, the curve was bimodal, whereas above these heights, it was unimodal. At heights of 4 to 16 m, and especially between 8 m and 12 m, the data were particularly interesting because the sediment size, transport mode, degree of sorting, and the skewness and kurtosis change. For the horizontal sediment flux, wind turbulence moved saltating particles higher than expected.


Plant-plant interactions during seedling establishment can markedly affect the composition of pasture communities. This research examined the emergence, mortality, and early growth of four forage species commonly found in temperate northeastern U.S. pastures. Species were selected based on functional group (grass vs. legume) and relative drought tolerance. Drought-tolerant species included 'Penlate' orchardgrass (Daclylis glomerata L.) and 'Viking' birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus L.), while drought-sensitive species included 'Basion' perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) and 'Will' white clover (Trifolium repens L.). Seeds were sown as monocultures, as grass-legume binary mixtures, and as a complex, four-species mixture. Mixture complexity had only minor effects on seedling emergence. However, legume mortality was significantly reduced in the complex compared with other mixtures in a year when high temperature and drought stress limited seedling establishment. In most cases there was a negative effect of neighbors on survival as evidenced by reduced clustering of surviving compared with emerged seedlings and by a negative relationship between mortality rate and distance to the nearest neighbor. However, in a drought year, perennial ryegrass mortality decreased as distance to the nearest neighbor decreased, suggesting that survival was facilitated by the presence of neighbors. Although mixture complexity had significant effects on seedling emergence and mortality, species composition in the binary and complex mixtures could be predicted based on emergence and survival of monocultures. It appears that seedling emergence information gleaned from monocultures can be a useful tool for predicting initial species composition of more complex mixtures.


This paper develops a model-based framework for the quantification and propagation of multiple uncertainty sources affecting the performance of a smart system. A smart system, in general, performs sensing, control and actuation for proper functioning of a physical subsystem (also referred to as a plant). With strong feedback coupling between several subsystems, the uncertainty in the quantities of interest (QoI) amplifies over time. The coupling in a generic smart system occurs at two levels: (1) coupling between individual subsystems (plant, cyber, actuation, sensors), and (2) coupling between nodes in a distributed computational subsystem. In this paper, a coupled smart system is decoupled and considered as a feed-forward system over time and modeled using a two-level Dynamic Bayesian Network (DBN), one at each level of coupling (between subsystems and between nodes). A DBN can aggregate uncertainty from multiple sources within a time step and across time steps. The DBN associated with a smart system can be learned using available system models, physics models and data. The proposed methodology is demonstrated for the design of a smart indoor heating system (identification of sensors and a wireless network) within cost constraints that enables room-by-room temperature control. We observe that sensor uncertainty has a higher impact on the performance of the heating system compared to the uncertainty in the wireless network.


This paper presents a new method for exemplar-based image inpainting using transformed patches. We build upon a recent affine invariant self-similarity measure which automatically transforms patches to compare them in an appropriate manner. As a consequence, it intrinsically extends the set of available source patches to copy information from. When comparing two patches, instead of searching for the appropriate patch transformation in a highly dimensional parameter space, our approach allows us to determine a single transformation from the texture content in both patches. We incorporate the affine invariant similarity measure in a variational formulation for inpainting and present an algorithm together with experimental results illustrating this approach.


The aim of this study was molecular characterization of primary
tumors of colon and rectum using modern and progressive
analysis based on expression profiles of 667 microRNAs by
quantitative real-time PCR arrays. We analyzed expression
profiles of 20 patients without lymph node positivity and 25
patients with lymph node positivity to identify miRNA
differentially expressed between these two groups that would
alow us to diagnose presence of lymph nodes metastases directly
from the primary tumor.


We performed right ventricular endomyocardial biopsies in 23 patients with dilated cardiomyopathy aged 45 +/- 14 years. All patients had congestive heart failure of unknown etiology dating up to one year before the procedure (57% less than 3 months). NYHA functional class was II in 5, III in 12 and IV in 6 patients. All patients had evidence of systolic dysfunction and a dilated left ventricle (LV diastolic dimension 68 +/- 11 and systolic dimension 55 +/- 11). Definite evidence of myocarditis, based on findings of inflammatory infiltrate and cellular damage, was found in 6 patients (26%), borderline myocarditis in 9 and abnormalities consistent with dilated cardiomyopathy in 8. The incidence of myocarditis here reported is lower than previously figures based on findings of more than 5 lymphocytes per high power field. In this series, clinical and functional aspects of heart failure did not differ in patients with or without evidence of myocarditis.


Introduction This article deals with a particular aspect of the migration experience of two groups of voluntary Croatian migrants in the Perth metropolitan area. Croatians form one of the largest ethnic communities in Australia (Kipp et al. 1995; Collins 1991), but are under-represented in Australian migration studies. One of the reasons for this is that they have usually been included in the category of either `Yugoslavs' -- since Croatia was a part of federal Yugoslavia until 1991 -- or the even larger category of `Southern Europeans'. Croatians have accounted for the majority of postwar `Yugoslav' immigration (Community Profiles -- Yugoslavia Born 1990; Nejasmic 1990). The first group of Croatians dealt with in this paper is part of the late 1960s/early 1970s wave -- the largest to have ever reached Australia. The second is part of the 1980s/early 1990s wave of Croatian immigration. What is nowadays perceived to be the Croatian community in Western Australia is still dominated by the 1960s wave, which has been described as a `typical working class community' (Jupp 1988, 1991; Evans 1984; Johnston 1979). A large proportion of Croatians -- according to some accounts up to 95 per cent -- who migrated to WA in the 1960s came from the coastal region of Croatia.(1) Most of them are Dalmatians from the coast, islands or immediate hinterland, which were emigration areas for more than a century (Holjevac 1967; Nejasmic 1995). People who migrated to Australia in the 1960s predominantly came from villages and small towns, with limited education and usually no English upon arrival. They took low-status manual jobs, representing therefore the `factory fodder' of the Australian post-war industrial boom (Evans 1984; Collins 1988). The main Croatian `push' factor for this wave of migrants was the unsuccessful attempt at market reform in 1965. This slowed down the previously extensive movement of rural population into cities, created unemployment (Demographic and Economic Aspects 1968) and redirected a part of the rural overpopulation abroad. The more recent wave reached its peak in the late 1980s. At that time Australia did not need to import manual labour any more and immigration policies had changed in favour of skilled migrants (Madden and Young 1992; Collins 1991). At the same time, Croatia had much more skilled labour to offer (Meznaric 1991). The Croatian `education boom' during the 1970s created a surplus of professionals who could not fulfil their social aspirations in their native country, the economy of which had been sinking into a deep recession during the 1980s. The dramatic fall in the standard of living, coupled with the serious political tension in the late 1980s, and the war that started in 1991, resulted in a considerable number of professional people leaving the country; a portion of them migrated to Australia. Most came from Croatian cities and spoke rather good English on arrival. In the context of contemporary migration flows, this urban migrant group joined the ranks of the highly mobile `global professional middle class' (Stubbs 1996). In the case of Croatian migrants to Western Australia, Australia's highly selective immigration policy resulted in the majority of them being engineers or from other technical professions. On arrival, most found jobs in their professions and established themselves as `middle class' Australians. In this paper, I show the influence of class on the construction of `diasporic' national identity of the two groups of Croatian migrants in Western Australia by comparing and contrasting the two waves of migrants who, due to specific Croatian as well as Australian circumstances, come from very diverse pre-migratory backgrounds. In connection with the issue of national identity, I also ask whether such different groups are likely or willing to form a single ethnic community in any sociologically meaningful way and whether it is justifiable to consider them as such. …


