Access to electronic and information technology has the potential to promote positive postsecondary academic and career outcomes for students with disabilities. However, this potential will not be realized unless stakeholders assure that all individuals with disabilities have access to technology that promotes positive academic and career outcomes; learn to use technology in ways that contribute to positive outcomes; and experience a seamless transition of availability of technology as they move through educational and career environments. This article explores the role technology can play in helping students with disabilities make successful transitions to postsecondary studies, employment, and adult life. It (a) defines terms, (b) provides examples of electronic and information technologies and their applications in pre-college and postsecondary education and employment, (c) summarizes legal issues that apply to technology access for students with disabilities in pre-college, postsecondary, and employment settings, (d) explores promising practices, and (e) lists topics for future research. Ensuring that all of the educational and employment opportunities that technology provides are accessible to everyone will contribute to the creation of a level playing field, thereby increasing access for people with disabilities to postsecondary education and careers in high-paying jobs and, ultimately, strengthening the economy.


Communication word is having its importance since the day human exists, but day by day it is improving its form, the biggest change in communication is from analog to digital. And now for more better & secure performance we introduce chaotic communication in today's traditional communication system. The discovery of randomness in apparently predictable physical systems have evolved into a new science, the science of chaos. Chaotic systems are unstable and aperiodic, making them naturally harder to identify and to predict. In this paper the concept of chaotic communication is explained together with its applications and advantages over traditional communication methods. The majority of the research carried out so far proves that chaotic communication system has quite a number of advantages over traditional communication system. Recently, many researchers have been looking at ways to utilize the characteristics of chaos in communication systems and have actually achieved quite remarkable results. . It has wideband characteristic, it is resistant against multipath fading and it offers a cheaper solution to traditional spread spectrum systems. In chaotic communications, the digital information to be transmitted is placed directly onto a wide-band chaotic signal. Key Terms: Chaos, Chaotic system, GOLD codes, Traditional communication, Randomness


How do failures to reconcile international law with local knowledge in moments of political crisis frustrate compliance, foment conspiracy, and foster backlash? This article illuminates this puzzle through a case study of the law and politics surrounding the destructive outbreak of xylella fastidiosa amidst the olive groves of Italy since 2013. The epidemic prompted interventions by the European Commission and the European Court of Justice to limit the pathogen's diffusion by applying EU environmental regulations and mandating the eradication of thousands of trees. Yet given limited consultations of local stakeholders and lackluster local knowledge, the EU's containment efforts backfired, sparking a farmers' revolt and prompting Italian judges to traffic in conspiracy to obstruct compliance. Drawing on theories of legal mobilization and political sociologies of contentious events, Italy's olive crisis exemplifies the rise of a contentious politics of resentment that can desiccate the on-the-ground authority of even well-entrenched transnational legal orders.


The conversion of formate-C14 or serine-3-C14 to DNA-thymine and free thymine, thymidine, and thymidylate was studied in vitro with cell suspensions of the Ehrlich ascites tumor, with three lymphatic tumors, and with normal mouse spleen or rat thymus cells. In the presence of deoxycytidine, deoxyuridine, or to a lesser degree cytidine, the total radioactivity of free thymidine plus thymine was increased. In the presence of deoxycytidine, cytidine, and in some cases deoxyuridine, the specific activity of DNA-T was also elevated. Deoxycytidine stimulated the conversion of formate-C14 to DNA-methylcytosine. Non-labeled thymidine reduced the conversion of formate-C14 or serine-3-C14 to DNA-thymine but increased the labeling of free thymidine. A decreased specific activity of DNA-T was also observed in experiments in which uracil-2-C14 was the substrate and deoxyuridine was added to the incubation flasks.


Objectives: PainDETECT is a self-report questionnaire that can be used to identify features of neuropathic pain. A proportion of patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA) score highly on the PainDETECT questionnaire. This study aimed to determine whether those with a higher "positive neuropathic" score on the PainDETECT questionnaire also had greater pain, hypersensitivity, and reduced function compared with individuals with knee OA with lower PainDETECT scores. Materials and Methods: In total, 130 participants with knee OA completed the PainDETECT, Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Arthritis Index (WOMAC), and Pain Quality Assessment Scale questionnaires. Quantitative sensory testing was carried out at 3 sites (both knees and elbow) using standard methods. Cold and heat pain thresholds were tested using a Peltier thermode and pressure pain thresholds using a digital algometer. Physical function was assessed using 3 timed locomotor function tests. Results: In total, 22.3% of participants scored in the "positive neuropathic" category with a further 35.4% in the unclear category. Participants in the "positive neuropathic" category reported higher levels of pain and more impaired function based on the WOMAC questionnaire (P<0.0001). They also exhibited increased levels of hyperalgesia at the knee and upper limb sites for all stimulation modalities except heat pain thresholds at the OA knee. They were also slower to complete 2 of the locomotion tasks. Discussion: This study identified a specific subgroup of people with knee OA who exhibited PainDETECT scores in the "positive neuropathic" category. These individuals experienced increased levels of pain, widespread, multimodality hyperalgesia, and greater functional impairment than the remaining cohort. Identification of OA patients with this pain phenotype may permit more targeted and effective pain management.


1. IntroductionA report by the United Nations has revealed the number of older adults in the world is projected to reach 1.4 billion by 2030, and this number is expected to increase to 2.1 billion by 2050. This development will place enormous pressure on current healthcare and social protection systems. If life expectancy continues to rise while fertility constantly declines over many years. the ageing of the population will continue to throughout the world. The gigantic numbers of elderly people will place significant pressure on current systems of social protection and global health care. By 2024, it is expected to have nearly 400,000 people over the age of 80 in Hong Kong —a 24.8% increase over the figure recorded in 2014. 2. Problem StatementLike in other Asian cities, the population of Hong Kong exhibits a continuous ageing trend.The change in the population structure will need an improved housing policy and health care system and infrastructure in order to tackle these resulting social problems. The more older adults are living in the city, the greater the numbers of people who are living with dementia. 3. Older Adults Living with Mild Cognitive ImpairmentDementia is characterised by the loss of mental abilities,and by further degeneration over time.This condition is not inevitable, as the hallmark symptoms of cognitive deterioration are not considered to be a normal part of ageing. It is a typical biomedical disease that might appear when the brain is affected by some specific diseases, such as a series of small strokes damage the brain and cause confusion, speech problems and progressive loss of memory and cognition. This gradual decline in cognitive functions causes people to need extra support for daily living. A person who is having slightly problems with planning, reasoning and also remembering may be classified as having mild cognitive impairment (MCI). 4. Universal DesignUD (universal design) is classified as the practice of making things in ways that involve almost no extra cost, but offer attractive yet functional styles that are fulfilling all people, regardless of each individual's ability or disability. UD addresses the complete span of functionality through making each element and space accessible to its deepest extent by careful planning at all different stages of a project. 5. Participant Observation An interpretive approach is adopted as a research paradigm for understanding the meanings that human beings attach to their experiences. For this study, a centre manager of the well-established Yan Oi Tong Elderly Community Centre recruited three older adults to participate for nine months. These people were living with MCI in a rural district. Prior to this study, these three elders engaged in a participative design workshop that was organised by the same researcher. The workshop had two sessions, and explored the participants' latent needs concerning home decoration and product design for public housing.Observational visits were conducted with each participant every two weeks for a nine-month period. The participants are referred to as CH, CP and SK, and they were aged between 79 and 85 years old.6. DiscussionTheme 1: Fear of being alone.The participants described their experiences of facing loneliness. Although they felt that their memories were getting worse, they could still express how loneliness was one of the most difficult challenges that they had to face day-by-day. SK said that 'I want to do my preferred activities,and don't want to stay at home all the time!' Theme 2: Recognition of incompetence.The older persons suffering from MCI believed that they were, to varying degrees, incompetent in dealing with day-to-day activities. As CP explained, 'I have become useless and cannot remember things recently…' Theme 3: Lack of neighbourhood spirit. For older people living alone in public housing, neighbours become the most reliable people after their families. Older participants reported that they commonly displaced their house keys due to their gradual memory loss. They had to make duplicate front door keys, and gave them to neighbours who they trusted.To deal with such problems, a product design or system could be pre-installed in housing facilities that would enable better communication or connection between neighbours, and allow older residents to become closer to others.7. ConclusionThis ethnographic study has investigated the latent, unfulfilled needs of older persons living with MCI. Building rapport with these older participants was an important step at the beginning of the study.This finding of "Fear of being alone", "Lack of neighbourhood spirit"also revealed that regular visits by community centre staff and local social workers should be organised to provide older community members and stakeholders with more attention regarding their day-to-day activities and their relations to society as a whole in order to eliminate "Recognition of incompetence".


Content analysis of 2 complete years of articles published in the journal Water Policy show that a wide spread of issues dominate the policy analysis discourse, with citations of the articles being spread across the thematic issues published. Few articles in the journal were particularly technical in nature but rather the journal has tended to publish articles which are more directly linked to water policy. Articles related broadly to institutional and regulatory reform were numerically the most significant in terms of the published content of the journal. Examination of the short-term citation rate of articles published did not show a significant bias towards any thematic issue covered by the journal, suggesting broad interest in the wide range of topics relating to water policy issues.


Information about the libraries and library resources specifically targeted to students in the Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education & Administration.


Conventionally, maximum capacities for energy assimilation are presented as daily averages. However, maximum daily energy intake is determined by the maximum metabolizable energy intake rate and the time available for assimilation of food energy. Thrush nightingales (Luscinia luscinia) in migratory disposition were given limited food rations for 3 d to reduce their energy stores. Subsequently, groups of birds were fed ad lib. during fixed time periods varying between 7 and 23 h per day. Metabolizable energy intake rate, averaged over the available feeding time, was 1.9 W and showed no difference between groups on the first day of refueling. Total daily metabolizable energy intake increased linearly with available feeding time, and for the 23‐h group, it was well above suggested maximum levels for animals. We conclude that both intake rate and available feeding time must be taken into account when interpreting potential constraints acting on animals' energy budgets. In the 7‐h group, energy intake rates increased from 1.9 W on the first day to 3.1 W on the seventh day. This supports the idea that small birds can adaptively increase their energy intake rates on a short timescale.


