A vibrant construction industry in a developing country, that mobilizes human and local material resources in the development and maintenance of buildings, housing and physical infrastructure, is an important means to promote increased local employment and accelerate economic growth. Ghana, a country of about 22 million people, currently has one of the fastest growing economies in West Africa. The Government of Ghana (GOG) has recently set a target of annual economic growth rate of 8% and above, up from annual growth rates of 5–6% in the past five years (2001–05). It intends to use the agricultural sector as the major vehicle for achieving such high growth rates in order for the country to reach the status of a middle income country by 2015. Surprisingly, the construction industry was left out from the list of major growth drivers of the economy. We contend that with the construction industry currently making up the third largest sector of the economy, special attention should be given to this industry as one of the main drivers of economic growth in Ghana. Therefore we conducted a study to analyse the causality links between the growth in the construction industry and the growth in the macro‐economy of Ghana, measured by the gross domestic product (GDP), to ascertain whether the construction industry can be used to lead the entire economy on a growth path. The analysis was based on a simple Granger causality test using time series data from 1968 to 2004. We showed that growth in the construction industry Granger‐caused growth in GDP, with a three‐year lag. The construction industry needs to be considered as one of the major drivers of economic growth in Ghana.


Plants of imaginary lands: About herbaria and creating placesThis article is an attempt at applying a critical and affirmative perspective in reflection about herbaria and their creators. The historical connections of herbaria with practices related to violence in certain places and economically driven treatment of plants, including colonialism, are juxtaposed with concepts of creating the identity of an individual in association with the love of a place. The author presents the profiles of Father Wladyslaw Michal Zaleski and Eliza Orzeszkowa, discussing their botanical albums created over the years. The reflection on herbaria and their creators presented in the text embeds the practice of creating botanical collections in the context of contemporary problems related to the degradation of the natural environment, indicating that the value lost by hobby herbals created within the production of scientific knowledge is also an opportunity to create a bond with the natural environment.


Among the many interesting features displayed by graphene, one of the most attractive is the simplicity with which its electronic structure can be described. The study of its physical properties is significantly simplified by the linear dispersion relation of electrons in a narrow range around the Fermi level. Unfortunately, the mathematical simplicity of graphene electrons is only limited to this narrow energy region and is useless when dealing with problems that involve energies outside the linear dispersion part of the spectrum. In this letter we remedy this limitation by deriving a set of closed-form analytical expressions for the real-space single-electron Green function of graphene which are valid across an enormous fraction of the energy spectrum. By extending to a wider energy range the simplicity with which graphene electrons are described, it is now possible to derive more mathematically transparent and insightful expressions for a number of physical properties that involve higher energy scales. The power of this new formalism is illustrated in the case of the magnetic (RKKY) interaction in graphene.


Within the endless stream of information available on the news media market, news headline language is characterised by several linguistic, pragmatic, rhetorical and functional features that distinguish it from other varieties of language that are not specialised. In the present study, the rhetorical features of English news headlines, through wordplay investigation, using a sample of 100 headlines were studied. Wordplay is investigated because it leads to the persuasiveness of message that is sometimes so subtle that the readers might not even recognise it. A taxonomy of wordplays was constructed according to Leigh's (1994) model which made it possible to access a comprehensive checklist. The way the persuasive element, i.e. wordplay, was presented for the English headline readers was examined using the descriptive method and in light of textual rhetorical analysis. The outcome of the study suggests that English news headlines are likely to contain one or more clearly defined wordplay. The most frequent wordplay is that of tropes or more specifically metonymy. However, there are some wordplays such as polysyndeton, anadiplosis, antimetabole, epistrophe and polyptoton that are absent in English headlines. The majority of unused categories fall under the category of schemes.


This paper identifies and makes an analysis of regional specializations within chosen branches of bioeconomy in Poland regarding regions there were identified the components of bio-economy to enable region's endogenous potential quantifying and its branch specialization. Survey regards as follows; agriculture, forestry, hunting and fishery, the production of agri-food products, textiles, wood, cork, straw and wicker products, paper and paper products as well as an activity concerning collecting, processing and disposing of wastes and raw materials recovery. Carried survey showed that in 2012 the greatest number of branches specializing in bio-economy one can find in the following regions; Wielkopolskie, Lubuskie, Kujawsko- Pomorskie, Łodzkie, Podlaskie, Warminsko-Mazurskie and Zachodniopomorskie.


Gastrointestinal stromal tumors represent less than 3% of all digestive tumors. They are primarily located in the stomach and the small intestine. The curative treatment is surgical resection. In the case of unresectable tumor or advanced disease, imatinib is the treatment of choice. The purpose of this retrospective study was to describe the characteristics of patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumors treated at our institution in the period 2000-2015. We analyzed 40 consecutive patients diagnosed with gastrointestinal stromal tumor (mean age 58-year old, range 33-84). The mean 5-year survival was 30.5%. At diagnosis, 30 patients had localized disease (75%); 14 of them received adjuvant imatinib and 15 follow-up on observation. In this group the disease-free interval was 55 months. In patients with advanced disease, the progression-free interval was 30 months.


Purpose

– This paper aims to share findings from a major international study, focusing on how custodians of business excellence (BE) frameworks promote and create awareness of frameworks at the national level.

Design/methodology/approach

– The project was commissioned by the present custodians of the Australian Business Excellence Framework (ABEF), with the objectives of enhancing the ABEF and increasing its usage within Australia. The methodology consisted of a literature review, three surveys, a series of focus groups and key informant interviews. The study involved input from 16 countries world‐wide.