Abstract. The Amundsen Sea Low (ASL) plays a major role in the climate and environment
of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, including surface air temperature and
sea ice concentration changes. Unfortunately, a relative dearth of
observational data across the Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas prior to the
satellite era (post-1979) limits our understanding of the past behaviour and
impact of the ASL. The limited proxy evidence for changes in the ASL are
primarily restricted to the Antarctic where ice core evidence suggests a
deepening of the atmospheric pressure system during the late Holocene.
However, no data have previously been reported from the northern side of the
ASL. Here we report a high-resolution, multi-proxy study of a 5000-year-long
peat record from the Falkland Islands, a location sensitive to contemporary
ASL dynamics which modulates northerly and westerly airflow across the
southwestern South Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean. In combination with
climate reanalysis, we find a marked period of wetter, colder conditions most
likely the result of enhanced southerly airflow between 5000 and 2500 years
ago, suggesting limited ASL influence over the region. After 2500 years ago,
drier and warmer conditions were established, implying more westerly airflow
and the increased projection of the ASL onto the South Atlantic. The possible
role of the equatorial Pacific via atmospheric teleconnections in driving
this change is discussed. Our results are in agreement with Antarctic ice
core records and fjord sediments from the southern South American coast, and
suggest that the Falkland Islands provide a valuable location for reconstructing
high southern latitude atmospheric circulation changes on multi-decadal to
millennial timescales.


This research-in-process study aimed to explore the factors affecting users' satisfaction and continuance intention of micro-blogging service. Based upon summarization of the features of microblogging service and literature review on interactivity, we proposed the conceptual research model. This study proposed that user satisfaction toward micro-blogging service was positively affected by perceived interactivity, which contained five dimensions: interoperability and ease of use in terms of user-system interaction characteristic, telepresence, intimacy and enjoyment in terms of user-user interaction characteristics. Users' satisfaction and personal innovativeness further positively related to continuance intention of micro-blogging service, which was negatively affected by users' privacy concern. The study then described the selection of scales used to measure these variables and the pilot study to ensure the reliability and validity of the final scale. Though pilot study results implied that most constructs retained high internal consistency, more revisions should be done to the final questionnaire. The expected contributions of this study were discussed at the end of the study.


High-quality bismuth modified zinc oxide ceramics were obtained by conventional ceramic method. The phase analysis revealed pure hexagonal ZnO phase in all the samples. High relative density (above 95%), when compared with theoretical density of ZnO, was achieved by the Arquimides' method. Non-linear coefficients, obtained from the J-E curves, shown an increase in their values as the bismuth content increases. Complex impedance analysis revealed an increase of the semicircle diameters with the increase of the bismuth content. The obtained results will be discussed within the framework of the current theoretical model proposed in the literature.


When combining modules it may be the case that the assembly is partially incorrect (errorprone), but nevertheless useful in some contexts. However usual type system will reject such assemblies as soon as they detect a potential error. We propose a more liberal approach: an error in a software configuration is tolerated as long as there are contexts which can use it without reaching the error; as a result, software reusability is improved. We introduce a general framework which defines in a language-independent way what it means to be "erroneous", and under which conditions a component may "subsume" another (i.e. replace it in any context). This new semantics, based on the observation of errors, is then applied to a comparison of various lambda-calculi, and shown to be close to the well-known approximation semantics. An interesting application is to use the subsumption semantics for a simple term model interpretation of subtyping. The framework also proposes a language-independent specification of labelled reduction, which is used as a technical tool to syntactically characterize finite approximation. This generalizes the work of Mason, Smith and Talcott on getting denotational structures through operational techniques, and furthermore provides an operational way to interpret recursive type definitions.


Many techniques for measuring neutron star radii rely on absolute flux measurements in the X-rays. As a result, one of the fundamental uncertainties in these spectroscopic measurements arises from the absolute flux calibrations of the detectors being used. Using the stable X-ray burster, GS 1826–238, and its simultaneous observations by Chandra HETG/ACIS-S and RXTE/PCA as well as by XMM-Newton EPIC-pn and RXTE/PCA, we quantify the degree of uncertainty in the flux calibration by assessing the differences between the measured fluxes during bursts. We find that the RXTE/PCA and the Chandra gratings measurements agree with each other within their formal uncertainties, increasing our confidence in these flux measurements. In contrast, XMM-Newton EPIC-pn measures 14.0 ± 0.3% less flux than the RXTE/PCA. This is consistent with the previously reported discrepancy with the flux measurements of EPIC-pn, compared with EPIC MOS1, MOS2, and ACIS-S detectors. We also show that any intrinsic time-dependent systematic uncertainty that may exist in the calibration of the satellites has already been implicity taken into account in the neutron star radius measurements.


This article has two aims: to introduce the study of manuscripts written in English by Swedes in the 17th and 18th centuries; and to highlight in one case study the acquisition and use of verb morphology by a young Swedish nobleman, Edvard Gyldenstolpe, as evidenced in two travelogues and five private letters from 1698–9. The first part of the article outlines the background to the project. It describes the possibilities and challenges of building a historical database of non-native English, and outlines uses of the English language before it became a world language. In the second part of the article, a case of study illustrates how verb morphology is used by a non-native language user at a time when hardly any teaching materials or dictionaries were available to Swedish learners of English.


Background The Lawton Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) scale is the most widely used scale for the assessment of IADL in the elderly population. The aim of this study was to adapt the Lawton IADL Scale in Turkish and to investigate the validity and the reliability of the scale in older adults. Methods A total of 80 participants with a mean age of 71.6±5.8 years were included in the study. The independent living skills of the older adults were measured using Lawton IADL, Hodkinson Mental Test, Functional Independence Scale, Barthel Index, Katz Index, and visual analog scale. Lawton IADL was translated into Turkish, validated by professional reviewers, translated back into English, and then tested. Cronbach's alpha was used to measure reliability in a group of 34 participants and test-retest was performed 1 week after the first test. Pearson correlation analysis was used to show the relationship between Lawton IADL and other scales and indexes. Results Internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) value was 0.843 for the whole scale. The intraclass correlation coefficient value of the scale was 0.915. Conclusion These results confirm that the Turkish version of the Lawton IADL scale has excellent reliability and validity.