Electric power industry is experiencing a movement from the existing conventional electric grid to a more reliable, efficient and secure smart grid. In order to achieve these goals, components such as energy storage will be included, and potentially in large scale. Many feasible applications of energy storage in power systems have been investigated. The major benefits of energy storage include electric energy time-shift, frequency regulation and transmission congestion relief. In this paper, we focus on the reliability improvement of the bulk power system brought by the utilization of energy storage in the local distribution systems integrated with renewable energy generation. An intelligent operation strategy for energy storage which improves reliability considering the renewable energy integration is presented. The smart grid communication and control network is utilized to implement the proposed energy storage operation. A bulk power system reliability evaluation framework is proposed to study the reliability impact brought by the energy storage integration and operation. A detailed case study and sensitivity analysis is performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the presented operation strategy and evaluation framework, and to provide valuable insights on the power system reliability impact derived from the energy storage integration.


Context. The protoplanetary disk around the F-type star HD 135344B (SAO 206462) is in a transition stage and shows many intriguing structures both in scattered light and thermal (sub-) millimeter emission which are possibly related to planet formation processes. Aims. We aim to study the morphology and surface brightness of the disk in scattered light to gain insight into the innermost disk regions, the formation of protoplanets, planet-disk interactions traced in the surface and midplane layers, and the dust grain properties of the disk surface. Methods. We have carried out high-contrast polarimetric differential imaging (PDI) observations with VLT/SPHERE and obtained polarized scattered light images with ZIMPOL in the R and I-bands and with IRDIS in the Y and J-bands. The scattered light images and surface brightness profiles are used to study in detail structures in the disk surface and brightness variations. We have constructed a 3D radiative transfer model to support the interpretation of several detected shadow features. Results. The scattered light images reveal with unprecedented angular resolution and sensitivity the spiral arms as well as the 25 au cavity of the disk. Multiple shadow features are discovered on the outer disk with one shadow only being present during the second observation epoch. A positive surface brightness gradient is observed in the stellar irradiation corrected (r(2)-scaled) images in southwest direction possibly due to an azimuthally asymmetric perturbation of the temperature and/or surface density by the passing spiral arms. The disk integrated polarized flux, normalized to the stellar flux, shows a positive trend towards longer wavelengths which we attribute to large (2 pi alpha \textgreater= lambda) aggregate dust grains in the disk surface. Part of the non-azimuthal polarization signal in the U-phi image of the J-band observation can be attributed to multiple scattering in the disk. Conclusions. The detected shadow features and their possible variability have the potential to provide insight into the structure of and processes occurring in the innermost disk regions. Possible explanations for the presence of the shadows include a 22 degrees misaligned inner disk, a warped disk region that connects the inner disk with the outer disk, and variable or transient phenomena such as a perturbation of the inner disk or an asymmetric accretion flow. The spiral arms are best explained by one or multiple protoplanets in the exterior of the disk although no gap is detected beyond the spiral arms up to 1.0.


The action of met-enkephalin on GABAergic spontaneous miniature IPSPs (smIPSPs) was investigated in CA1 neurons from hippocampal slice cultures. In the presence of excitatory amino acid blockers (2,3- dihydroxy-6-nitro-7-sulphamoyl-benzo(F)quinoxaline, DL-2-amino-5- phosphonovaleric acid) and TTX, a continuous high-frequency bombardment of smIPSPs was recorded. The smIPSPs were blocked by the GABAA antagonist bicuculline. The occurrence of the smIPSPs was random and their amplitude distribution was skewed toward larger smIPSPs. Met- enkephalin (10–20 microM) reversibly reduced the frequency and changed the amplitude distribution of the smIPSPs. The proportion of "large" smIPSPs was reduced, but a loss of "small" smIPSPs also contributed to the reduction in smIPSP frequency. The selective mu-receptor agonist DAGO mimicked the effect of met-enkephalin and naloxone blocked the effect of DAGO. Hyperpolarization of the neuronal membranes, produced by reducing the extracellular K+ concentration, did not reduce the frequency of the smIPSPs, nor did it block the effect of DAGO. Reduction of the extracellular concentration of Ca2+ combined with an increase in extracellular Mg2+ or the addition of Cd2+ did not reduce the smIPSP frequency, nor did it block the effect of DAGO. These results suggest that CA1 pyramidal cells of hippocampal organotypic cultures are tonically inhibited by spontaneous release of GABA, through a release mechanism that is independent of propagated sodium action potentials. Met-enkephalin and DAGO reduce the tonic inhibition by reducing the frequency of the smIPSPs, through a direct action on the presynaptic GABAergic terminals. The effect was probably not mediated by hyperpolarization of the presynaptic membrane or by modulation of presynaptic Ca2+ currents.


Abstract The majority of children and young people with autism spectrum disorder are educated in mainstream schools. The diverse needs of this group of pupils has led to a continuum of provision being promoted in the UK and other countries, and developed at a local level. This continuum includes mainstream schools with resource provision which can offer enhanced physical and staffing resources beyond those normally provided in mainstream schools. How teaching staff perceive such provisions and their development over time have not previously been investigated. The current study was designed to explore the perceptions of staff working in five primary and three secondary school resource provisions in one local authority throughout the first year of the provisions and at three-year follow-up.Sixty-six interviews with senior teachers, mainstream teachers and resource provision staff took place during the initial year, with 21 three-year follow-up interviews. Data were analysed using inductive and deductive thematic analysis. Data provide tentative support for Bronfenbrenner's bio-ecosystemic theory as a framework for representing the complex interactions within the resource provision schools, between systems and their development over time. Findings and implications are discussed in relation to theory and practice.


A feasibility study of the treatment of advanced superficial human malignant tumors utilizing direct intralesional injections of cisplatin mixed with purified bovine collagen was performed. The purpose of using intralesional injection of cisplatin mixed with collagen was to limit the drug exposure to normal tissues while increasing the dose and duration of exposure to the tumor. Fourteen evaluable superficial tumors in four patients (melanoma, breast CA, squamous CA from larynx) received a total of 65 treatments in the outpatient clinic setting. All patients had failed prior treatment with systemic intravenous cisplatin. Lesions were treated at least three times at two‐week intervals. After intramuscular meperidine premedication, multiple injections of cisplatin mixed with collagen were made into the tumors. There was minimal normal tissue toxicity and minimal systemic toxicity. Tumor regression or stabilization occurred in 86% (12/14) of tumors; 50% (7/14) of lesions regressed more than 50% in size. This study suggests that intralesional colloidal cisplatin can overcome resistance to systemic intravenous cisplatin.


This thesis employs a random effects panel estimator to assess the relationship between Swedish outward foreign direct investment (FDI) stock and cultural distance for a panel of 75 countries covering the period 1998–2012. Cultural distance, operationalized by differences in Schwartz cultural orientations and gender equality, adds to the liability of foreignness and is hypothesized to have a negative impact on outward FDI stock. The theoretical underpinning for the hypothesis is based on a gravity model adapted to FDI, which shows that distance between countries reduces the amount of FDI that takes place between them. The results from the analysis provide partial support for the hypothesis as differences in some of Schwartz cultural orientations (harmony, embeddedness and egalitarianism) have a significant and negative effect on Swedish firms´ outward FDI stock. Moreover, differences in women´s economic rights are positively related to FDI, while no significant effects are found for differences in share of women in parliament.


The ER of eggs of the sea urchin Lytechinus pictus was stained by microinjecting a saturated solution of the fluorescent dicarbocyanine DiIC18(3) (DiI) in soybean oil; the dye spread from the oil drop into ER membranes throughout the egg but not into other organelles. Confocal microscopy revealed large cisternae extending throughout the interior of the egg and a tubular membrane network at the cortex. Since diffusion of DiI is confined to continuous bilayers, the spread of the dye supports the concept that the ER is a cell-wide, interconnected compartment. In time lapse observations, the internal cisternae were seen to be in continuous motion, while the cortical ER was stationary. After fertilization, the internal ER appeared to become more finely divided, beginning as a wave apparently coincident with the calcium wave and becoming most marked by 2-3 min. By 5-8 min the ER returned to an organization similar to that of the unfertilized egg. The cortical network also changed at fertilization; it became disrupted and eventually recovered. DiI labeling allowed continuous observations of the ER during pronuclear migration and mitosis. DiI-stained membranes accumulated in the region of the microtubule array surrounding the sperm nucleus and centriole (the sperm aster) as it migrated to the center of the egg; this accumulation persisted near the centrosomes and zygote nucleus throughout pronuclear fusion and the first two mitotic cycles. We have used a new method to observe the spatial and temporal organization of the ER in a living cell, and we have demonstrated a striking reorganization of the ER at fertilization.


Synthesizing photo‐realistic images and videos is at the heart of computer graphics and has been the focus of decades of research. Traditionally, synthetic images of a scene are generated using rendering algorithms such as rasterization or ray tracing, which take specifically defined representations of geometry and material properties as input. Collectively, these inputs define the actual scene and what is rendered, and are referred to as the scene representation (where a scene consists of one or more objects). Example scene representations are triangle meshes with accompanied textures (e.g., created by an artist), point clouds (e.g., from a depth sensor), volumetric grids (e.g., from a CT scan), or implicit surface functions (e.g., truncated signed distance fields). The reconstruction of such a scene representation from observations using differentiable rendering losses is known as inverse graphics or inverse rendering. Neural rendering is closely related, and combines ideas from classical computer graphics and machine learning to create algorithms for synthesizing images from real‐world observations. Neural rendering is a leap forward towards the goal of synthesizing photo‐realistic image and video content. In recent years, we have seen immense progress in this field through hundreds of publications that show different ways to inject learnable components into the rendering pipeline. This state‐of‐the‐art report on advances in neural rendering focuses on methods that combine classical rendering principles with learned 3D scene representations, often now referred to as neural scene representations. A key advantage of these methods is that they are 3D‐consistent by design, enabling applications such as novel viewpoint synthesis of a captured scene. In addition to methods that handle static scenes, we cover neural scene representations for modeling non‐rigidly deforming objects and scene editing and composition. While most of these approaches are scene‐specific, we also discuss techniques that generalize across object classes and can be used for generative tasks. In addition to reviewing these state‐of‐the‐art methods, we provide an overview of fundamental concepts and definitions used in the current literature. We conclude with a discussion on open challenges and social implications.