Findings

– Awareness of the ABEF is lower than was previously estimated in Australia, with under 10 per cent of randomly sampled organisations being aware of the model. ABEF evaluators perceived the methods of promoting the ABEF to be relatively ineffective. World‐wide, custodians of BE models reported that awareness of BE had generally increased in their country in the last three years. Based on an international survey, various examples of good promotional practice from model custodians world‐wide are reported.

Research limitations/implications

– The primary focus is on the Australian context, although the findings draw on a range of international sources and hence are of relevance to all BEF custodians.

Practical implications

– The findings from the project were used to redesign the ABEF, and are expected to help inform national business excellence strategies world‐wide.

Originality/value

– The paper is one of the first to focus on how a BEF custodian can and should create national awareness of a BE framework.


ABSTRACT: Topographic conditions play an important role on the modification of seismic ground motion. Therefore, their effects may become crucial in the selection or simulation of ground motion for use in structural seismic response analysis. In this research, topography effects of canyon sites are analyzed using a three-dimensional boundary element procedure. The multi-domain boundary element method proposed by Ahmad and Banerjee is used for three-dimensional cases with good accuracy. Effects of model parameters (free-field and canyon lengths) are well accounted for ensuring accurate results. It is shown that the free-field (both side of the canyon cross-section) length is less influential than the canyon length. Some general rules for the three-dimensional boundary element modeling of wave scattering problem are proposed. In addition, effects of different wave parameters (frequency and direction), material properties (damping ratio and poisson's ratio) and canyon geometry are investigated.It is demonstrated that the effect of canyon shape and canyon depth on the topographic amplification is frequency dependent. Deep canyon (semi-circular canyon) induces larger amplification effect than shallow canyon (semi-elliptical canyon) in different frequencies.


The Center for Reproductive Science (CRS) includes faculty whose research is relevant, in a broad sense, to reproductive biology and human medicine. The Center does not have a discrete physical location, but rather includes faculty from across the University who share common interests in research and training in the reproductive sciences. CRS has three missions: 1. To enhance and coordinate research in the reproductive sciences at Northwestern, 2. To promote the application of this research toward human welfare, and 3. To promote training in reproductive sciences of future research, teaching and clinical investigators. CRS includes 44 faculty from 13 departments in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and the McCormick School of Engineering on the Evanston campus and Children's Memorial Research Center and the Feinberg School of Medicine on the Chicago campus. Research areas of current faculty interest include: circadian rhythms; clinical fertility and infertility; gonadal development and function; growth and development; neural control of sexual function; neuroendocrinology; ovarian function; prostate biology; reproduction and society; and testis function. The CRS Newsletter entitled " Reproduction Matters " is a biannual publication available on the CRS website. CRS " Go to Meeting " Award. This is a travel award for undergraduates working in the laboratories of CRS Members to accompany other lab members to professional meetings such as the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society, Society for the Study of Reproduction, Society for Neuroscience, etc. Marcia L. Storch Scholarship for Undergraduate Women Dr. Storch practiced gynecology in New York City for a number of years and died at her home in Maine. She was always interested in the education of young women, and stipulated that donations in her name be made to the Center for Reproductive Science for the purpose of introducing undergraduate women to research. This scholarship is awarded to undergraduate women working in some aspect of ovarian research and provides a sum for supplies in the designated laboratory. Go to www.northwestern.edu/research/crs/ for details on how to apply for the CRS " Go to Meeting " and the " Marcia L. Storch Scholarship for Undergraduate Women " awards. The deadline to apply for both awards is June 1, 2007. Reproductive Biology are named after Constance Campbell. Connie, a Ph.D. in psychology from University of Illinois-Chicago, was hired as an assistant professor in the department of Biological Sciences at Northwestern in 1974. Her research was on the relationship of sexual and …


Summary Increased procoagulant activity in the alveolar compartment and uncontrolled inflammation are hallmarks of the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Here, we investigated whether the contact phase system of coagulation is activated and may regulate inflammatory responses in human lungs. Components of the contact phase system were characterized in bronchoalveolar lavage fluids (BALF) from 54 ARDS patients and 43 controls, and their impact on cytokine/chemokine expression in human precision cut lung slices (PCLS) was assessed by a PCR array. Activation of the contact system, associated with high levels of coagulation factor XIIa (Hageman factor, FXIIa), plasma kallikrein and bradykinin, occurred rapidly in ARDS lungs after the onset of the disease and virtually normalized within one week from time of diagnosis. FXII levels in BALF were higher in ARDS nonsurvivors than survivors and were positively correlated with tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α concentration. FXII induced the production and release of interleukin (IL)-8, IL-1β, IL-6, leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF), CXCL5 and TNF-α in human PCLS in a kallikrein-kinin-independent manner. In conclusion, accumulation of FXII in ARDS lungs may contribute to the release of pro-inflammatory mediators and is associated with clinical outcome. FXII inhibition may thus offer a novel and promising therapeutic approach to antagonize overwhelming inflammatory responses in ARDS lungs without interfering with vital haemostasis. Supplementary Material to this article is available online at www.thrombosis-online.com.


: Blue light (wavelength 350-480 nm) irradiation of the early mitotic (prophase and prometaphase) tissue culture cells at the dose of 50-3000 J/cm2 delay mitosis or completely block it at the metaphase. Cell sensitivity to the near UV light (wavelength 360 nm) was few times more as compared with the sensitivity to the visible light (wavelength 400-480 nm). Mitotic cells irradiated with the green light (wavelength more than 500 nm; dose up to 7500 J/cm2) completed division normally. The effect of the blue light did not depend on the presence of phenol red in tissue culture medium. Rhodamin 123 staining did not show any changes in the mitochondrial system in the irradiated mitotic cells. Blue light irradiation with the dose enough for the induction of mitotic delay appears to be insufficient to affect the proliferation of interphase cells.