Kojima et al (1998) recently reported the finding of HTLV-I tax sequences in fresh peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from a patient with T-prolymphocytic leukaemia (T-PLL) who was HTLV-I seronegative. They were unable to amplify other parts of the HTLV-I genome and suggested that such findings reflected the presence of a deleted HTLV-I provirus in T-PLL cells. However, we note the failure to detect HTLV-I by Southern blot in this case despite a peripheral blood lymphocyte count of 7·9 × 10/l (Kojima et al, 1998). This argues strongly against the presence of the apparently deleted HTLV-I genome in the tumour cells and therefore against an involvement in the pathogenesis of T-PLL. We also note that the one nucleotide deletion in the tax sequence would have caused a frameshift, arguing against tax being involved in the transformation process. The findings of Kojima et al (1998) contrast with those of the largest study on HTLV-I and -II in T-PLL to date (Pawson et al, 1997). 36 patients from HTLV-I non-endemic areas were examined by our group using PCR on DNA from fresh PBMCs and from PBMCs after short-term culture (STC) using primers against all parts of the HTLV-I genome (tax/rex, LTR, gag, env, pol ) and against HTLV-II pol and gag. Rigorous precautions against contamination of the PCR were taken and several negative and positive controls per PCR run were included. Reverse transcriptase (RT) activity was measured on supernatants from STCs using a sensitive PCR-based technique. No HTLV-I or -II sequences were found by PCR and no RT activity was detected in any of the 36 cases (Pawson et al, 1997). The sensitivity of the PCR in our study ranged from the detection of one HTLV-I/II positive cell in 15 000 cells in simple PCR to one in 3 × 10 cells in nested PCR. The application of nested PCR to cultured PBMCs and of a highly sensitive PCR-based RT assay should allow detection of any culturable retrovirus with a RT of similar functional characteristics to that of HTLV-I/II. If HTLV-I/II proviruses were present at a level below the lowest limit of detection here, i.e. one HTLV-I/II positive cell in 300 000 cell equivalents, a direct role of the virus in the pathogenesis of T-PLL would be unlikely. Our findings are in agreement with those documented in 48 T-PLL cases studied previously (Matutes et al, 1991; Pandolfi et al, 1985; Pombo de Oliveira et al, 1995; Fouchard et al, 1995). 27 cases tested previously by our group were HTLV-I seronegative but DNA was not analysed (Matutes et al, 1991). All 13 cases of 'T-helper phenotype T-CLL' reported by Pandolfi et al (1985), some of whom corresponded to T-PLL, were HTLV-I/II seronegative and had no evidence of HTLV-I or -II infection by Southern blotting. Five cases of T-PLL from Brazil, an area in which HTLV-I is endemic, were also negative for HTLV-I by serology, Southern blotting and PCR (Pombo de Oliveira et al, 1995), and three French cases with an unusual CD8 phenotype were negative for both HTLV-I and -II by Southern blotting and PCR (Fouchard et al, 1995). These and our findings provide strong evidence against a role for HTLV-I/II infection in T-PLL in patients from HTLV-I non-endemic areas. Positive reports such as that of Kojima et al (1998) may represent technical artefacts or the coincidental presence of a deleted HTLV-I genome in cells other than the leukaemic population.


When an HMO transfers financial risk to a provider risk-taking entity such as a physician-hospital organization (PHO), independent physician association (IPA), large medical group, or other provider contracting organization, it sometimes also transfers responsibility for administrative functions, such as claims processing. As a result, these providers risk financial problems related to medical costs, pricing, and underwriting strategies, as well as administrative efficiency. Financial managers should be aware of key indicators and processes that identify such problems to be able to take action before losses occur.


The ideal mechanical valve abolishes all potential areas for blood stagnation and hence the potential for micro-emboli and clot formation. This problem has been addressed by the innovative design of the Jyros valve which has evolved from the technology available from Russian space research. The valve comprises two pyrolytic carbon leaflets which can rotate within the solid carbon housing to either align themselves to the optimum haemodynamic configuration, or to respond by rotation either continuous or intermittent, according to the degree of swirl on the inflow profile. This Jyros mechanical heart valve has been assessed in vivo at the London Chest Hospital since August 1992 where the series of unselected patients constitutes the largest single user experience available. 107 valves were implanted in 100 patients of age range 33 to 80 years. 23 patients were re-replacement for failed xenograft and 26 underwent concomitant revascularisation. 92 patients left hospital and 4 died later all from non-valve related causes. Two valves were explanted for endocarditis (one pre-existing) but successfully re-replaced. There have been no late thrombo-embolic events. Two patients with AVR & CABG had strokes at 8 months. There is no excessive haemolysis in excess of that detected for any mechanical valve nor any mechanical valve-related failure. Rotation of the valve is variable and can be visualised by 2D and M mode echo and by X-ray screening as the leaflets are impregnated with Boron carbide. Half of the valves rotate constantly and a quarter intermittently. There appears to be no disadvantage to patients in whom no valve rotation could be demonstrated. We have found that the theoretical potential of performance have been achieved.


In object/target reconstruction and recognition based on laser radar data, the range value's accuracy is important. The range data accuracy depends on the accuracy in the laser radar's detector, especially the algorithm used for time-of-flight estimation. In this paper, a general direct-detection laser radar system applicable for hard-target measurements is modeled. The time- and range-dependent laser radar cross sections are derived for some simple geometric shapes (plane, cone, sphere, and paraboloid). The cross-section models are used, in simulations, to find the proper statistical distribution of uncertainties in time-of-flight range estimations. Three time-of-flight estimation algorithms are analyzed: peak detection, constant-fraction detection, and matched filter. The detection performance for various shape conditions and signal-to-noise ratios is analyzed. Two simple shape reconstruction examples are shown, and the detectors' performance is compared with the Cramer-Rao lower bound. The performance of the peak detection and the constant-fraction detection is more dependent on the shape and noise level than that of the matched filter. For line fitting the matched filter performs close to the Cramer-Rao lower bound.


A high speed ball screw system generates more heat naturally and resultant more thermal expansion, which adversely affects the accuracy of positioning. Therefore, an air cooling system was set in ball screw shaft in this paper to dominate the thermal error and achieve temperature equilibrium faster. In order to estimate the thermal error of ball screw system and effectiveness of air cooling system, thermal behavior models of finite element method and modified lumped capacitance method were developed separately which includes the heat generation power of the main heat source of the ball screw system and other boundary conditions. The completed models were used to simulate the temperature distribution, thermal deformation and air cooling performance. Compared with experiments, it is shown that these methods can well predict the air cooling performance.