We have tested the hypothesis that the intestinal tract has some relation to the absorption of silica particles through the gastrointestinal mucous barrier. Its influence on extrapulmonary silicosis has been seen in experimental and clinical studies. Therefore we used male Wistar rats which were given up to six doses of 50 mg of silica through gastric tube. The animals were sacrificed at the 10th and 41st week. We have not observed silica particles in the submucosa, muscularis or regional lymph nodes. The liver and the spleen did not show silicotic nodules. Our results show that the healthy gastrointestinal barrier plays hardly any part in both silica absorption and extrapulmonary silicosis.


PTK2/FAK is a widely expressed non-receptor tyrosine kinase located mainly at focal adhesions. Sensing upstream signals from growth factor receptors as well as integrins, the enzyme contributes to activation of multiple downstream signaling pathways involved in the regulation of cell survival, proliferation and motility. PTK2 protein expression is elevated in many human cancers, and dysregulated PTK2 is known to mediate anchorage-independent growth of malignant cells. Inhibition of PTK2 activity thus may interfere with tumor growth and metastasis formation. BI 853520 inhibited the enzymatic activity of PTK2 at low nanomolar concentrations. In a selectivity screen of 264 tyrosine and serine/threonine kinases, BI 853520 inhibited only 4 enzymes at a concentration of 1,000 nM by more than 50%. In contrast to PTK2 inhibitors described previously, the compound showed more than 1,000-fold selectivity against closely related kinases such as PYK2/PTK2B. In human PC-3 prostate carcinoma cells, PTK2 is highly expressed and phosphorylated on Tyr 397 . Treatment of PC-3 cells with BI 853520 inhibited autophosphorylation with an EC 50 of 1 nM. Colony formation of PC-3 cells in a soft agar matrix was inhibited with an EC 50 of 3 nM. In contrast, the same cell line growing in conventional monolayer culture showed growth inhibition only at 1,000-fold higher concentration. Similar results were obtained for other carcinoma cell lines. BI 853520 administered to immunodeficient nude mice showed good oral bioavailability (F = 90%) and a half-life of 5 hours. Daily oral treatment at dose levels up to 100 mg/kg over a period of several weeks was well tolerated by the animals. Treatment with BI 853520 resulted in suppression of PTK2 autophosphorylation in tissue samples from both human tumor xenografts and mouse skin. BI 853520 was tested for efficacy in a panel of 18 human tumor xenograft models representing multiple indications, including carcinomas of the lung, ovary, pancreas and prostate as well as sarcomas. At daily oral doses of 50 mg/kg the compound was highly active in a subset of models, including the PC-3 prostate carcinoma, resulting in strong suppression of tumor growth (TGI > 90% compared to controls) or tumor regression in individual animals. Significant inhibition of tumor growth was observed at doses as low as 6 mg/kg, indicating a substantial therapeutic window and opportunities for combination therapy. Another subset of models showed intermediate drug sensitivity (TGI 40 − 80%), whereas several models were resistant to treatment (non-significant TGI). This database is currently being explored to identify biomarkers predicting sensitivity to BI 853520 based on genetic aberrations, gene expression signatures and phosphoproteome analysis of xenograft tumors. In conclusion, BI 853520 is a novel, highly selective PTK2 kinase inhibitor that demonstrates anti-tumor activity in vitro and in vivo. Clinical development of BI 853520 has recently been initiated. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference: Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics; 2011 Nov 12-16; San Francisco, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Ther 2011;10(11 Suppl):Abstract nr A249.


We describe the behavioural consequences of conditioned flavour aversion and preference in pigs and have investigated the brain circuits involved in the representation of flavours with different hedonic values. The study was performed on eight 30‐kg pigs. (i) Animals were negatively conditioned to an F− flavour added to a meal followed by LiCl intraduodenal (i.d.) injection, and positively conditioned to an F+ flavour added to a meal followed by NaCl i.d. injection. F+ and F− were thyme or cinnamon flavours. After each conditioning, the behavioural activities were recorded; (ii) One and 5 weeks later, animals were subjected to three two‐choice food tests to investigate their preferences between F+, F− and a novel flavour (O); and (iii) Anaesthetised animals were subjected to three SPECT brain imaging sessions: control situation (no flavour) and exposure to F+ and to F−. The negative reinforcement induced a physical malaise and visceral illness. After a positive reinforcement, animals showed playing or feeding motivation and quietness. F+ was significantly preferred over O and F−, and O was significantly preferred over F−. Both F− and F+ induced some metabolic differences in neural circuits involved in sensory associative processes, learning and memory, emotions, reward and feeding motivation. Exposure to F+ induced a higher activity in corticolimbic and reward‐related areas, while F− induced a deactivation of the basal nuclei and limbic thalamic nuclei. This study reveals the unconscious cognitive dimension evoked by food flavours according to the individual experience, and highlights the importance of the food sensory image on hedonism and anticipatory eating behaviour.


This article provides an update on our earlier paper on the introduction by the Kenyan government in 2003 of free primary education (FPE), and its impact on low-fee private schools. First, published papers that have used our contribution as a springboard for discussion are critically reviewed. The argument and supporting evidence that the poor are not making preferred choices for low-fee private schools, but are in fact 'crowded out' of government schools, are explored. It is suggested that this argument depends upon the assumption of poor quality in the low-fee private schools – lower quality than is found in government schools. This assumption is found not to be tenable, on the basis of evidence given, especially concerning pupil–teacher ratios (PTRs) and other input indicators. Second, an update is given on the data collected in 2003. Longitudinal evidence gathered in 2007, 4 years after our original data were collected, points to a dramatic increase in the number of private schools serving the slum of Kibera, Nairobi. In total 116 private schools now operate in the slum, with private school enrolment showing an increase of 130 per cent. On the important indicator of PTRs, these have increased by nearly 50 per cent in the government schools, giving an average of 88:1, compared to 28:1 in the low-fee private schools. The longitudinal findings and critical literature review are combined to suggest that low-fee private schools should be seen as partners in education for all; various ways in which international organisations are responding to the challenge of improving quality in, and extending access to, low-fee private schools are reviewed.


This study explored through naturalistic inquiry three early childhood teacher's perceptions of inclusion and in-class practices in the inclusive preschool classroom. Interviews and in-class observations were used for the purpose of data collection. A social constructivist lens was used to analyze the data. Drawing from a social model of inclusion and theory of attribution framework, the results revealed that inclusion is multifaceted. An understanding and commitment to the ideology of inclusion must occur in conjunction with inclusive in-class strategies and techniques to create successful inclusive programs. This study suggests recommendations for change must be made at the government level, the post-secondary education level and at the community level. These reforms need to be made collaboratively to ensure that all stakeholders have a common understanding and vision for inclusion.


Formaggio di Fossa is an Italian traditional cheese of the Montefeltro area (Emilia Romagna and Marche regions) characterized by a particular step of ripening that is carried out into pits (infossamento) borne in the sandstone. Since the XIV century, the inhabitants were used to set food, especially cereals and cheese, into pits to preserve them during winter and to protect them from invaders. The aim of the present work is to study physical and chemical features of this product with particular reference to the presence of the most important biogenic amines ( -Phenylethylamine, putrescine, cadaverine, histamine, tyramine, spermine and spermidine), compared with a control cheese fully ripened in factory. Formaggio di Fossa showed higher values of Aw, pH, humidity, proteins, pH 4,6-soluble nitrogen (NCN) and water soluble nitrogen (NPN) and much lower amounts of fat. Much higher amounts of total biogenic amines were detected in Formaggio di Fossa than in control cheese, where their concentration was very low. Cadaverine, putrescine and tyramine were the most concentrated biogenic amines. Nevertheless, thyramine was present at levels suggested as compatible with GMPs. Histamine was detected at low amounts, far from potentially toxic levels.


Fluoride in groundwater has both natural and anthropogenic sources. Fluoride bearing minerals, volcanic gases and various industrial and agricultural activities can contribute to high concentrations. High intake of fluoride from drinking water is the main cause of fluorosis and may lead to many other health problems. Problems usually start with intake of water containing more that 1,5 mg/l of fluoride (WHO guideline). Many water supplies in Africa are contaminated by much higher concentrations of fluoride. Alternative water sources, improvement of the nutritional status of population at risks and appropriate defluoridation methods are the potential options for mitigation of high fluoride effects. Regarding the defluoridation, there is not a universal method which is appropriate under all social, financial, environmental and technical conditions. This paper assesses the probability of occurrence of excessive fluoride concentrations in African groundwater. The assessment combines available information from reported cases with knowledge on geochemical behavior of fluorine in different geographical settings, defined by geological and climatic conditions. Better understanding of the distribution pattern can provide valuable information for design of new water supplies, particularly those located in Precambrian Basement regions or volcanic areas of the African Rift system. For benefit of existing water supplies already affected by high fluoride concentrations, an overview of available defluoridation techniques is presented in terms of efficiency, required technology and costs. Simple decision trees are used to provide guidelines for selection of an appropriate Guidelines for Community Groundwater Supply and Protection in Africa removal method. Such guidelines are easily understandable to a "problem owner" seeking practical solution for improvement of his/her groundwater resource. Submitted to UNESCO/UWC 2 15 December 2008