For over a hundred years chemists have been attempting to use the powerful germicidal effect of chlorine as an agent in controlling infection. Recently a new group of agents have been developed, consisting of modified buffered hypochlorous acid derivatives, which appear to yield their active chlorine almost quantitatively as hypochlorous acid. Chemically they can be classified as monoxychlorosene*derivatives. This paper is a preliminary report of the use of Clorpactin WCS-90 in otolaryngology. CHEMISTRY Clorpactin is produced in various strengths, consisting of white, water-soluble powders or granules, whose dilute solutions are powerful germicides, fungicides, and virucides, yet are nontoxic and nonirritating when used in therapeutic dosages. These hypochlorous acid derivatives form dilute solutions with pH's varying from a highly acid 4.2 to substantially neutral, and are highly buffered. They are excellent oxidizing agents, effective deodorizers, and exhibit pronounced wetting, penetrating, and detergent properties. The grade of Clorpactin used in this


PURPOSE
Penetrating eye trauma with an intraocular foreign body is very frequent, especially in men in their productive age. Pars plana vitrectomy would be the standard surgical method at our department. However, in indicated cases (metallic intraocular bodies in the posterior eye segment in young patients with well transparent ocular media without detached ZSM and without any evident vitreoretinal traction) transscleral extraction of the intraocular foreign body is performed using the exo magnet, eventually endo magnet with a minimal PPV without PVD induction under the visual control of endo-illumination.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Between June 2003 and June 2018, 66 eyes of 66 patients diagnosed with a penetrating eye trauma caused by an intraocular foreign body located in the posterior eye segment were treated. In 18 eyes (27,3 %) with a metallic foreign body in vitreous (body) or in retina, no PPV or a minimal PPV without PVD was used as a surgical method. In the remaining 48 eyes (72,7 %), a standard 20G, respectively 23G PPV method were used together with PVD induction and the foreign body extraction via endo or exo magnet.

CONCLUSIONS
As demonstrated by our survey/study, in the cases of a thoroughly considered indication an experimented vitreoretinal surgeon can perform a safe NCT transscleral extraction from the posterior eye segment via exo magnet, eventually endo magnet under the visual control of a contact display system with a minimal PPV. Thereby, the surgeon can enhance the patient´s chance to preserve their own lens and its accommodative abilities as well as reduce the risk of further surgical interventions of the afflicted eye.


A two-year-old boy with orbital roof fracture had resolution of motility restriction without traditional surgical exploration. Orbital roof fractures may occur via a blow-in mechanism rather than by direct transmission of an outside force. As is the case with those caused by floor fractures, motility disturbances from roof fractures merit clinical observation before surgery is performed, since some motility defects will resolve spontaneously.


We propose a hybrid computational framework to reduce motion-induced measurement error by combining the Fourier transform profilometry (FTP) and phase-shifting profilometry (PSP). The proposed method is composed of three major steps: Step 1 is to extract continuous relative phase maps for each isolated object with single-shot FTP method and spatial phase unwrapping; Step 2 is to obtain an absolute phase map of the entire scene using PSP method, albeit motion-induced errors exist on the extracted absolute phase map; and Step 3 is to shift the continuous relative phase maps from Step 1 to generate final absolute phase maps for each isolated object by referring to the absolute phase map with error from Step 2. Experiments demonstrate the success of the proposed computational framework for measuring multiple isolated rapidly moving objects.


The 4D NCAT phantom, developed to provide a realistic model of the human anatomy and physiology, is widely used in SPECT imaging research, but lacks anatomical details for application to high-resolution imaging such as X-ray CT and MRI. At the same time, current phantoms used in these areas lack the sufficient realism and flexibility to depict the complex shapes of real human organs and the deformations of those shapes due to anatomical variation and normal physiologic motion. We seek to fill that void by building upon the existing 4D NCAT phantom. Tissues distinguishable in X-ray CT imaging, including small details such as the pulmonary artery tree in the lungs and vasculature in the organs and body, were modeled based on segmented visible human CT data and high-resolution multi-slice spiral CT (MSCT) data. The models were created using a combination of NURBS and subdivision (SD) surfaces. The anatomy was extended to include structures in the head and abdomen for brain and prostate imaging applications. To efficiently simulate high-resolution X-ray CT images, we developed a new analytic projection algorithm to accurately calculate the projections (parallel, fan, or cone-beam geometries) directly from the surface definition of the phantom without using voxelization. The projection data were reconstructed using algorithms developed in our laboratory for fan- and cone-beam reconstruction of X-ray CT projection images. We conclude that the new 4D NCAT with its enhanced anatomy and physiology will provide an important tool in high-resolution imaging research.