We describe a system of thousands of binary perceptrons with coarse-oriented edges as input that is able to recognize shapes, even in a context with hundreds of classes. The perceptrons have randomized feed-forward connections from the input layer and form a recurrent network among themselves. Each class is represented by a prelearned attractor (serving as an associative hook) in the recurrent net corresponding to a randomly selected subpopulation of the perceptrons. In training, first the attractor of the correct class is activated among the perceptrons; then the visual stimulus is presented at the input layer. The feedforward connections are modified using field-dependent Hebbian learning with positive synapses, which we show to be stable with respect to large variations in feature statistics and coding levels and allows the use of the same threshold on all perceptrons. Recognition is based on only the visual stimuli. These activate the recurrent network, which is then driven by the dynamics to a sustained attractor state, concentrated in the correct class subset and providing a form of working memory. We believe this architecture is more transparent than standard feedforward two-layer networks and has stronger biological analogies.


Background: Evidence suggests periodontitis may contribute to the development and progression of respiratory illnesses. However, few studies currently look at the coexistence of periodontitis and tuberculosis. The current study investigates the relationship between periodontal health and tuberculosis. Aim: To assess various clinical dental parameters of periodontal health among patients with and without TB. Methods: The participants in the present case-control study were individuals who obtained informed permission forms to participate when they were patients in the outpatient dentistry department. The current study included 585 patients in total. Three hundred-one individuals with normal pulmonary function were added to the control group, whereas 284 patients with tuberculosis were added to the cases group. The diagnosis of the pulmonary conditions was confirmed using spirometry. Using SPSS software 21, we evaluated the demographics & clinical indicators such as plaque, different gingival parameters of periodontitis, Gingival bleeding, and gingival index (GI), and compared cases and controls. Results: The population comprised two hundred eighty-seven women (49.1%) and 298 men (50.9%). There was a significant association between tuberculosis and periodontitis, and it has been observed that 159 (56%) tuberculosis patients had 6.23 (4.2 – 9.1) times higher effects on oral periodontitis issues (P<0.001*). Patients with gingivitis had a significantly higher number of bleeding, accounting for 241 (72.8), p<0.001. Practical implication: The study suggests that healthcare providers, particularly those involved in the treatment of TB, should consider incorporating oral health screening and assessment as part of the overall care for TB patients. This could help identify and address periodontal issues that may exist, hence dental professionals can play a role in the early detections of TB Conclusion: This study suggest that important relationship between TB and periodontitis. TB patients should be educated about the potential impact of their disease on periodontal health and encouraged to maintain regular dental visit and oral hygiene. Keywords: Tuberculosis (TB), Periodontitis (PD), Gingival bleeding, and gingival index (GI)


Six cyanine dyes with an aromatic azonia skeleton (1a–f) were obtained by the reaction of chlorinated heptamethylene cyanine and 2-aminopyridine derivatives. Five of them (1a–d and 1f) emit red and near-infrared fluorescence at 600–800 nm. The fluorescent stains of living cells indicate that they can penetrate the cell membrane, especially the hydroxyl-substituted dye (1c), it has lysosome targeting ability.


A static, producer profit maximization framework is used to capture county level land use choice on the basis of profitability, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to the farm gate as well as soil carbon sequestration as affected by tillage and soil type. Policy scenarios of a 5% GHG cap on agricultural emissions in conjunction with a carbon offset payment system, designed to provide producer payments for net carbon footprint (GHG emissions – soil carbon sequestration) reductions compared to a baseline are evaluated to determine potential changes to land use and or producer income as a result of different policy scenarios. Results suggest that a policy solely targeted at emissions can be counterproductive in the sense that acreage reductions of more input-intensive crops also lead to soil carbon sequestration reductions. Producer income effects are largely negative unless carbon prices reach nearly $100 per ton.


Protocols for digital wireless communication systems generally contain known bit sequences that are transmitted periodically for the purposes of training and/or synchronization. We study the performance improvement that is obtained in antenna array processing when knowledge of the signal waveforms is exploited. Our model is formulated such that the signals from multiple sources are known for a subset of the data samples and unknown for the remainder of the samples. Maximum likelihood (ML) estimates of the signal parameters are derived for this model, and the Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) on the accuracy of source location estimates is presented. Numerical evaluations of the CRB are included to illustrate the performance when partial training data is available in one or more of the sources.


The nonlinear modeling capabilities of artificial neural networks (ANN's) are renowned in the field of artificial intelligence (Al) for capturing knowledge that can be very difficult to understand otherwise. Their ability to be trained on representative data within a particular problem domain and generalise over a set of data make them efficient predictive models.
One problem domain that contains complex data that would benefit from the predictive capabilities of ANN's is that of optical emission spectra (OES). OES is an important diagnostic for monitoring plasma species within plasma processing. Normally, OES spectral interpretation requires significant prior expertise from a spectroscopist. One way of alleviating this intensive demand in order to quickly interpret OES spectra is to interpret the data using an intelligent pattern recognition technique like ANN's. This thesis investigates and presents MLP ANN models that can successfully classify chemical species within OES spectral patterns.
The primary contribution of the thesis is the creation of deployable ANN species models that can predict OES spectral line sizes directly from six controllable input process parameters; and the implementation of a novel rule extraction procedure to relate the real multi-output values of the spectral line sizes to individual input process parameters. Not only are the trained species models excellent in their predictive capability, but they also provide the foundation for extracting comprehensible rules. A secondary contribution made by this thesis is to present an adapted fuzzy rule extraction system that attaches a quantitative measure of confidence to individual rules. The most significant contribution to the field of Al that is generated from the work presented in the thesis is the fact that the rule extraction procedure utilises predictive ANN species models that employ real continuously valued multi-output data. This is an improvement on rule extraction from trained networks that normally focus on discrete binary outputs


We introduce PlanetP, content addressable publish/subscribe service for unstructured peer-to-peer (P2P) communities. PlanetP supports content addressing by providing: (1) a gossiping layer used to globally replicate a membership directory and an extremely compact content index; and (2) a completely distributed content search and ranking algorithm that help users find the most relevant information. PlanetP is a simple, yet powerful system for sharing information. PlanetP is simple because each peer must only perform a periodic, randomized, point-to-point message exchange with other peers. PlanetP is powerful because it maintains a globally content-ranked view of the shared data. Using simulation and a prototype implementation, we show that PlanetP achieves ranking accuracy that is comparable to a centralized solution and scales easily to several thousand peers while remaining resilient to rapid membership changes.