In their study of American individualism, Robert N. Bellah and his associates report that the mostly white and middle class Americans to whom they spoke "have difficulty articulating the richness of their commitments [to other people]. In the language they use, their lives sound more isolated and arbitrary than they really are" (21). The researchers conclude with concern that "the language of individualism, the primary American language of self-understanding, limits the ways in which people think" (290, my emphasis). Carol Tavris, writing in The Mismeasure of Woman, puts it even more succinctly: "We must be careful about the explanations and narratives we choose to account for our lives because ... we live by the stories we tell" (312). While both studies note a crucial issue in contemporary American cultural studies, how we identify ourselves as individuals and as Americans, they focus primarily on Euro-American representations of identity, and, perhaps as a result, leave their readers with more cautions than recommendations. Modern American literature in fact offers us access to a wide variety of viable alternative self-concepts and narrations of identity; broadening Bellah's "people" and Tavris's "we" to include and recognize the significance of American stories not strictly descended from European origins may reveal that there is less cause for concern than they imply--and more cause for celebration.(1) To be sure, in contemporary America our stories are still predominantly influenced by the autobiographical narrative styles created over two centuries ago in Europe. The mythical American success story--whether told by Cooper, Twain, Hemingway and Hammett, or by John Wayne, Phil Donahue, and Dan Rather--still examines primarily "our deepest identity" as individuals, using the narrative paradigms developed by late eighteenth-century writers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Benjamin Franklin. In these narratives, the self-made, self-reliant man explains how he has progressed beyond the naivete of youth, has overcome the obstacles placed in his way by society, and has put the past behind him to become a confident, productive individual. He assumes all the authority of the author's position, assuring us that he alone can and will tell the true story about himself; we are invited to believe the facts of his story as he presents them. Despite literary innovations which have given us other stories from which to choose, such as stories of chaotic times and antiheroes, of absurdity and inaction, the earlier paradigm has retained popularity and cultural currency. Though limited in scope, these traditional autobiographical paradigms offer powerful opportunities, even for Americans of non-European ancestry. For minority Americans, writing (or co-writing) their life stories has from the start produced both acceptance by the reading public and a chance to claim and (re)tell their own stories. Slave narratives, "as-told-to" Indian autobiographies, and exoticized stories of Asian immigrants helped open doors for other minority writers to create and publish poetry, fiction, and other genres. Yet the impulse to focus on stories of identity has not weakened. As Shirley Geok-lin Lim notes, "For many ethnic writers, writing is frequently a writing of `the story of my life' (or `of my people's lives'), whether it takes the form of poetry, fiction, or autobiography" (27). Such "identity narratives," a term meant to be more inclusive than "autobiography," are thus at the heart of much ethnic and minority American writing. Of course, some writers with little or no cultural connection to eighteenth-century France would probably wish to revise the forms of these narratives, and have frequently done so; Jade Snow Wong's third-person narration of her autobiography and N. Scott Momaday's multiperspectival construction of his life story are but two examples. However, the genre and the reading public have resisted such revisions. …


Dunes are the first line of defence against the physical forces of the coastal environment. Informed dune management is an important challenge for coastal managers, particularly with the predicted onset of rising sea levels. The measurement of long term trends and change in coastal systems can provide valuable information for informed and pre-emptive management of the world's coastlines. Methods commonly used for change detection involve retrospective measurement of the shoreline or high water mark using aerial photography. For more dynamic coasts however, longer-term trends in these features may be obscured by short-term fluctuations. In this study, three different methods for quantifying dune change using aerial photographs, photogrammetric data, and LiDAR data, are used. The methods include 1) dune volume calculation, 2) 2 m AHD contour movement analysis, and 3) vegetation line tracking. The techniques are applied to Woonona/Bellambi and Thirroul beaches located within the Wollongong Local Government Area. It is shown that the use of different indicators results in significantly different trend estimates and that caution must be exercised in the selection of appropriate indicators. For highly dynamic dunes, such as those at Woonona/Bellambi and Thirroul, indicators such as the 2 m AHD contour location and the dune volume provided a better indication of underlying trends in coastal erosion than the vegetation line. Woonona/Bellambi Beach was found to have accreted by 147,770.5 (±60,000) m3 since 1961, while Thirroul appears to have fluctuated around its 1961 volume. A large storm cut of 76,719.8 m3 was calculated for the whole of Thirroul Beach system after the 1974 storm events. An analysis of the methods highlights limitations, including a low temporal resolution, that should be addressed in future monitoring of dune behavior. The detailed analysis of dune change allows for more site specific management of the dune systems by Wollongong Council. This report provides an improved understanding of how the different systems have changed and can projected into future pre-emptive management.


This work deals with SCITAIL, a natural entailment challenge derived from a multichoice question answering problem. The premises and hypotheses in SCITAIL are generated with no awareness of each other, and not specifically aimed to the entailment task. This makes it more challenging than other entailment tasks and more directly useful to the end-task – question answering. We propose DEISTE (deep exploring inter-sentence interactions for textual entailment) for this entailment task. Given word-to-word interactions between the premise-hypothesis pair (P ,H), DEISTE consists of: (i) A parameterdynamic convolution to make important words in P and H play a dominant role in learnt representations; (ii) A positionaware attentive convolution to encode the representation and position information of the aligned word pairs. Experiments show (i) DEISTE gets ∼ 5% improvement over prior state of the art, (ii) the pre-trained DEISTE on SCITAIL generalizes well on RTE-5.1


In this article, we report on the discovery of statistical regularities, mathematical laws, and universal characteristics underlying multiscale human mobility. Our study is based on the generation of proxy networks for global human travel behavior from pervasive user data collected at the world's largest bill- tracking Web site and trajectories of trackable items (known as travel bugs) recorded at a geocaching Web. From this pervasive data, we extract multiscale human traffic networks for the US and European countries that cover distances of a few to a few thousand kilometers. Proxy networks permit reliable estimates of statistical features such as degree, flux, and traffic weight distributions. The authors show that despite cultural and national differences, universal properties exist in a diverse set of traffic networks along with important insight into traffic-related phenomena such as the geographic spread of emergent infectious diseases.


Students who have completed a year of German read Brecht in their second year, those of Spanish read Cervantes. Teachers of first- and second-year Japanese can often find nothing comparable. "Why aren't your students reading literature?" they are asked. "Why not Soseki? Or Murakami?" What are instructors of Japanese doing wrong? Nothing, according to the authors of this volume. Rather, they argue, such questions exemplify the gross misunderstandings and unreasonable expectations of teaching reading in Japanese. In Acts of Reading, the authors set out to explore what reading is for Japanese as a language, and how instructors should teach it to students of Japanese. They seek answers to two questions: What are the aspects of reading in Japan as manifested in Japanese society? What L2 (second-language) reading problems are specific to Japanese? In answering the first and related questions, the authors conclude that reading is a socially motivated, purposeful act that is savored and becomes a part of people's lives. Reading instruction in Japanese, therefore, should include teaching students how to work with text as the Japanese do in Japanese society. The second question relates more directly to traditional concerns in L2 reading. The authors begin with a general theory of reading. They then offer a welcome glimpse into the rich and complex perspectives - sometimes conflicting, other times symbiotic - on what reading is and how it is performed in L1 and L2, and, most importantly, on the web of interconnections between the phenomenology of reading and the demands it places on teaching approaches to reading in Japanese.


The plasma near Saturn's equator is quasi‐corotating, but those fluid elements entering the near‐vicinity of the moon Enceladus become uniquely modified. Besides the solid body, the Moon has a surrounding dust envelop that we show herein to be detected ∼20 Enceladus radii (1 RE = 252 km) both north and south of the body. Previous reports indicate that corotating plasma slows down substantially in the near‐vicinity of Enceladus. We show herein that the commencement of this plasma slow down matches closely with Cassini's entry into the dense portions of the enveloping dust in the northern hemisphere above the Moon. We also examine in detail the source of the dust about 400 km above the south polar fissures. We find that a large positive potential must exist between the south pole of the moon and the spacecraft to account for ions streaming away from the pole on connecting magnetic field lines.


The study investigated the relationship between computer aided instruction and institutional effectiveness of Federal Polytechnics in the North Central Geo-Political Zone. Correlation design was adopted for the study. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select 1000 respondents comprising of Heads of Departments, Examination officers, library and Information Technology officers, Chief Lecturers, Students and Executives of Student Union Governments. The research instruments used for the study were Questionnaires; Computer Aided Instruction Questionnaire (CAIQ) and Institutional Effectiveness Questionnaire (IEQ). The instruments were validated by the experts of computer science and science education. Split-half reliability method was used to determine reliability index of 0.62 and 0.64 for CAIQ and IEQ respectively after subjecting to Spearman ranking order statistics at 0.05 significance level. Three research questions and four hypotheses were generated to guide the study. Descriptive statistics was used to answer the research questions while Pearson product moment was used to test all the hypotheses. The result shows that there is low significant relationship between computer aided instruction and institutional effectiveness of Federal Polytechnics in North Central Nigeria. It was however recommended that adequate computer accessories should be provided for effective teaching and learning processes in the polytechnic. Also, adequate computer and utilization training should be given to all lecturers in order to develop computer based instruction for the effectiveness of the instruction in North Central Nigeria.


Co thin films were deposited by remote plasma atomic layer deposition (ALD) method using dicobalt hexacarbonyl t-butylacetylene (C12H10O6(Co)2) or cyclopentadienyl cobalt dicarbonyl (CpCo(CO)2) as the Co precursor. The impurity contents were minimized when the Co films deposited by remote plasma ALD with H2 plasma within the process pressure range of 0.1~2 Torr at plasma power of 300W. Co-Cp bond in CpCo(CO)2 precursor was easily broken under H2 remote plasma atmosphere. The carbon content of Co films were examined with Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) and Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy (RBS) to be ~21 at.% with C12H10O6(Co)2, and ~7 at.% with CpCo(CO)2. The surface morphologies of Co films were measured with atomic force microscope (AFM) and root mean square (RMS) values of Co films using C12H10O6(Co)2 and CpCo(CO)2 were 1.73 and 1.51, respectively.


A composite is made of several different things, parts or substances. There has been a rapid growth in the use of fiber-reinforced materials in engineering applications in the last few years. In this paper, two deflection functions due to both flexure and shear of an orthotropic cantilever beam loaded linearly at the upper surface are obtained by means of the anisotropic elasticity theory. The deflections at the free end of the beam are calculated for various orientation angles and lengths. The results obtained for the linearly distributed loaded beams are compared to that of the uniformly distributed loaded beams studied earlier. Shear deflection is the smallest for 45 orientation angle for uniformly and linearly distributed loaded beams.