Photovoltaic (PV) technology provides a direct method to convert solar energy into electricity. In recent years, the use of PV systems has increased greatly with many applications of PV devices in systems as small as battery chargers to large scale electricity generation systems and satellite power systems. An important factor that influences the reliability of photovoltaic modules is their ability to withstand high thermal stresses which develop in PV modules due to the different coefficients of thermal expansion of the different module materials. PV modules also experience thermal cycles which can lead to failure of the module. In the present work, three dimensional numerical thermal and structural models of a PV module were developed and sequentially coupled together to calculate the temperature distribution in the PV module and the thermal stresses developing in it. The model is also capable of simulating PV module cooling. Using the model, a study was conducted to evaluate the thermal and structural performance of the module with and without cooling and the variation in thermal stress magnitudes with changing environmental conditions (solar radiation and ambient temperature) and operating conditions (heat exchanger inlet temperature and velocity).Copyright © 2012 by ASME


The paper presents the yield gaps, adoption of improved varieties and the commercial behaviour in seed of smallholder chickpea producers based on the primary data collected from 612 randomly selected farmers covering 36 kebeles from 18 chickpea-producing districts, in 2017. The results indicate that the estimated average yield gaps were lower by 37.97 and 49.17% for desi chickpea and by 29.62 and 40.97% for kabuli chickpea, than the yields achieved on farmers' fields with improved variety and recommended practice and on-research stations, respectively. Overall, 43% of the chickpea producers were full-adopters, 9.5% partial adopters and the remaining 47.5% are non-adopters of improved varieties. Given the recent introduction of kabuli chickpea, all respondents reported the use of improved varieties (42.5%). Of the total 57.5% desi chickpea producing farmers, only 9.6% were full adopters. The commercial behaviour in chickpea seed use indicates that 55.4% of the farmers were autarkic who did not engage in chickpea seed markets, whereas 22% used purchased seed, 11.4% sold seed, and the remaining 11.1% were engaged in the seed market both as buyers and sellers. These results imply that there is a huge potential to narrow the yield gaps provided that the national seed system responds adequately to the key factors of adoption along with the smallholder farmers' commercial behaviour in chickpea seed system.

 Key words: Chickpea, yield gap, adoption, commercial behaviour, seed system.


The joint presence of technological change and consumption externalities is central to health care industries around the world, because medical innovation drives the expansion of the health care sector and altruism seems to motivate many public subsidies. Although traditional economic analysis has proposed well-known remedies to deal with consumption externalities and inefficient technological change in isolation, it lacks clear principles for addressing them jointly. We argue that standard remedies to each of the two problems are inadequate. Focusing on U.S. health care, we provide illustrative calculations of the dynamic inefficiency in the level of research and development (R&D) spending when innovators are unable to appropriate the altruistic surplus of nonconsumers. We calibrate that altruistic gains amount to about a quarter of consumer surplus in the baseline scenario and that R&D spending may be underprovided by as much as 60 percent.


Introduction The effect of upper airway (UA) morphology and especially the effect of the minimal cross sectional area (CSA) on lung deposition of inhaled medication (IM) is significant. However since IM is used when a patient is upright, conventional computed tomography (CT) data may not provide accurate information on the influence of the UA on lung deposition. The objective of this study is to evaluate variability in UA morphology for supine posture using CT vs. upright posture using cone beam CT (CBCT). Materials and Methods A total of 20 normal subjects were included. 15 valid CBCT scans could be included as the rotating gantry of the CBCT touched the shoulders of the broad-shouldered subjects, causing motion artifacts. The UA CT scans were performed using the GE VCT LightSpeed scanner and the CBCT scans were performed using the ISI i-CAT scanner. Results It is found that the CT scans were characterized by lower CSAs as compared to CBCT (Minimal CSA, p = 0.036, Average CSA, p = 0.006). The minimal CSA in the CT scan could accurately predict the difference in minimal CSA between CT and CBCT as indicated in the figure. Conclusions It can be concluded that the UA morphology is different between upright and supine position. From the supine CT image, it can be predicted how large the minimal CSA will be when the subject is in an upright position. This function can be used to generate a correction factor for assessing lung deposition of IM.


A unique long‐term phenological data set of over 110 000 records of 1st cutting dates for haymaking across Germany, spanning the years 1951–2011 was examined. In addition, we analyzed a long‐term data set in the beginning of flowering of meadow foxtail (Alopecurus pratensis) covering the last 20 years. We tested whether hay‐cutting dates (based on a human decision when to cut) showed trends, temperature relationships and spatial distribution similar to the development of this grassland species, and if these trends could be related to climate change. The timing of 1st hay cut was strongly influenced (P < 0.001) by altitude, latitude and longitude, revealing in particular an east‐west gradient. Over the past 60 years, there have been changes in the timing of hay cutting, with the majority of German federal states having significant (P < 0.05) advances of approximately 1 day per decade. Overall, the response to mean March–May temperature was highly significant (−2.87 days °C−1; P < 0.001). However, in the last 20 years, no federal state experienced a significant advance and two were even significantly delayed. The temperature response in this post‐1991 period became less or non‐significant for most of the federal states. We suggest that differences in agricultural land use and unequal uptakes of Agri‐Environment Schemes (AES, which encourage later cutting) were likely to be responsible for the regional differences, while the general increase in AES appears to have confounded the overall trend in hay cutting in the last 20 years. Trends over time and responses to temperature were small relative to those associated with the phenology of meadow foxtail. The advance in phenology of this species is greater than the advance in hay cutting, implying that hay cutting may not be keeping pace with a changing climate, which may have a positive effect on grassland ecology.


Eligibility criteria among hundreds of National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) research papers have similar constituent elements, such as demographic characteristics or diagnostic codes. The study results of the same disease could vary among different research due to the variation of the criteria statements, therefore the narrative patterns analysis tool would be helpful for summarizing the knowledge implicitly contained in the eligibility criteria. In this study, we developed a series of R-based text processing methods to extract the narrative eligibility criteria in NHIRD papers by simplifying the article titles and content paragraphs, identifying medical concepts and abbreviations, then detecting basic demographic characteristics and ICD-9-CM diagnosis codes. Although there is still room for improvement on study type identifying, the high performance in classifying the study type, detecting age restrictions and extracting ICD-9-CM codes still shows the system usefulness for the analysis of eligibility criteria.