The entities described in the Gene Ontology, (i.e., molecular functions, cellular components and biological processes), often make reference (in their names) to other entities, either from GO or from other ontologies, such as ontologies of chemical entities, cell types and organisms. We developed a method for mapping terms from the Open Biomedical Ontology (OBO) family to GO. We show that 55% of the 17,250 GO terms include in their names the name of some chemical entity (ChEBI). Our findings are consistent with that of other studies. Additionally, our study provides a quantification of the relations between GO terms and terms from other ontologies.


In undertaking this research my aim has been to trace the development of Quaker education in Ireland from its beginnings in the late seventeenth century, up to the early decades of the nineteenth. I have begun by placing Quakerism in its historical context, and have examined briefly the origins of the movement in England and Ireland, with reference to the political, social and religious factors which gave rise to its development.In the early chapters of this study I have outlined the broad aims of Quaker education, and I have endeavoured to explain in general terms what the Society of Friends hoped to achieve in its schools. I have traced the development of Quaker schools in Ireland, starting with the early, rather erratic day schools of the Society, and have gone on to examine the major features of Quaker boarding schools. Considerable attention has been paid to the Quaker curriculum, and I have examined the various influences which gave the curriculum its particular stamp. A full chapter has been devoted to the discipline employed in Irish Quaker school, and I have attempted to show how that system of discipline was determined largely by the rigid disciplinary code which governed the activities of the Quaker church. In the later chapters of the thesis I have examined the characteristics of the most commonly used Quaker school textbooks, and the rather mechanical teaching methods used in classroom instruction. While the bulk of this research concentrates on Quaker education within the rather narrow confines of the Society of Friends, I have devoted the final chapter to education on a broader plane.


This special issue of the INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics (formerly Interfaces) is devoted to the finalists of the 50th annual competition for the Franz Edelman Award for Achievement in Advanced Analytics, Operations Research, and Management Science, the profession's most prestigious award for deployed work. As in previous years, the finalists this year cover a wide range of industries and functions.


This thesis investigates cultural content in a sample of British ELT global
coursebooks published over the past three decades from a cultural studies perspective.
Using a constructionist epistemology, the study aims to identify the nature of cultural
content, to account for the form it takes and to examine what a group of Barcelonabased
teachers think about such content and the role of culture in ELT. The research
design is based on a modified version of the `circuit of culture' proposed by Du Gay,
Hall et al. (1997) for the investigation of the construction of meanings associated with
cultural artefacts.
A descriptive framework, combining elements of content analysis and social semiotics,
is applied to four best-selling coursebooks. Their `representational repertoires' are
shown to be typified by a pervasive `native speakerism', and the deployment of
discourses of feminism, multiculturalism, individualism and consumerism, alongside
the ongoing globalizing of content. This content is partly explained by referring to
publishers' guidelines and interviews with publishers, in which a discourse analysis
approach is used. However, it is only by turning to the literatures on visual
communication, consumerism and the concept of promotional culture that a fuller
explanation can be provided.
What emerges is a picture of a carefully constructed artefact, only some of whose
meanings resonate with those of the teachers. Interviews reveal that they construe
their practice in terms of teaching English as an international language for
predominantly lingua franca purposes. Broad approval for the representational
practices associated with gender and race does not extend to the pervasive `native
speakerism' or content which is seen as irrelevant to the context of instruction. The
thesis suggests that the form cultural content takes is best decided by locals for whom
English may have a range of meanings other than those determined for them by
British ELT publishers.


In this paper a new analytical carrier mobility model of a heterostructure unipolar transistor, High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT), is presented. The influence of the two dimensional electron gas confined in a HEMT channel on the device carrier mobility, is considered. The mobility dependence on temperature is also included in the model. Advantages of this model are its simplicity and straightforward implementation. Besides, it promises to be applied to quite different types of HEMTs. The model was tested. The results derived from simulations based on the proposed model are in very good agreement with the already known experimental data and theoretically obtained ones, available in literature.


During the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak many countries around the world were forced to turn to Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) and upscale the use of digital technologies for learning, teaching and assessment. The current study analysed field reports from 89 elementary and secondary Hebrew-speaking and Arabic-speaking information and communication technology schools in Israel, representing the cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity of the education system. The qualitative analysis of the collected data was based on three well established contemporary models of technology integration and Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu): the International Society for Technology in Education, Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge and DigCompEdu. The analysis (n = 872 statements) yielded aspects in the teachers' reports that correspond with the theoretical models, along-side aspects that extend these models to ERT and aspects that were missing from the reports. Finally, based on our findings and previous work we suggested a comprehensive framework for ERT that can be used to design teachers' professional development necessary for effective remote teaching in both emergency and routine times. © 2023, Association for Learning Technology. All rights reserved.


In this paper we focused on the analysis of the continuity risk for a maritime user and on the derivation of the receiver implementation scheme that ful lls IMO [2] requirements. We started our analysis by considering the model derived in [6], which is accurate for aviation applications, while it is not guaranteed to work in other environments. To take into account the time evolution of the continuity risk, we propose in this paper to introduce Markov models. The derived models can be used to compute the continuity risk when a receiver not implementing exclusion is used, as well as when a receiver implements both snapshot and sequential exclusion. The derived conclusion is that without exclusion, it is not possible to achieve the required performance. It is shown that, considering only satellite faults, over the 3 hours of operation, in principle a snapshot exclusion mechanism is su cient. When implementing sequential exclusion, at the cost of an increased complexity, the continuity risk is furthermore reduced. We also showed that, under some temporal limitations and with some assumptions on the exclusion mechanism, the results provided by the Markov models and by the model derived in [6] coincide. This nal consideration shows that the proposed approach can be seen as a natural extension of the state of the art model from the avionic environment to the maritime environment.


Bladder cancer is the most common genitourinary cancer in the United States. Symptoms of bladder cancer mimic those of a urinary tract infection, which can delay timely diagnosis. Because of the high rate of bladder cancer, it is likely advanced practice registered nurses will be responsible for the care of patients with bladder cancer. This article reviews the signs and symptoms of bladder cancer along with management options to safely care for this patient population.


With the increasing amount of patient information that is being collected today, the idea of using this information to inform future patient care has gained momentum. In many cases, this information comes in the form of medical images. Several algorithms have been presented to automatically segment these images, and to extract structures relevant to different diagnostic or surgical procedures. Consequently, this allows us to obtain large data-sets of shapes, in the form of triangular meshes, segmented from these images. Given correspondences between these shapes, statistical shape models (SSMs) can be built using methods like Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Often, the initial correspondences between the shapes need to be improved, and SSMs can be used to improve these correspondences. However, just as often, initial segmentations also need to be improved. Unlike many correspondence improvement algorithms, which do not affect segmentation, many segmentation improvement algorithms negatively affect correspondences between shapes. We present a method that iteratively improves both segmentation as well as correspondence by using SSMs not only to improve correspondence, but also to constrain the movement of vertices during segmentation improvement. We show that our method is able to maintain correspondence while achieving as good or better segmentations than those produced by methods that improve segmentation without maintaining correspondence. We are additionally able to achieve segmentations with better triangle quality than segmentations produced without correspondence improvement.