World Film Locations: Glasgow explores Scotland's biggest city and the many locations in which its films are viewed, set, and shot, taking in the important moments and movements in its rich cinematic history. Contrasting the historic with the contemporary, and social realism with drama, World Film Locations: Glasgow seeks to discover the city's culture, character, and comedy. Essays cover a variety of topics including a background of Glasgow's cinema-going and the city's picture houses, the evolution of Scots comedy, and Glasgow a filmmaker's city for grassroots and underground filmmakers as well as big Hollywood productions. We look at interpretations of the city from homegrown talent and a European cinema stance. 38 films are featured from classics like Gregory's Girl and Loach's Carla's Song to cult hits like Trainspotting. Bollywood is represented, alongside European titles and grim Scots realism like Sweet Sixteen, My Name is Joe, and Red Road and new titles including Fast Romance, Perfect Sense, and NEDs.


The complexity of the newly defined visual MPEG-4 Advanced Simple (AS) profile is investigated. New tools in the AS profile include global motion compensation and quarter-pel motion compensation. Based on bitstream statistics of test sequences, the execution frequencies of decoder subtasks are derived, an opportunities for reduced-complexity implementation are explored. The results are platform-independent and can serve as basis for an MPEG-4 AS profile decoder implementation on any programmable target processor.


ABSTRACT In this article, a study on pyridine and pyrrole oxidation under oxy-fuel conditions has been carried out. The experimental results indicate that when the temperature is above 800°C, concentration of N2O in the offgas quickly destructs mainly into N2 with the increase of temperature. Both NO and N2O concentrations can be enlarged, obviously due to the increase of oxygen concentration. In addition, the effect of gas atmosphere on pyrrole oxidation is quite different from that on pyridine oxidation. Introduction of high content CO2 in oxy-fuel combustion can lead to a certain migration change of fuel nitrogen.


In this paper, we present a complete framework to support the monitoring of natural and man-made disasters by means of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. The fractal geometry is the most appropriate mathematical instrument in describing the irregularity of a natural observed scene, by means of few effective and reliable parameters. Therefore, fractal concepts can be used to model and identify geometrical changes that occurred in areas hit by disasters. We present an overall framework employing fractal-based models, algorithms, and tools to support the identification of natural area changes due to natural or man-made disasters. Such a framework includes an algorithm used to extract fractal parameters from a 2-D signal, a fractal interpolation tool, and a SAR raw-signal simulator. The combined use of these tools provides an innovative instrument for disaster monitoring applications. In this paper, we implement the fractal framework to obtain a relation between the fractal parameters of a SAR image and those of the relative imaged area. In addition, a case study is discussed, showing the potentiality of our framework for flooding detection


We investigate tunneling properties of a bound pair of Fermi atoms in an optical lattice. Including a realistic cosine-shape optical lattice potential, we calculate the molecular wavefunction ψ. Starting from the weak-coupling regime, we show how ψ shrinks as one increases the strength of a pairing interaction between atoms. When the molecular size becomes comparable to the lattice constant in the intermediate coupling regime, we find from the spatial structure of ψ that the molecular tunneling between lattice sites is accompanied by virtual dissociation. This phenomenon is shown to be suppressed in the strong-coupling regime due to very strong binding energy. We point out that, while the molecular tunneling accompanied by virtual dissociation can be described by the Hubbard model, it cannot describe the molecular tunneling with no virtual dissociation in the strong-coupling regime.


A new method of automated finishing that employs a nonconductive stone as the burnishing tool to execute burnishing assistance in electrochemical finishing following sword machining is investigated. The submitted processes can be used for various sword-form operations. Among the factors primarily discussed is the performance of electrochemical finishing combined with burnishing. In the experiment, an electrode is used with continuous and pulsed direct current. The controlled factors include the material of burnishing tool, the geometry of burnishing tool, and the chemical composition and concentration of the electrolyte. The experimental parameters are flow rate of electrolytes, feed rate of electrode and burnishing tool, electrical current rating, and pulsed period. Higher current rating with a quicker feed rate of the finishing tool effectively reaches the fast improvement of the surface roughness of the workpiece. The use of a large electrolytic flow rate is advantageous to the finish effect. The finish effect is better with longer off-time because discharge of the finish dregs becomes easier. The use of pulsed current, however, raises the machining time and cost. The design change of the electrochemical finishing to the electrochemical finishing and burnishing performs the best finishing make the surface of the swords smooth and bright. An effective and low-cost automation and the continuity finish processes through the design tool and using the burnishing assistance in the electrochemical finishing are high efficiency and low-cost means.


A new nondestructive method for identifying boundary conditions applied on a 3D linear elastic body is developed based on the load incremental approach, which linearizes the nonlinear governing equation of photoelasticity by considering small increments in applied load. Direct stress identification based on load incremental approach is highly sensitive to measurement errors and involves considerable amount of computations. On the other hand, identification of boundary conditions based on load incremental approach and thereby the state of stress is not only less sensitive to measurement errors but also involves less computation. This boundary conditions identification can be considered as an introduction of equilibrium condition and the property of linear elasticity to overcome the shortcomings of direct stress identification.


Background: Binahong ( Anredera cordifolia (Ten.) STEENIS) is a widely available herbal plant in Indonesia and has been intensely researched for its healing abilities due to its biological activities, but few have studied its capability in accelerating hard tissue healing in post-extraction tooth sockets. The purpose of this study was to analyse the effects of 3% binahong leaf extract gel on alveolar bone healing in post-extraction sockets in Wistar rats. Methods: In this study, 48 male Wistar rats were randomly allocated to twelve groups. After the extraction of the left mandibular incisor, sockets in Group I to IV were given 3% binahong leaf extract gel, group V to VIII were given a control gel, and group IX to XII were given Gengigel ® for 14 days. The residual socket volume (RSV) and fibroblast proliferation were observed on the 3 rd, 7 th, and 14 th day post-extraction, while the osteoblast and osteocyte proliferation were observed on the 7 th, 14 th, and 28 th day post-extraction. The RSV data were analysed using repeated measure ANOVA and one-way ANOVA, while the histopathological data were analysed using one-way ANOVA. Results: The results showed that the binahong group had the lowest RSV and the highest fibroblast proliferation compared to the other groups on the 7th day (p<0.05) and the highest osteoblast and osteocyte proliferation compared to the other groups on the 14 th day (p<0.05). Conclusion: The experiment showed that 3% binahong leaf extract gel could accelerate wound closure, which was characterized by a greater decrease in the RSV value in comparison to the other treatment groups and could enhance alveolar bone healing by increasing the proliferation of fibroblasts, osteoblasts, and osteocytes.


To determine the importance of the pulmonary or bronchial arteries as the site of injection to cast the lung vasculature rats, we retrospectively compared a group of normal Sprague-Dawley rats that were cast through either the caudal vena cava and right ventricle leading to the pulmonary arteries or through the aorta and bronchial arteries. There was no difference in the appearance of the whole casts or cast-to-lung weight ratios between the two groups, although an incompletely cast lung that was injected through the aorta showed preferential filling of the pleural and peribronchial regions. Nuclear impressions, a sign of good filling, were more frequent and the grade of the images was higher in the group filled through the vena cava. The microvascular density index was not different between the two groups, and a multivariate analysis of variance showed the injection site was not important in determining vascular density. The pulmonary vessels fill nearly as well when injected from the bronchial circulation indicating that the bronchial circulation can immediately perfuse the lung if the pulmonary arteries are obstructed, and casting can be carried out from either side with nearly the same results.


PURPOSE
Neovascularization of the avascular cornea is a significant problem associated with many corneal diseases. Because Fas ligand (FasL) is highly expressed in the cornea, the role of this molecule in controlling corneal neovascularization was examined in this study.

METHODS
C57BL/6(B6), FasL (CD95L)-deficient B6-gld, and Fas (CD95)-deficient B6-lpr mice were subjected to the suture model of neovascularization. Corneas were evaluated for neovascularization and representative samples subjected to immunohistochemical analysis for expression of Fas antigen and CD31 (platelet-endothelial cell adhesion molecule [PECAM-1]) on vessels that were present in the tissue. Corneas were also explanted and placed in collagen gel cultures to test the ability of anti-Fas antibody to prevent vessel extension from explanted corneas.

RESULTS
Immunohistochemical data demonstrated that quiescent vessels express CD31 alone, whereas vessels that penetrate the cornea coexpressed both the Fas antigen and CD31. A significant increase was observed in neovascularization in FasL-deficient B6-gld corneas compared with B6 corneas, and new vessel growth in both B6 and B6-gld was inhibited by anti-Fas antibody. Whereas Fas-deficient B6-lpr corneas displayed significantly less neovascularization than normal B6, B6-lpr mice express Fas on growing vessels. In corneal explant cultures, vessel growth from B6 and lpr mice corneas was inhibited by anti-Fas antibody, confirming functional Fas expression in B6-lpr mice.

CONCLUSIONS
These data indicate that FasL is an important factor in controlling corneal neovascularization.


The major hypothesis in the present study was that differences between high-risk and low-risk children in performance on standardized tests of cognitive ability would be explained, in part, by differences in attentiveness to auditory stimuli and differences in task orientation. The data collected revealed the anticipated higher standardized test scores for low-risk children. Within the high-risk sample, few differences were found between children who attended an intervention day-care program and those who did not. Measures from a laboratory task and a free-play observation suggested that attention is a key factor in understanding the high-risk child's development and also that differences in attention between high- and low-risk children can be reliably obtained as early as 3 years of age. A lessened attention span was demonstrated by high-risk children to both auditory and visual stimuli if either were complex or demanding.