Social network technology (SNT) such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and cloud computing services offers a cost-effective platform for students to access the 'global-network brain' and to develop dynamic capabilities that foster creativity and innovation. However, very few studies have explored this relationship in the developing world. This thesis examines the relationship between dynamic capabilities and creative performance among university students in Malaysia, a developing country with high usage of SNT and aspiration to become an innovation-driven economy. For Malaysia to move up the global innovation value chain, there needs a major transformation in the education system to nurture students' creativity that empowers the next-generation innovative endeavors. Using key theories from creativity and knowledge management, this thesis develops an integrative theoretical framework to explore key internal dispositional traits (core self-evaluation (CSE) and intrinsic motivation (IM)) and external situational factors (facilitating conditions (FC) and social capital (SC)) as antecedents to dynamic capabilities (DC) and creative performance (CP). This thesis also examines the mediating role of SNT, namely the utilitarian use (UU) and hedonic use (HU) of SNT, on the relationship between DC and CP. Finally, the integrated research model assesses the impact of UU, HU, and CP on students' actual benefits (AB) in terms of academic performance, social interaction, economic and entrepreneurial development. A multivariate analysis using partial least square technique (PLS-SEM) was conducted on a sample of 483 public and private university students in Malaysia. The empirical results show that FC indirectly impacts DC and CP while SC and CSE directly impact DC but indirectly influence CP. IM shows significant direct impact on both DC and CP. DC has a positive direct impact on CP. In particular, the use of SNT plays a significant partial mediating role on the relationship between DC and CP. UU is found to have positively influenced CP and contributed to AB whereas HU shows adverse impact on CP and does not contribute to AB. Interestingly, HU positively links to UU, which renders UU a 'contextual mediator' between HU and CP. The empirical results provide valuable insights on SNT-driven education policies and strategies that will enhance students' creative performance and overall quality of their academic life in higher education.


Cystic fibrosis (mucoviscidosis) is a genetic disorder characterized by dysfunction of the exocrine glands. Ninety percent of the morbidity and mortality is due to repeated pulmonary infections and respiratory impairment. Pancreatic disease and intestinal complications result from thick, tenacious mucous secretions. Aggressive medical therapy has improved the prognosis. The family physician plays an important role in dealing with the psychologic and social aspects of the disease, as well as the medical management.


Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the association between pretreatment intrahepatic mRNA levels of interferon receptor and interferon-stimulated genes and response to interferon therapy for genotype 1b chronic hepatitis C. Methods: Forty-four patients with genotype 1b chronic hepatitis C who underwent liver biopsy and then received interferon therapy participated in this study. Pretreatment intrahepatic mRNA levels of interferon receptor genes (IFNAR1, IFNAR2b, and IFNAR2c) and interferon-stimulated genes (OAS1 and PKR) were quantified by competitive polymerase chain reaction. Results: In the genes examined, only IFNAR1 mRNA level was significantly higher in patients with sustained virological and biochemical response to interferon therapy versus those with nonsustained response (p < 0.01). Moreover, mRNA expression ratios of IFNAR1 to IFNAR2 were also significantly higher in patients with sustained virological and biochemical response to IFN therapy (p < 0.01 and p < 0.05, respectively). On the other hand, mRNA levels of IFNAR2b, IFNAR2c, and PKR were significantly higher in patients with histologically active or advanced liver rather than patients with mild or less advanced liver. Conclusions: High intrahepatic mRNA levels of IFNAR1 and mRNA ratio of IFNAR1 to IFNAR2 before treatment may be associated with a favorable response to interferon therapy.


Abstract Delayed-onset muscle soreness is typically observed after strenuous or unaccustomed eccentric exercise. Soon after recovery, blunted muscle soreness is observed on repeated eccentric exercise, a phenomenon known as repeated bout effect (RBE). Although regular physical activity decreases muscle hyperalgesia, likely because of increased production of the anti-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-10 (IL-10) in the skeletal muscle, whether IL-10 also contributes to the antinociceptive effect of RBE is unknown. Furthermore, whether IL-10 attenuates muscle hyperalgesia by acting on muscle nociceptors remains to be established. Here, we explored the hypothesis that blunted muscle nociception observed in RBE depends on a local effect of IL-10, acting on IL-10 receptor 1 (IL-10R1) expressed by muscle nociceptors. Results show that after a second bout of eccentric exercise, rats exhibited decreased muscle hyperalgesia, indicative of RBE, and increased expression of IL-10 in the exercised gastrocnemius muscle. Although knockdown of IL-10R1 protein in nociceptors innervating the gastrocnemius muscle by intrathecal antisense oligodeoxynucleotide did not change nociceptive threshold in naive rats, it unveiled latent muscle hyperalgesia in rats submitted to eccentric exercise 12 days ago. Furthermore, antisense also prevented the reduction of muscle hyperalgesia observed after a second bout of eccentric exercise. These data indicate that recovery of nociceptive threshold after eccentric exercise and RBE-induced analgesia depend on a local effect of IL-10, acting on its canonical receptor in muscle nociceptors.


Given substantial national crime costs and that psychopathic personality disorder (PPD) is a robust predictor of recidivism, a research gap exists concerning the cost of crime attributable to adults with PPD. The current study employed a bottom-up cost of illness approach to estimate the association between PPD and crime costs among Canadian men incarcerated in the federal correctional system (n = 188). Participants were rated using the Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (PCL-R) and the Historical-Clinical-Risk Management–20 (HCR-20, version 2). Group mean crime costs were highest for participants who scored highly on the PCL-R and were rated high risk on the HCR-20, and higher scores on both measures were associated with prospective costs accrued from violent and nonviolent recidivism. The findings highlight the need to improve the treatment and management of high-risk individuals with prominent psychopathic features, as it has the potential for significant financial savings for criminal justice systems.