Previous efforts in vision community are mostly made on learning good representations from visual patterns. Beyond this, this paper emphasizes the high-level ability of causal reasoning. We thus present a case study of solving the challenging task of Overall Survival (OS) time in primary liver cancers. Critically, the prediction of OS time at the early stage remains challenging, due to the unobvious image patterns of reflecting the OS. To this end, we propose a causal inference system by leveraging the intraoperative attributes and the correlation among them, as an intermediate supervision to bridge the gap between the images and the final OS. Particularly, we build a causal graph, and train the images to estimate the intraoperative attributes for final as prediction. We present a novel Causally-aware Intraoperative Imputation Model (CAWIM) that can sequentially predict each attribute using its parent nodes in the estimated causal graph. To determine the causal directions, we propose a splitting-voting mechanism, which votes for the direction for each pair of adjacent nodes among multiple predictions obtained via causal discovery from heterogeneity. The practicability and effectiveness of our method are demonstrated by the promising results on liver cancer dataset of 361 patients with long-term observations.


This paper presents a model for the development implementation and utilization of health education counseling case management and advocacy program for teenage parents. It describes the Teen Parent Advocate Program a rurally based program designed to reduce the incidence of repeat teenage pregnancy develop more effective contraceptive behaviors improve infant and maternal health develop effective parenting skills and increase use of community resources. The paper discusses the use of a health educator to provide education information beginning while the teenagers are in obstetrical recovery. It notes that biweekly contact continues for a 3-month period and includes telephone counseling and appointments as requested. An analysis of the adolescent participants in the program is presented. Utilization of referrals are evaluated. Education and counseling sessions with recurring themes for the teenagers their partners and their families are described. Outlines are included for program development formal and informal service networks program modifications and program strengths and weaknesses. Recommendations and conclusions for program effectiveness conclude the paper. (authors)


A physical model for Geant4-based simulation of the galactic cosmic ray(GCR) particles' interaction with the lunar surface matter has been developed to investigate the production rates of cosmogenic nuclei. In this model the GCRs, mainly very high energy protons and α particles, bombard the surface of the Moon and produce many secondary particles, such as protons and neutrons. The energies of protons and neutrons at different depths are recorded and saved as ROOT files, and the analytical expressions for the differential proton and neutron fluxes are obtained through the best-fit procedure using ROOT software. To test the validity of this model, we calculate the production rates of the long-lived nuclei10 Be and26Al in the Apollo 15 long drill core by combining the above differential fluxes and the newly evaluated spallation reaction cross sections. Our numerical results show that the theoretical production rates agree quite well with the measured data, which means that this model works well.Therefore, it can be expected that this model can be used to investigate the cosmogenic nuclei in future lunar samples returned by the Chinese lunar exploration program and can be extended to study other objects, such as meteorites and the Earth's atmosphere.


ABSTRACT R207910 (also known as TMC207) is an investigational drug currently in clinical studies for the treatment of multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis. It has a high degree of antimycobacterial activity and is equally effective against drug-susceptible and MDR Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates. In the present study, we characterized the development of resistance to R207910 in vitro. Ninety-seven independent R207910-resistant mutants were selected from seven different clinical isolates of M. tuberculosis (three drug-susceptible and four MDR isolates) at 10×, 30×, and 100× the MIC. At a concentration of 0.3 mg/liter (10× the MIC), the mutation rates ranged from 4.7 × 10−7 to 8.9 × 10−9 mutations per cell per division, and at 1.0 mg/liter (30× the MIC) the mutation rate ranged from 3.9 × 10−8 to 2.4 × 10−9. No resistant mutants were obtained at 3 mg/liter (100× the MIC). The level of resistance ranged from 0.12 to 3.84 mg/liter for the mutants identified; these concentrations represent 4- to 128-fold increases in the MICs. For 53 of the resistant mutants, the atpE gene, which encodes a transmembrane and oligomeric C subunit of the ATP synthase and which was previously shown to be involved in resistance, was sequenced. For 15/53 mutants, five different point mutations resulting in five different amino acid substitutions were identified in the atpE gene. For 38/53 mutants, no atpE mutations were found and sequencing of the complete F0 ATP synthase operon (atpB, atpE, and atpF genes) and the F1 ATP synthase operon (atpH, atpA, atpG, atpD, and atpC genes) from three mutants revealed no mutations, indicating other, alternative resistance mechanisms. Competition assays showed no measurable reduction in the fitness of the mutants compared to that of the isogenic wild types.


FTIR spectra of tricarbonyl(eta(6)-benzo-15-crown-5)chromium(0) (1) in the presence of lithium, sodium and potassium perchlorate salts in methanol show different responses in the Cr-CO vibrational region of the spectrum. Data from the symmetric (nu(sym)) and antisymmetric (nu(asym)) Cr-CO vibrational stretching modes have been analysed by principal component analysis (PCA) to generate a factor score plot that provides a visual representation of these differential responses. X-ray crystallographic data for the sodium perchlorate complex 1 center dot Na+ and dimensions from DFT-derived structures of 1 center dot Li+, 1 center dot Na+ and 1 center dot K+ indicate that binding M+ in the crown causes electron density and structural changes in the [O(4)-C(9)-C(4)-O(8)]Cr-C(1)=O(1) sections of 1, which vary depending on the nature of the cation. This suggests a mode of action in which Li+ associates with a more compact O(4)C( 9)-C(4)-O(8), while Na+ and K+ differ crucially in the extent of sigma and pi contributions to their effect on nu(sym) and nu(asym). A comparison of the FTIR data from 1, tricarbonyl(eta(6)-1-phenyl-1-aza-15-crown-5)chromium(0) (2) and tricarbonyl(eta(6)-2-phenyl-15-crown-5)chromium(0) (3) with a wider range of cations (NH4+, Li+, Na+, K+, Rb+, Cs+, Mg2+, Ba2+) and anions (AcO-, BPh4-, Br-, C1O(4)(-), I-, SCN-), showed that 1 and 3 both responded significantly to the different metal cations, but 2 did not. The relative cation differentiation of 1, 2 and 3 was measured using the parameter Delta(R(cation)), and ratios of Delta(N(cation)) values [calculated from Delta(R(cation))] distinguished different effects in the FTIR spectra of 1 and 3 for different pairs of cations.