Controlled exposure to retinoic acid (RA) induces the murine embryonal carcinoma cell line P19S18O1A1 (P19) to differentiate into a variety of cell types. One of the cell types exhibits neuronal-like morphology and expresses neuronal markers including neurofilament proteins, glutamate receptors, and the cholinergic enzymes choline acetyl-transferase and acetylcholinesterase. In this study we use Northern blot analysis, double-label immunocytochemistry, and single cell RNA analysis using polymerase chain reaction to show that RA-treated P19 cells with neuronal-like morphology also express neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) subunits alpha 3, alpha 4, and beta 2. Greater than 80% of RA-treated P19 cells with a neuronal-like phenotype express nAChR alpha 4 subunit transcripts and both alpha 4 and beta 2 protein. The RA-induced expression of alpha 3 transcripts accounts for a comparably small number of nAChR-containing cells (< 20%) of which half coexpress alpha 4 transcripts. Expression of high-levels of alpha 4 RNA is dependent upon both cell-cell contact and RA exposure. The appearance of nAChR subunits also coincides with RA-induced expression of high affinity [3H]-nicotine binding receptors. The P19 cell line offers an inducible neuronal cell system to study mammalian neuronal nicotinic receptor expression and the development of high affinity nicotinic binding sites similar to those expressed in the mammalian central nervous system.


Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS) is a recent metaheuristic, or framework for building heuristics, which exploits systematically the idea of neighborhood change, both in the descent to local minima and in the escape from the valleys which contain them. In this tutorial we first present the ingredients of VNS, i.e. Variable Neighborhood Descent (VND) and Reduced VNS (RVNS) followed by the basic and then the general scheme of VNS itself which contain both of them. Extensions are presented, in particular Skewed VNS (SVNS) which enhances exploration of far-away valleys and Variable Neighborhood Decomposition Search (VNDS), a two-level scheme for solution of large instances of various problems. In each case, we present the scheme, some illustrative examples and questions to be addressed in order to obtain an efficient implementation. Let us consider a combinatorial or global optimization problem


The distribution of transport infrastructure across space is the outcome of deliberate government planning that reflects a desire to unlock the welfare gains from regional economic integration. Yet, despite being one of the oldest government activities, the economic forces shaping the endogenous emergence of infrastructure have not been rigorously studied. This paper provides a stylized analytical framework of open economies in which planners decide non-cooperatively on transport infrastructure investments across continuous space. Allowing for intra- and international trade, the resulting equilibrium investment schedule features underinvestment that turns out particularly severe in border regions and that is amplified by the presence of discrete border costs. In European data, the mechanism explains about a fifth of the border effect identified in a conventionally specified gravity regression. The framework sheds light on the welfare costs of second best investment schedules, on the effects of intercontinental trade or of privatized infrastructure provision.


This paper considers the implementation of two steps, two hybrid points implemented in block predictor-block corrector method with constant step size. The method is developed using collocation and interpolation of power series approximate solution to give a continuous linear multistep method in which the predictor and corrector are implemented in block method. The basic properties of the corrector was investigated and found to be zero stable, consistent and convergent. The efficiency of the derived method was tested on some numerical examples and found to give better approximation than the existing methods.


We study the causal effect of incarceration on reoffending using discontinuities in North Carolina's sentencing guidelines. A regression discontinuity analysis shows that 1 year of incarceration causes a reduction in the likelihood of being reincarcerated within 3, 5, and 8 years from sentencing by 44%, 29%, and 21%, respectively. To parse the potentially heterogeneous dose response relationship underlying these effects, we develop an econometric model of prison sentences and recidivism. We find that incarceration has meaningful reoffending-reducing average effects that diminish in incarceration length. As a result, budget-neutral reductions in sentence length combined with increases in incarceration rates can decrease recidivism.


Aim: To develop protocols to digest staphylococcal enterotoxins B and C (SEB/SEC), toxic shock syndrome toxin 1 (TSST-1) and alpha haemolysin (AH), members of the pyrogenic toxin superantigen family (PTSAg). To develop a novel mass spectrometry method to analyse and compare urine samples from patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and orthopaedic fracture patients for the presence of Staphylococcus aureus. Background: RA is a disease of unknown etiology; with a pathogenesis that is due to a mixture of genetic, immunological and environmental factors. A T-cell immune response to the presence of PTSAgs in the joints of RA patients has previously been described. A link has been proposed between pathogenic micro-organisms and the development of chronic, autoimmune conditions. Potential pathogenic mechanisms include the hygiene hypothesis and molecular mimicry. Due to the widespread prevalence of RA, it has been hypothesised that the pathogenesis could involve a common bacterium. In RA, one potential bacterial candidate that has been suggested is S.aureus. Current published data averages the presence of S.aureus in the general population at 30% (nasal/nasopharyngeal swabs). However, our unpublished data suggests immune complexes containing S.aureus antigens are detectable in urine. xii Methods: Mid-stream urine samples were collected from the rheumatology and orthopaedic departments of the Royal Lancaster Infirmary (RLI), UK. Urine samples were analysed by western blot and mass spectrometry. Results: 56.4% of RA patients showed the presence of at least one staphylococcal toxin in their urine compared with 27.1% of fracture patients. Conclusion: Our work demonstrates an increased presence of bacterial toxins in urine from RA patients, compared to the fracture controls and the current literature. This study is the first to demonstrate the presence of common staphylococcal enterotoxins in RA patient urine, raising the question of what role they may have in the disease pathogenesis, given that these patients have no active infections. This raises questions of whether the bacteria and their toxins are involved in an individual's likelihood of getting RA; are those people with RA more likely to have S.aureus infections due to their immunological state? The presence of S.aureus in RA patient tissues warrants further investigation to determine if it is causative of, or a result of RA diagnosis.


Taking the three-dimensional CAD software Solidworks as developing platform and with the help of its powerful OLE technical support offered, the mathematical model of involute curved surface of bevel gear is established and the 3-D parameterized design and analyzing system for involute gear parts is developed in the paper. By inputting necessary variables on the interface of the gear design system an accurate 3-D parameterized geometric entity of involute gear can be automatically created. In the design system a kind of method called template technique is developed to realize the conversion of a gear part from 3-D geometric entity to corresponding 2-D standard engineering drawing and the marking of necessary design technical requests and parameters on the engineering drawing automatically, which offsets the lack that current three-dimensional CAD software can not automatically create standard two-dimensional CAD engineering drawing. Also the gear strength checkout program module is developed which is helpful to greatly improve design efficiency of involute gear parts.