Abstract In case of old metal constructions, where the loadbearing structure dominates, material issues have a great influence on the behaviour of the construction both in terms of function and safety. Old metal constructions generally have a monumental nature, so preservation, restoration and rehabilitation works are inseparable from material issues. Due to this monumental nature, research into the material generally allows only minor damage, therefore these investigations require the use of special methods.


Effect of the cationic polyelectrolytes on sodium perborate crystallization in the presence of 2.5% excess sodium metaborate concentration has been studied in an MSMPR type reaction crystallizer. Polyelectrolytes, which are in various charge densities but in the same chemical composition, have been used in the experiments. Cationic polyelectrolytes affected the SPT crystallization by its non-ionic adsorption mechanism. It has proven that the polyelectrolyte having 2% cationicity has affected the quality of sodium perborate tetrahydrate (SPT) crystallization positively. Increasing the cationicity leads to reversing the effect on a product quality change with the cationicity of polyelectrolytes. Polyelectrolytes having 2% cationicity can be used to smooth the shape of crystals and to increase the mechanical strength, the bulk density and the average particle size in SPT crystallization.


Endogenous digitalislike compound (or compounds) has been described as involved in some diseases. Questions remain concerning its chemical nature, origin, and biological properties. The methods of measuring the compound are based on biological properties of digitalis, mainly Na+, K+-adenosine triphosphatase (ATPase) inhibition and related properties. Chemically, digitalislike compound has been described as a peptide, as fatty acids, and as a steroid. Its origin could be the brain, particularly the hypothalamus and pituitary gland. The adrenal glands were also proposed as its origin. The reported biological properties of digitalislike compound are mainly dependent on Na+, K+-ATPase inhibition. No definitive conclusions can be drawn from the available data.


In this paper we report, to the best of our knowledge, the first experimental realization of distributed feedback (DFB) semiconductor lasers based on reconstruction-equivalent-chirp (REC) technology. Lasers with different lasing wavelengths are achieved simultaneously on one chip, which shows a potential for the REC technology in combination with the photonic integrated circuits (PIC) technology to be a possible method for monolithic integration, in that its fabrication is as powerful as electron beam technology and the cost and time-consuming are almost the same as standard holographic technology.


The aim is to review the encephalitis in infants and adolescents as well as its etiology, clinical manifestation, epidemiology, physiopathology, diagnostic methods and treatment, and the neuropsyquiatric signs appearing an influenza epidemy. Encephalitis is an inflammation of the central nervous system (CNS) which involves the brain. The clinical manifestations usually are: headache, fever and confusional stage. It could also be manifested as seizures, personality changes, or psiqyiatric symptoms. The clinical manifestations are related to the virus and the cell type affected in the brain. A meningitis or encephalopathy need to be ruled out. It could be present as an epidemic or isolated form, beeing this the most frequent form. It could be produced by a great variety of infections agents including virus, bacterias, fungal and parasitic. Viral causes are herpesvirus, arbovirus, rabies and enterovirus. Bacterias such as Borrelia burgdorferi, Rickettsia and Mycoplasma neumoniae. Some fungal causes are: Coccidioides immitis and Histoplasma capsulatum. More than 100 agents are related to encephalitis. The diagnosis of encephalitis is a challenge for the clinician and its infectious etiology is clear in only 40 to 70% of all cases. The diagnosis of encephalitis can be established with absolute certainty only by the microscopic examination of brain tissue. Epidemiology is related to age of the patients, geographic area, season, weather or the host immune system. Early intervention can reduce the mortality rate and sequels. We describe four patients with encephalitis and neuropsychiatric symptoms during an influenza epidemic.


In order to save the manufacturing cost and solve problems of stamping, a new type of flexible blank-drawer (FBD) forming device was presented by the authors based on the principle of flexible stretch-forming. It can be used with a variety of different sizes, different shapes of stamping die which can cut the manufacturing cost and shorten the development cycle of sheet metal forming largely. Extensive numerical simulations of the process for forming saddle parts were carried out and the forming results using FBD were compared with those using traditional blank-holder (TBH). By adjusting the value of blank-drawer force, good quality of saddle parts can be attained easily. Simulation results indicate that FBD forming can solve the shortages of TBH forming, inhibit wrinkle, prevent fracture, and form parts with small springback and uniform strain. This work can provide useful guidance in plastic forming technology for sheet metal.


Studies of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) using post mortem brain tissues have uncovered several perturbations in metals such as copper, iron, and zinc. However, studies of the effects of key, potentially confounding variables on these tissues are currently lacking. Moreover, human-brain tissues have limited availability, further enhancing the difficulty of matching potentially-significant variables including age, sex-matching, post-mortem delay (PMD), and neuropathological stage. This study aimed to investigate the effects of such factors and how they might influence metal concentrations in post-mortem brains. Cingulate gyrus from AD cases and matched controls was obtained from two brain banks, based in Auckland, New Zealand and Manchester, UK. Inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was employed to measure levels of nine essential metals in brain tissues, and compared concentrations between cases and controls, and between cohorts, to analyse effects of age, sex, Braak stage, brain weight, and PMD. The same methods were used to investigate the effects of PMD under more controlled conditions using ex vivo healthy adult rat-brain tissue. Metal concentrations in human brain were found to be unmodified by differences in age, sex-matching, Braak stage, brain weight, and PMD between cohorts. Some metals were, however, found to vary significantly across different regions in rat brains. These results indicate that investigations of metal homeostasis in AD and other neurodegenerative conditions can be reliably performed using brain tissues without confounding by varying PMD, age, sex-matching, brain weight, and Braak stage. However, regions of study should be selected carefully.