We present 1.1, 1.6, and 2.2 micron images of the cores of the Local Group galaxies M 31 and M 32 obtained with the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) instrument of the Hubble Space Telescope. These images are also compared to optical images of the galaxies obtained with the HST Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). In M 31 the nucleus remains distinctly asymmetric in all of the infrared bands, with no evidence of concentrated dust, although the distinction between the two nuclei, P1 and P2, is not as strong as in the WFPC and WFPC2 images. This result is nonetheless consistent with the model of the nucleus as an eccentric stellar disk produced by the dynamical influence of a central supermassive black hole. Several individual M-giant stars are detected within ~ 3" of the nuclei, and may represent stars that have escaped from the disk and phase-mixed around the nuclear center of mass. In M 32 we also do not find strong evidence of dust, and the brightness profiles within the central ~ 1" of the infrared images can be fitted by a power law of the same form as that fitted to the optical images. The infrared color profiles of the central few arcseconds of M 32 show no strong gradients, and indicate a population dominated by K-giant stars. This is consistent with recent groud-based spectroscopy and photometry of the core region, which similarly show no strong gradients in age or metallicity within its stellar population.


Despite concerns about the loss of industry, industrial land, and buildings in high-value post-industrial cities, there is concurrently a renewed enthusiasm around the potential of "new" urban manufacturing and its contribution to the socio-economic diversity of cities. Yet, little is known about how planning policy can best support the retention and growth of urban manufacturing. To advance this agenda, this article proposes that we need a better understanding of industrial building typologies and resultant urban form. Using concepts developed by Julienne Hanson to analyse residential morphologies undergoing transformation under modernism, we apply these concepts to investigate the industrial, mixed-use contexts in two areas of London with concentrations of urban manufacturing—Hackney Mare Street and Old Kent Road. The research presented examines how both areas have evolved historically to produce distinctive urban tissues and a range of industrial building typologies. The article reveals that, despite territorial similarities in the late 19th century, the mixed land uses and smaller plot sizes of Hackney Mare Street have allowed for a more resilient development pattern, whereas the greater separation of land uses, large plot sizes, and inward-facing development in the Old Kent Road has facilitated its reimagination for large-scale regeneration. We conclude that greater attention needs to be paid to the relationship between urban manufacturing and built urban form if policies that aim to protect or support the revival of manufacturing in cities are to avoid negative unintended consequences.


Nanofibres, core–shell nanofibres, as well as hollow nanofibres and nanotubes based on polymers, serve as a platform for a broad range of applications as filters, textiles, in photonics, sensors, catalysis, or in medicine and pharmacy. Such nanoobjects become available by techniques such as the well-known electrospinning and the more recently developed co-electrospinning of nanofibres. Electrospinning takes place in the latter case by two or more concentrically arranged dies that yield core–shell fibres or fibres with droplet-like inclusions arranged along the centre of the fibres, where the inclusions are composed of polymers, low-molar-mass synthetic functional units, or molecules of biological origins such as proteins. Furthermore, template methods have been developed using electrospun nanofibres or a porous substrate, which yield core–shell fibres of complex architectures, with or without gradient structures or hollow nanofibres and nanotubes. These techniques are not restricted to polymers of synthetic and natural origin, but are able – based on precursor substances – to deliver nanofibres and nanotubes also composed of metals, glasses, and ceramics. Furthermore, these preparation techniques allow the direct introduction into these nanostructures of specific functional compounds such as semiconductor or catalytic nanoparticles and chromophores, in addition to enzymes, proteins, microorganisms, etc. during the preparation process in a very gentle way. Of particular interest are such nanostructures in medicine and pharmacy, for instance, as scaffolds for tissue engineering or as drug-delivery systems for tumour therapy.


With the compact nature and the high electrical-connection density, flexible printed circuits (FPC) can achieve considerable weight, space and cost savings over the use of traditional rigid printed circuit boards. In recent years, it becomes impossible without flexible printed circuit technology in electronic products especially for Flip mobile phones. Whereas, its application is not always satisfied the engineering of assembly and reliability due to the existing of mechanical stress in soldering process and service environment. In this paper, through analyzing the common failures in mass production including via interconnection, trace crack and black pad, some preventions were suggested to improve the quality and reliability at the aspect of manufacture, process, mechanical design and dynamic stress distribution philosophy.


Concert tickets can either be sold at a single price or at different prices to reflect the various levels of seating categories available. Here we consider how two product characteristics (the artist's age and venue capacity) influence the likelihood that pop music concert tickets will be sold at different prices. We argue that valuation heterogeneity, and thus the returns to using price discrimination, are higher for older artists and in larger venues. We test this hypothesis in a large dataset of concerts. By singling out variations in the two characteristics that are exogenous to the decision to price discriminate, we show that these characteristics have a large and significant impact on the use of price discrimination.


Wireless sensor networks are envisioned to consist of many small devices that can sense the environment and communicate the data as required. The most critical requirement for widespread sensor networks is power efficiency since battery replacement is not viable. Many protocols attempt to minimize the power consumption by using complex algorithms. However, it is difficult to perform these complex methods since an individual sensor node in sensor networks does not have high computational capacity. On the other hand, many sensor nodes should transfer the data packet to the sink node that collects the required data. Therefore, the operations of the sensor nodes over the route are terminated; it is difficult to deliver the data packet to the sink node even if some sensor nodes are active. In this paper, we propose a simple power-aware routing protocol for sensor networks. Our proposed protocol is based on the ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV) protocol, which is one of the reactive routing protocols. In addition, we introduce forwarder nodes in the sensor networks in order to extend the lifetime of the entire sensor network. From the simulation results, we evaluate the performance of the protocols and clarify the effect of forwarder nodes on the sensor networks. Keywords— Sensor networks, Power aware routing, Forwarder nodes, Life time


Objective: Tobacco use in Indonesia was among the highest in the globe. Moreover, its prevalence constantly increased among children and adolescents. Therefore, nurses need to identify an innovative way to prevent these age groups from tobacco use. This study aimed to propose the use of  Oxygen Adventure Game (GENTURE) as a preventive measure to reduce the incidence of lung cancer by lowering tobacco use. Methods: Literature review was performed using textbooks, electronic databases and websites published in 2006-2016. The search terms of "lung cancer", "gaming", "tobacco use", and "disease prevention" were entered to obtain the relevant articles. Results: The articles reviewed the roles of nurses included as educators, facilitators, consultants, advocates, and coordinators of services in health promotion and disease prevention. The articles also presented health promotion for smoking prevention and cessation to reduce the burden of lung cancer. The articles, furthermore, indicated games as one of the suggested approaches used in health promotion. A game application called GENTURE is proposed targeting children and adolescents to prevent them from smoking behaviors. The game application allowed the users to experience the journey of oxygen passing through the lungs exposed by cigarette smokes. Conclusion: Health promotion of smoking cessation and prevention targeting children and adolescents require the use of innovative approaches. This study suggested the use of GENTURE, a game application, to educate children and adolescents about the dangers of tobacco use to their lung health. Keywords: Smoking; Lung; Cancer; Health; Games.