VOLUME ONE: CORPORATE PERSONALITY, INCORPORATION, REGISTRATION, MEMO AND ARTICLES Corporate Personality and Incorporation Ascription of Legal Responsibility to Groups in Complex Patterns of Economic Integration - Hugh Collins Corporate Liability - Neil Hawke and Pamela Hargreaves Smoke and Mirrors From Peeping behind the Corporate Veil to Ignoring it Completely - S Ottolenghi Lifting the Corporate Veil in the Pursuit of Justice - Peter Ziegler and Lynn Gallagher Lifting the Corporate Veil (Case Comment) - John P Lowry Metaphysics and the Corporate Veil - Christopher Ruane Pre-Incorporation Contracts and the Problem of Corporate Fundamentalism - Joseph Savirimuthu Are Promoters Proverbially Profuse? Salomon under Attack - Claire Howell Section 459 on Parent and Subsidiary Companies - Jonathan Mukwiri The European Company, the Successful Conclusion of Protracted Negotiations - Frank Wooldridge The Incorporation Theory - the United Kingdom - Dan Prentice The Limited Liability Act of 1855 - Louis De Koker The Limited Liability Partnership - Judith Freedman and Vanessa Finch Pick and Mix or Mix-up? The Veil of Incorporation - Fiction or Facade? - Georgina Andrews 'A Temple Built on Faulty Foundations' - Marc Moore Piercing the Corporate Veil and the Legacy of Salomon v Salomon Lifting the Veil of Incorporation - Cheong Ann Png Creasey v Breachwood Motors - A Right Decision with Wrong Reasons Corporate Personality and the Assumption of Responsibility - John H Armour To Pierce or Not to Pierce the Corporate Veil - Why Substantive Consolidation Is Not an Issue under English Law - Simon Bowmer Registration and the Memo and Articles The Constitution of the Company - Clare M S McGlynn Mandatory Statutory Provisions versus Private Agreements Competing Interests and Conflicting Principles - F G Rixon An Examination of the Power of Alteration of Articles of Association The Relative Nature of a Shareholder's Right to Enforce the Company Contract - Robert R Drury The Controversy on the Section 20 Contract Revisited - G D Goldberg The Section 20 Contract - Gregory The European Company on the Level Playing Field of the Community - Sabine Ebert The European Company - Essential Tool or Eviscerated Dream? - Vanessa Edwards The SE Company - A New Common European Company from 8 October 2004 - Erik Werlauff VOLUME TWO: LIMITED LIABILITY PARTNERSHIP Partnership Law in the Twenty-First Century - Elspeth Deards What's on Offer? A Consideration of the Legal Forms Available for Use by Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in the United Kingdom - Michael Lower Partnership Law Review - J J Henning The Joint Consultation Papers and the Limited Liability Partnership Act in Brief Historical and Comparative Perspective Shares and Ownership, Shareholders Company Law and the Myth of Shareholder Ownership - Paddy Ireland Contracting out of Company Law - Christopher A Riley Section 459 of the Companies Act 1985 and the Role of the Courts Derivative Actions by Beneficial Shareholders - Jennifer Payne Limitations on a Shareholders Right to Vote - Brenda Hannigan Effective Ratification Revisited Limited Liability - Judith Freedman Large Company Theory and Small Firms Management Deficiencies and Judicial Intervention - Ruth Redmond-Cooper A Comparative Analysis Section 459 of the Companies Act 1985 - A Code of Conduct for the Quasi-Partnership? - Brenda Hannigan Share Capital and Creditor Protection - John Armour Efficient Rules for a Modern Company Law Shareholder Actions - D D Prentice The Rule in Foss v Harbottle Shareholder Primacy and the Distribution of Wealth - Paddy Ireland Shareholder Remedies - Corporate Wrongs and the Derivative Action - Pauline Roberts and Jill Poole The Courts and Capital Reductions - David Milman The Problem of the Preference Share - Murray A Pickering Company Law - Class Rights - Kenneth Polack Company Law - Beneficial Interests in Shares - Sealy The No-Reflective Loss Principle - Jonathan Mukwiri The Pursuit of Effective Minority Shareholder Protection - John Lowry Section 459 of the Companies Act 1985 The Theory of the Firm - D D Prentice Minority Shareholder Oppression - Sections 459-461 of the Companies Act 1985 Voting Agreements and Corporate Statutory Powers - Giora Shapira Easier Exercise of Shareholder Rights Proposed Shareholders' Pre-Emptive Rights - Iain MacNeil Four Models of Minority Shareholder Protection in Takeovers - Joseph Lee The Role of the Judge in Enforcing Shareholder Rights - Colin Baxter VOLUME THREE: INSIDER DEALING, DIRECTORS AND THEIR DUTIES, CORPORATE GOVERNANCE Insider Dealing Insider Dealing - The New Law - Keith Wotherspoon Part Five of the Criminal Justice Act 1993 Insider-Dealing Regulation in the United Kingdom and Germany - David Stewart Fairbairn Comparing Regulatory Policy on the Implementation of Key Aspects of the EC Insider Dealing Directive Insider Trading Regulation - Kimberly Anne McCoy and Philip Summe A Developing State's Perspective The European Community's Directive on Insider Trading - P L Davies From Company Law to Securities Markets Regulation The House of Lords Rules on Insider Trading - Takis Tridimas Directors and Their Duties Directors and Officers' Remuneration - Ian M Ramsay The Role of the Law Directors' Duties to Creditors - Andrew Keay Contractarian Concerns Relating to Efficiency and Over-Protection of Creditors Directors' 'Tortious' Liability - Ross Grantham and Charles Rickett Contract, Tort or Company Law? Directors' Tortious Liability - Standard Chartered Bank and Restoration of Sanity - Chris Noonan and Susan Watson Fiduciary Duties of Shareholders and Directors - Robert Flannigan Non-Executive Directors - Saleem Sheikh Self-Regulation or Codification The Content of the Director's Duty of Loyalty - Ross Grantham The Continuing Value of Relief for Directors' Breach of Duty - Rod Edmunds and John Lowry The Duty of Directors to Take Account of Creditors' Interests - Andrew Keay Has It Any Role to Play? The Law on Corporate Opportunities in the Court of Appeal - Hans C Hirt Re Bhullar Bros Ltd Corporate Governance Board Performance and Cadbury on Corporate Governance - Vanessa Finch Continuing Obligations of Listed Public Companies - Olu Omoyele A Critical Analysis Corporate Governance - Mohammed B Hemraj Rationalizing Stakeholder Doctrine in Corporate Accountability Holding Multinationals to Account - P T Muchlinski Recent Developments in English Litigation and the Company Law Review 'How Can You Be Sure of Shell'? Is Corporate Governance Better Served by Unitary or Two-Tier Boards? - Peter Burbidge Secretary of State v Swan and North - Claire Howell Self-Regulation and Financial Aspects of Corporate Governance - John Holland The Private Shareholder, Corporate Governance and the Role of the Annual Report - Roy A Chandler and Susan A Bartlett Separation of Ownership and Control - Fama and Jensen How Much Does Performance Matter? A Meta-Analysis of CEO Pay Studies - H L Tosi et al Corporate Governance - Alcock A Defence of the Status Quo VOLUME FOUR: INTERNATIONAL TRADE, CONFLICTS OF LAWS, INSOLVENCY AND LIQUIDATION International Trade and Conflict of Laws Choice of Jurisdiction in European Corporate Law - Perspectives of European Corporate Governance - Tobias H Troger Conflicts of Jurisdiction and Conflicts of Law in Company Law Matters within the EU 'Market for Corporate Models' - Massimo V Benedettelli Brussels I and Rome I after Centros Corporations in International Litigation - P Muchlinski Problems of Jurisdiction and the United Kingdom Asbestos Case Freedom of Establishment, International Company Law and the Comparison of European Company Law Systems after the ECJ's Decision in Inspire Art Ltd - Hans C Hirt International Corporate Regulation - Iain MacNeil and Alex Lau Listing Rules and Overseas Companies Migrating Companies - Robert R Drury Recognition of Companies Incorporated in Other EU Member States - Eva Micheler The European Conflict-of-Corporate-Laws Revolution - Werner F Ebke Uberseering, Inspire Art and beyond The Impact of the Centros Case on Europe's Company Laws - Eva Micheler The Law Applicable to Groups of Companies Involving European Companies - Sabine Ebert The Law Determining Directors' Duties - Ben Jones Insolvency and Liquidation Creditor's Interests and Director's Duties - D D Prentice Doctoring in the Shadows of Insolvency - Vanessa Finch Insolvency and the Survival of Contracts - Meng Seng Wee Recharacterization after Enron - Alan Berg Rethinking Receivership - John Armour and Sandra Frisby The Law Commission Consultative Report on Company Security Interests - Gerard McCormack An Irreverent Riposte The Law Commission's Consultation Paper Number 164 - Erica Johansson Some Reflections Regarding the Exclusion of Securities The Recasting of Insolvency Law - Vanessa Finch Wrongful Trading - Predicting Insolvency - Andrew Hicks and T E Cooke Reform Company Law Reform - Saleem Sheikh Part One Company Law Reform - Saleem Sheikh Part Two Modernizing Company Law - Robert Goddard The Government's White Paper The Company Law Review - Alan Berg Legislating Directors' Duties


Water-soluble bioadhesive polymers bearing multiple guanidinium ion (Gu+) pendants at their side-chain termini (Gluen–BA, n = 10 and 29) that were conjugated with benzamidine (BA) as a trypsin inhibitor were developed. The Gluen–BA molecules are supposed to adhere to oxyanionic regions of the trypsin surface, even in buffer, via a multivalent Gu+/oxyanion salt-bridge interaction, such that their BA group properly blocks the substrate-binding site. In fact, Glue10–BA and Glue29–BA exhibited 35- and 200-fold higher affinities for trypsin, respectively, than a BA derivative without the glue moiety (TEG–BA). Most importantly, Glue10–BA inhibited the protease activity of trypsin 13-fold more than TEG–BA. In sharp contrast, mGlue27–BA, which bears 27 Gu+ units along the main chain and has a 5-fold higher affinity than TEG–BA for trypsin, was inferior even to TEG–BA for trypsin inhibition.


Each year, the American Cancer Society estimates the number of new cancer cases and deaths expected in the United States in the current year and compiles the most recent data on cancer incidence, mortality, and survival rates based on incidence data from the National Cancer Institute and mortality data from the National Center for Health Statistics. Incidence and mortality rates are age standardized to the 2000 US standard million population. A total of 1,368,030 new cancer cases and 563,700 deaths are expected in the United States in 2004. Incidence rates stabilized among men from 1995 through 2000 but continued to increase among females by 0.4% per year from 1987 through 2000. Mortality rates have decreased by 1.5% per year since 1992 among men, but have stabilized from 1998 through 2000 among women. Cancer death rates continued to decrease from the three major cancer sites in men (lung and bronchus, colon and rectum, and prostate) and from female breast and colorectal cancers in women. In analyses by race and ethnicity, African‐American men and women have 40% and 20% higher death rates from all cancers combined compared with White men and women, respectively. Cancer incidence and mortality rates are lower in other racial and ethnic groups than in Whites and African Americans for all sites combined and for the four major cancer sites. However, these groups generally have higher rates for stomach, liver, and cervical cancers than do Whites. Furthermore, minority populations are more likely to be diagnosed with advanced stage disease than are Whites. Progress in reducing the burden from cancer can be accelerated by applying existing cancer control knowledge into practice among all segments of the population.


This paper reports results from a case-referent study on bladder cancer being conducted in parts of West Yorkshire; 991 cases have been incorporated in the results to date. Overall there was a significant risk of bladder cancer associated with smoking cigarettes. This habit showed a risk ratio of 1.8 (95% confidence limits of 1.5-2.3) for males. In addition there were significant overall risks associated with certain occupations; these include process workers in the dye manufacturing industry, who had a risk of 2.9 (95% confidence limits of 2.0-4.3) for males. When smokers were contrasted with nonsmokers, however, the risk was 4.6 for dye manufacturing process workers who smoked, while for nonsmokers the risk was much less at 1.9.


Abstract. Nitrous oxide (N2O), methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes over the grassy outdoor run of organically grown broilers were monitored using static chambers over two production batches in contrasted seasons. Measured N2O and CH4 fluxes were extremely variable in time and space for both batches, with fluxes ranging from a small uptake by soil to large emissions peaks, the latter of which always occurred in the chambers located closest to the broiler house. In general, fluxes decreased with increasing distance to the broiler house, demonstrating that the foraging of broilers and the amount of excreted nutrients (carbon, nitrogen) largely control the spatial variability of emissions. Spatial integration by kriging methods was carried out to provide representative fluxes on the outdoor run for each measurement day. Mechanistic relationships between plot-scale estimates and environmental conditions (soil temperature and water content) were calibrated in order to fill gaps between measurement days. Flux integration over the year 2010 showed that around 3 ± 1 kg N2O-N ha−1 were emitted on the outdoor run, equivalent to 0.9% of outdoor N excretion and substantially lower than the IPCC default emission factor of 2%. By contrast, the outdoor run was found to be a net CH4 sink of about −0.56 kg CH4-C ha−1, though this sink compensated less than 1.5% (in CO2 equivalents) of N2O emissions. The net greenhouse gas (GHG) budget of the outdoor run is explored, based on measured GHG fluxes and short-term (1.5 yr) variations in soil organic carbon.


This examination of the pricing performance of a reduced-form convertible bond valuation model uses a recent sample of monthly U.S. convertible bond prices observed over January 2001–September 2002. Recent U.S. data help us understand the particular market. The model produces prices that are consistently lower than observed market prices when the embedded conversion option is in the money and higher than observed market prices when the conversion option is out of the money. Evidence from the sample suggests that the deep out-of-the-money bias is not related to the theoretical model's performance but rather the result of the fact that convertible bonds with low conversion value seem to be generally underpriced so much that their prices often imply negative embedded option values.