It is rather the fashion at present to belittle the results of the laboratory investigation of cancer, but when a colleague shows signs of pessimism it is the custom of the writer to ask whether he would rather have had malignant disease thirty years ago or have it today. The answer has always been in favor of the present, showing that even those who in their darker moments despair of ultimate solution of the cancer problem realize that some progress has been made.

Reflect for a moment on the magnitude of the problem. Here we stand, faced by the cancer cell, a foe so small that it cannot be seen, so tireless that it proliferates indefinitely, so relentless that it gives no quarter, so despicable that it wears no distinguishing uniform. And yet something has been learned of its nature and its methods of attack, although for about thirty centuries the last link in the chain of scientific method was lacking. Observation and hypothesis we could employ, but not experiment; only for the one-hundredth part of the total period has this last been available. Did the physician learn ninety-nine times as much about cancer before the beginning of the present century as has been learned during the past thirty years? He did not.


Magnetic field distribution (MFD) plays an important role in magnetic abrasive finishing (MAF). The mathematical models of the MFD in MAF have been established, and forced behavior of magnetic abrasive (MA) in the magnetic field has been analyzed in this paper. The MFD characteristics of the grooved poles have been numerically simulated, and the distribution law of magnetic force, interaction force and interface pressure have been investigated based on a single particle. The calculated results show that the MFD in the finishing zone is directly affected by the pole structure and working gap. The mapping function of interaction force and interface pressure corresponds to corner-effect in the peak point of the pole, and the magnetic brush stiffness is changed by the diameter and magnetization characteristics of MA, and the magnetic flux intensity (MFI). The numerical simulations are in a good agreement with the experiments. All of results mentioned above will offer an important method to study further on the finishing mechanism.


Case-based reasoning is a recent approach to problem solving and learning that has got a lot of attention over the last few years. Originating in the US, the basic idea and underlying theories have spread to other continents, and we are now within a period of highly active research in case-based reasoning in Europe, as well. This paper gives an overview of the foundational issues related to case-based reasoning, describes some of the leading methodological approaches within the field, and exemplifies the current state through pointers to some systems. Initially, a general framework is defined, to which the subsequent descriptions and discussions will refer. The framework is influenced by recent methodologies for knowledge level descriptions of intelligent systems. The methods for case retrieval, reuse, solution testing, and learning are summarized, and their actual realization is discussed in the light of a few example systems that represent different CBR approaches. We also discuss the role of case-based methods as one type of reasoning and learning method within an integrated system architecture.


Ventricular septal rupture (VSR) is a life-threatening complication of trans-mural acute myocardial infarction (MI). Surgical intervention remains the treatment of choice, but it is still a challenging operation associated with high mortality (1). VSR is a rare serious complication of MI. Its incidence has been estimated between 1%¬ - 2% after MI. If it treated medically the mortality is very high (25% in 1st day, 75% at 1st week and 90% at 2 months). Patients that survive following medical treatment usually have clinically poor cardiac function. So, the result of medical treatment of VSR is disappointing (2). Primary PCI following MI can be significantly reduced the incidence of mechanical complications. However, with improving treatment, appropriate management of mechanical complications remains a cornerstone to avoid low cardiac output (LCO) and multi organ failure (MOF). Medical treatment has high failure and mortality rate, and early surgical ventricular septal defect (VSD) closure is recommended to reverse the hemodynamic deterioration. However, surgical repair is associated to a high rate of mortality (20% –40%) even in the more recent reports (3). Transcatheter device closure of VSR, is an option, however it is generally accepted to be inadequate. Progressive deterioration in hemodynamic status makes surgical intervention often the only realistic option (4).


Encoding of a sensory stimulus is believed to be the first step in perceptual decision making. Previous research has shown that electrical signals recorded from the human brain track evidence accumulation during perceptual decision making (Gold and Shadlen, 2007; O'Connell et al., 2012; Philiastides et al., 2014). In this study we directly tested the hypothesis that the latency of the N200 recorded by EEG (a negative peak occurring between 150 and 275 ms after stimulus presentation in human participants) reflects the visual encoding time (VET) required for completion of figure-ground segregation before evidence accumulation. We show that N200 latencies vary across individuals, are modulated by external visual noise, and increase response time by x milliseconds when they increase by x milliseconds, reflecting a linear regression slope of 1. Simulations of cognitive decision-making theory show that variation in human response times not related to evidence accumulation (including VET) are tracked by the fastest response times. A relationship with a slope of 1 between N200 latencies and VET was found by fitting a linear model between trial-averaged N200 latencies and the 10th percentiles of response times. A slope of 1 was also found between single-trial N200 latencies and response times. Fitting a novel neuro-cognitive model of decision-making also yielded a slope of 1 between N200 latency and non-decision time in multiple visual noise conditions, indicating that N200 latencies track the completion of visual encoding and the onset of evidence accumulation. The N200 waveforms were localized to the cortical surface at distributed temporal and extrastriate locations, consistent with a distributed network engaged in figure-ground segregation of the target stimulus. Significance Statement Encoding of a sensory stimulus is believed to be the first step in perceptual decision making. In this study, we report evidence that visual evoked potentials (EPs) around 200 ms after stimulus presentation track the time of visual figure-ground segregation before the onset of evidence accumulation during decision making. These EP latencies vary across individuals, are modulated by external visual noise, and increase response time by x milliseconds when they increase by x milliseconds. Hierarchical Bayesian model-fitting was also used to relate these EPs to a specific cognitive parameter that tracks time related to visual encoding in a decision-making model of response time. This work adds to the growing literature that suggests that EEG signals can track the component cognitive processes of decision making.