Inhalation abuse of various toxic agents continues to be a significant health problem among the younger segment of our society. We describe four cases of sudden death in adolescents associated with recreational sniffing of typewriter correction fluid occurring during the period 1979 through mid-1984. The solvents used in most of these fluids, 1,1,1-trichloroethane and trichloroethylene, are known to induce potentially fatal arrhythmias. Sniffing typewriter correction fluid poses a significant and underappreciated danger to the lives of these abusers. School health officials, public health departments, and law enforcement personnel should be alerted to the need for surveillance of this type of activity.


Hedge fund transparency is like pornography--it is hard to describe, but you know it when you see it. A great debate currently rages over the extent to which hedge funds should disclose their investment portfolios. Advocates of transparency argue that hedge fund managers should be held to the same standard of disclosure as their other investments. However, hedge fund managers and even some investors argue that disclosure of the hedge fund manager's positions will adversely affect performance. Is it possible to reach some common ground between these two views? The author believes that a level of hedge fund transparency can be achieved that will satisfy both hedge fund managers and their investors. After having described why investors want transparency, the author attempts to define what transparency means with respect to hedge fund managers and provides a solution that may suit the parties involved.


In thermally assisted magnetic recording, one of the most important issues is the reliability of the near-field transducer and the magnetic recording head. When the near-field transducer transfers the optical energy to the media through coupling from the waveguide, it inevitably heats itself and its surrounding area, such as the magnetic recording head, which tends to cause long-term performance degradation. To mitigate the problem, one possible solution is to apply a pulsed laser beam instead of a constant one. In this paper, the performance characteristics of the pulsed thermally assisted magnetic recording are analyzed by modeling. Simulation results show that similar recording performance can be achieved through a much reduced laser beam duty cycle (~ 30%).


As a developing country, Bangladesh has to face numerous challenges. Self Independence in electricity, contributing to climate change by reducing carbon emission and bringing the backward population of society to the mainstream is more challenging for them. Therefore, it is essential to ensure recycled use of local products to the maximum level in every sector. Some private organizations have already worked alongside government to bring the backward population to the mainstream by developing their financial capacities. As rice husk is the largest single category of the total energy supply in Bangladesh. As part of this strategy, rice husk can play a great as a promising renewable energy source, which is readily available, has considerable environmental benefits and can produce electricity and ensure multiple uses of byproducts in construction technology. For the first time in Bangladesh, an experimental multidimensional project depending on Rice Husk Electricity and Rice Husk Ash (RHA) concrete brick/block under Green Eco-Tech Limited has already been started. Project analysis, opportunity, sustainability, the high monitoring component, limitations and finally evaluated data reflecting the viability of establishing more projects using rice husk are discussed in this paper. The by-product of rice husk from the production of green electricity, RHA, can be used for making, in particular, RHA concrete brick/block in Bangladeshi aspects is also discussed here. Keywords—Project analysis, rice husk, rice husk ash concrete brick/block, compressive strength of rice husk ash concrete brick/block.


We study the Efficient Markets Hypothesis (EMH) in a setting where information heterogeneity emerges because securities valuation requires solving an NP-hard problem. We demonstrate experimentally that the quality of prices deteriorates substantially as computational complexity increases. Participants whose valuations are closer to true values earn more from trading. Participants improved their individual valuations by learning from market data, and their individual valuations on average were better than those reflected in market prices. These results are in sharp contrast with findings in experiments where correct valuation requires averaging of private information. They suggest that EMH only holds in very specific circumstances.


Objective. To compare the severity of rotavirus diarrhea (RV) and non-rotavirus diarrhea. Material and Methods. Between October 1994 and March 1995, a cross-sectional study was performed in 520 infants with acute diarrhea, at seven primary care level centers in five states of Mexico. Diagnosis of RV was done through immunoenzymatic assay or electrophoresis. Central tendency measures were used for data analysis. Results were presented as means and standard deviations, or median and variation. Results. RV was isolated from 264 children; most of them were males aged 6 months to 1 year. Differences in clinical manifestations were statistically significant between the rotavirus-positive group and the rotavirus-negative group, in the following variables: median number of stools/24 hours; frequency of vomiting; temperature > 38°C; dehydration; and clinical severity scoring. Conclusions. These results showed a poorer prognosis and a higher severity of rotavirus diarrhea, as compared to non-rotavirus diarrhea in infants. The English version of this paper is available at: http://www.insp.mx/salud/ index.html


In the last decade, metacognitive research on nonhuman animals has yielded results suggesting that metacognition was present at least in Old World monkeys. Experimental results are inconsistent on whether other species such as New World monkeys, rats, and birds possess metacognition. It is, therefore, difficult to accurately evaluate metacognition in these animal species. To solve this problem, it is crucial to determine the factors that predict the inconsistency of results. We found that even human adults did not necessarily behave metacognitively without a direct instruction to do so, and participants with poor memory retrieval performance tended to behave metacognitively. This is consistent with results from previous animal experiments and suggests the importance of the utility of an internal cue in predicting the emergence of behavior that can be interpreted as metacognition. Nevertheless, it is also suggested that if rats once perform the task wherein their cognitive state, such as memory confidence, was designed to be an effective cue, they would preserve their behavior adaptation on the basis of their cognitive state after its utility was decreased. Thus, the high utility of an internal cue would cause animals to rely on it, but such utility is not involved in the maintaining of the strategy. These results can help clarify the cause of inconsistent experimental results on whether animals show behavior that can be interpreted as metacognition and explain how metacognition is preserved in the evolutionary process.


AIMS
Peri-strut low-intensity area (PLIA) assessed by optical coherence tomography (OCT) has been reported as a potential marker of abnormal neointimal healing. We aimed to evaluate the impact of PLIA on clinical events and its risk factors.

METHODS AND RESULTS
We enrolled 264 consecutive patients treated with an everolimus-eluting stent (EES) who underwent follow-up OCT six to 12 months after stenting. Target lesion revascularisation (TLR) was evaluated at a mean 42.6 months after stenting. PLIA was identified in 102 patients; 162 patients did not exhibit PLIA. Multivariate Cox hazard regression analysis indicated that the presence of PLIA (PLIA+) was an independent risk factor for an increased incidence of TLR (hazard ratio [HR]: 4.608, p=0.003). In both the early (<1 year) and late (>1 year) phases, the incidence of TLR was significantly higher in the PLIA+ group (p<0.001 and p<0.001, respectively). In the Cox hazard regression analysis, current smoking and increased C-reactive protein level were independently associated with PLIA+ (HR: 1.737, p=0.009; HR: 2.435, p=0.008, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS
The presence of PLIA on midterm OCT was associated with TLR after EES implantation. Detailed stent assessment by midterm OCT may help to predict stent failure in patients treated with EES.