Background: There is a controversial evidence about adiponectin role in cardiovascular diseases and visfatin role has been suggested in pathogenesis of coronary artery disease. Material and Methods: A total of 378 postmenopausal women were randomly selected from 13 clusters in Bushehr Port. The prevalence of ischemic heart disease was assessed by using the Minnesota Code with a 12-lead resting electrocardiogram (EKG). Serum adiponectin and visfatin levels were measured by using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay methods Results: A total of 159 patients (41.8 percent) were suffering from ischemic heart disease. There was no significant difference between women with ischemic heart disease and healthy postmenopausal women in adiponectin serum level. However, diabetic women with ischemic heart disease, compared with healthy postmenopausal women had a higher level of visfatin (Geometric Mean: 3.05±1.84 ng/ml versus 2.52±1.90 ng/ml, respectively; p=0.023). Multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that higher serum levels of visfatin were significantly associated with a higher prevalence of ischemic heart disease after adjusting for potential confounders, including classical cardiovascular risk factors and circulating hs-CRP levels [odds ratio=3.26, confidence interval (1.14-9.68), p=0.027]. Conclusion: Adiponectin was not correlated with ischemic heart disease among postmenopausal women. But visfatin serum level correlated with ischemic heart disease in postmenopausal non-diabetic women independently from cardiovascular risk factors.


Utilizing a digitonin‐permeabilized cell system, we have studied the release of calcium from a non‐mitochondrial intracellular compartment in cultured human fibroblasts (HSWP cells). Addition of 1 mM MgATP to a monolayer of permeabilized cells in a cytosolic media buffered to 150 nM Ca with EGTA rapidly stimulates 45Ca uptake, and the subsequent addition of the putative intracellular messenger inositol trisphosphate (InsP3) induces rapid release of 85% (±6% n = 6) of the 45Ca taken up in response to ATP. Mitogenic peptides (bradykinin, vasopressin, epidermal growth factor [EGF], and insulin) and orthovanadate, which are effective in mobilizing intracellular Ca in intact cells, have little or no effect when added alone to permeabilized cells. However, in the presence of GTP these agents stimulate accumulation of inositol phosphates and release Ca from the InsP3‐sensitive pool. These data suggest that a GTP binding protein is involved in receptor mediated activation of phospholipase C, which leads to release of inositol phosphates. The GTP‐dependent release of InsP3 and the mobilization of 45Ca from the intracellular compartment are inhibited by pretreatment of cells, prior to permeabilization, with the protrein kinase C activator 12‐O‐tetradecanoyl‐phorbol‐13‐acetate (TPA). TPA pretreatment does not affect the InsP3 stimulated Ca release. These results suggest that protein kinase C is involved in down‐regulation or inhibition of phospholipase C, or the GTP binding protein responsible for relaying the mitogenic signal from the cell surface receptor to the phospholipase C activity.


Importance of sheet beam technology and role of space charge field analysis for success of this technology have been studied. Space charge field of sheet electron beam has been investigated in three approaches. At first a simplified infinite width sheet and line model are given to investigate nature of variation of field, then analysis is done for finite width beam. Using a theoretical model in OPERA 3-D, simulation has been done to compare space charge field. Space charge field of sheet electron beam is compared with that for equivalent round beam. Interpretation is made about nature of space charge field and its impact to sheet beam transport. Importance of proper optimization of beam height has been emphasized.


Although crowdfunding has received a great deal of attention, few studies utilize a theory-oriented approach to understand what lead to crowdfunding success. In this paper, we employ signaling theory to explore the secret of the fundraising success. We propose that signals from creators and project descriptions influence the fundraising success, and these effects are moderated by backers' comments and creators' replies. To test our hypotheses, we collected objective data of 400 successful crowdfunding projects from the largest crowdfunding platform in China. The results indicate that creators' previous creator experience, backers' comments, and creators' replies positively affect fundraising success. We also find partial support for the proposed moderation effects.


The major inducible 70-kDa heat shock protein (hsp70) protects against measles virus (MeV) neurovirulence in the mouse that is caused by a cell-associated noncytolytic neuronal infection. Protection is type I interferon (IFN) dependent, and we have established a novel axis of antiviral immunity in which hsp70 is released from virus-infected neurons to induce IFNin macrophages. The present work used vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) to establish the relevance of hsp70-dependent antiviral immunity to fulminant cytopathic neuronal infections. In vitro, hsp70 that was constitutively expressed in mouse neuronal cells caused a modest increase in VSV replication. Infection induced an early extracellular release of hsp70 from viable cells, and the release was progressive, increasing with virus-induced apoptosis and cell lysis. The impact of this VSV-hsp70 interaction on neurovirulence was established in weanling male hsp70 transgenic and nontransgenic mice. Constitutive expression of hsp70 in neurons of transgenic mice enhanced viral clearance from brain and reduced mortality, and it was correlated with enhanced expression of type I IFN mRNA. Nontransgenic mice were also protected against neurovirulence and expressed increased type I IFN mRNA in brain when hsp70 was expressed by a recombinant VSV (rVSV-hsp70), indicating that hsp70 in the virus-infected cell is sufficient for host protection. In vitro data confirmed extracellular release of hsp70 from cells infected with rVSV-hsp70 and also showed that viral replication is not enhanced when hsp70 is expressed in this manner, suggesting that hsp70-mediated protection in vivo is not dependent on stimulatory effects of hsp70 on virus gene expression.


The Forkhead family of transcription factors mediates many aspects of physiology, including stress response, metabolism, commitment to apoptosis, and development. The Forkhead box subfamily O (FoxO) proteins have garnered particular interest due to their involvement in the modulation of cardiovascular biology. In this review, we discuss the mechanisms of FoxO regulation and outcomes of FoxO signaling under normal and pathological cardiovascular contexts.


In this paper, we present an end-to-end language identification framework, the attention-based Convolutional Neural Network-Bidirectional Long-short Term Memory (CNN-BLSTM). The model is performed on the utterance level, which means the utterance-level decision can be directly obtained from the output of the neural network. To handle speech utterances with entire arbitrary and potentially long duration, we combine CNN-BLSTM model with a self-attentive pooling layer together. The front-end CNN-BLSTM module plays a role as local pattern extractor for the variable-length inputs, and the following self-attentive pooling layer is built on top to get the fixed-dimensional utterance-level representation. We conducted experiments on NIST LRE07 closed-set task, and the results reveal that the proposed attention-based CNN-BLSTM model achieves comparable error reduction with other state-of-the-art utterance-level neural network approaches for all 3 seconds, 10 seconds, 30 seconds duration tasks.


Annotating the genomes of multiple organisms allows us to study their genes as well as the evolution of those genes. While many eukaryotic genome assemblies already include computational gene predictions, these predictions can benefit from review and refinement through manual gene annotation. The Genomics Education Partnership (GEP; thegep.org) has developed an annotation protocol for protein-coding genes that enables undergraduate students and other researchers to create high-quality gene annotations that can be utilized in subsequent scientific investigations. For example, this protocol has been utilized by the GEP faculty to engage undergraduate students in the comparative annotation of genes involved in the insulin signaling pathway in 28 Drosophila species, using D. melanogaster as the informant genome. Students construct gene models using multiple lines of computational and experimental evidence including expression data (e.g., RNA-Seq), sequence similarity (e.g., BLAST, multiple sequence alignments), and computational gene predictions. For quality control, each gene is annotated by at least two students working independently, followed by reconciliation of the submitted gene models by a more experienced student. This article provides an overview of the annotation protocol and describes how discrepancies in student submitted gene models are resolved to produce a final, high-quality gene set suitable for subsequent analyses. This annotation protocol can be adapted to other scientific questions (e.g., expansion of the Drosophila Muller F element) and other species (e.g., parasitoid wasps) to provide additional opportunities for undergraduate students to participate in genomics research. These student annotation efforts can substantially improve the quality of gene annotations in publicly available genomic databases.


Antigen-specific production of Protein S by activated T cells signals through dendritic cell receptors to dampen the immune response. Dendritic cells (DCs) are antigen-presenting cells that activate T cells to initiate the adaptive immune response to pathogens. Once T cells are activated, however, DC activity must be reduced; otherwise, unchecked DCs would trigger inappropriate responses, such as allergy and chronic inflammation. The TAM family members Axl and Mertk are receptor tyrosine kinases found on the surface of DCs, and they inhibit Toll-like receptor and cytokine signaling in response to the ligands Protein S (Pros1) and Gas6; however, the source of these ligands is unclear. Carrera Silva et al. found that activated mouse CD4+ T cells produced Pros1 after antigen-specific activation by DCs and that the transfer of naïve CD4+ T cells deficient in Pros1 to mice led to enhanced colitis compared with that in mice that received wild-type CD4+ T cells. In vivo, loss of Pros1 in CD4+ T cells led to enhanced activation of DCs and their increased cell-surface abundance of costimulatory molecules. When secreted by T cells, Pros1 bound to the T cell plasma membrane through its interaction with phosphatidylserines, and the ability of T cells to dampen DC activation in vitro was lost when both populations of cells were physically separated from each other. Compared with wild-type DCs, DCs deficient in both Axl and Mertk showed increased activation when cocultured with activated T cells. The authors then verified the ability of human T cells to produce Pros1 in response to activation by human DCs, and antibody-mediated blocking of ProS1 on T cells led to enhanced activation of cocultured DCs. Together, these data suggest that a Pros1-TAM signaling axis provides a negative feedback mechanism whereby T cells dampen DC activation to keep the immune response in check. E. A. Carrera Silva, P. Y. Chan, L. Joannas, A. E. Errasti, N. Gagliani, L. Bosurgi, M. Jabbour, A. Perry, F. Smith-Chakmakova, D. Mucida, H. Cheroutre, T. Burstyn-Cohen, J. A. Leighton, G. Lemke, S. Ghosh, C. V. Rothlin, T cell-derived Protein S engages TAM receptor signaling in dendritic cells to control the magnitude of the immune response. Immunity 39, 160–170 (2013). [PubMed]