People Search (WePS) is a desktop application which aims to find relevant pages from the web related to a person's name. The project work is targeted to design an advanced version of the deep extraction tool using Clustering Algorithm. In this research work, the focus is mainly on querying for personal information of scientists and researchers. The user has to set the proper target name for search, which when completed, the user will receive complete PDF files based on the search. Each group of information items (cluster) will be defined by its key and the user make the choice. The result page will be produced from the chosen clusters. For making the search operationally accurate, we will assume the usage of research and conference doc files as they carry a standard format of name, e-mail ID, publication, images, and links to the full images.


This paper presents an energy efficient ventilation method—dam tunnel air handling for hydropower station ventilation. The heat transfer characteristic between supply air and the dam tunnel is studied by model experiment. Supply air velocity, air temperature and dam tunnel surface roughness are chosen as the mainly influencing factors, the air temperature distribution along airflow direction are measured and analyzed in detail. The results show that the heat transfer performance in dam tunnel is improved as the increased of supply air temperature and the dam tunnel surface roughness, or maintained the supply air velocity at a lower level. This experimental study and its results are helpful to develop alternative and efficient systems for hydropower station ventilation.


This article reflects on the debates about Evidence Based Practice and suggests a new approach to implementing a more reflexive and research aware social work practice in professional teams. We show that there has been a substantial focus on the responsibility of the individual professional for using best evidence to guide their practice and on the organisation to provide an environment and policies suited to EBP. We argue that there is a need balance this by an increased focus on the professional and team culture in which social work takes place. We draw on the literature on organisational change and social work research to suggest a new direction for encouraging greater reflexivity and developing a more open participative approach to the use of evidence to shape new practices in social work at the local level.


The aim of this study was to analysis the Heating/cooling performance of Solar Window System built in apartments. The solar window is the idea to integrate daylight as a third form of solar energy into a PV/Solar Collector system and allows more control due to the possibility to close the reflectors. However, there can be a conflict between the desire for on one hand daylight and view and on the other hand optimal energy conversion for the PV/Solar Collector system. The process of this study is as follows: 1) The Solar Window system is designed through the investigation of previous paper and work. 2)The simulation program(ESP-r, Therm5.0, Window6.0) was used in energy performance analysis. The reference model of simulation was made up to analysis energy performance on Solar Window system. 3)Selected reference model(Floors:15, Area of Unit:148.5㎡) for heating/cooling energy analysis, Energy performance simulation with various variants, such as U-value of Solar Window system according to its position and angle. Consequently, When Solar Window system is equipped with balcony window of Apartment, Annual heating and cooling energy of reference model was cut down about 5%~11%.


All-vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) is a large-scale electrochemical energy storage technology with numerous potential applications because of its inherent safety and long service life. In previous years, a novel mixed-acid electrolyte system, vanadium electrolytes with mixture of sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid, has been developed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to increase vanadium solubility, which can effectively raise the electrolyte energy density from 25 Wh/L to 40 Wh/L. To further improve mixed-acid VRFBs, in present work, high purity mixed-acid electrolytes were prepared using a novel direct dissolution - electrochemical reduction process from high purity vanadium oxytrichloride (VOCl3). And the purity and electrochemical properties were investigated, comparing with common mixed-acid electrolytes and regular sulfate electrolytes prepared from metallurgical grade vanadium pentoxide. It was found that the novel process demonstrated a great potential for the low cost and high efficiency production of high purity electrolytes with excellent electrochemical properties for mixed-acid VRFBs. Comparing the traditional high purity electrolytes preparation process, the present novel method will dramatically cut the cost by more than 90 percent, which will considerably facilitate the commercial application of high performance and high density VRFBs.


Mitochondria play a central role in oxidative stress-induced cell death. By increasing the production of reactive oxygen species, such as H2O2, oxidative stress causes mitochondrial fragmentation and apoptosis. It was hypothesised that Transient Receptor Potential Melastatin 2 (TRPM2) channels play a role in mitochondrial fragmentation and cell death. The rationale behind this hypothesis was the published evidence that oxidative stress stimulates TRPM2 channels, resulting in an increase in the cytosolic levels of Ca2+ and Zn2+, and that both these ions are detrimental to mitochondrial health and cell survival. To test the hypothesis, human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) and endothelial cells isolated from wild-type and TRPM2 knock-out mice were used. TRPM2 actions were suppressed using pharmacological agents and small interfering RNA (siRNA). Fluorescent reporters were used to examine changes in intracellular ion distribution and organelle morphology. Molecular biology, biochemical and imaging techniques were used to examine the dynamics of ions and organelles.

Exposure of HUVECs to H2O2 or high glucose stress led to TRPM2 activation, resulting in extracellular Ca2+ entry, lysosomal membrane permeability (LMP) and the release of lysosomal free Zn2+. Unexpectedly, this was accompanied by the accumulation of Zn2+ in the mitochondria. The rise in mitochondrial Zn2+ led to extensive mitochondrial fragmentation, mitochondrial outer membrane permeabilisation (MMP) and cell death. Silencing of TRPM2 channels with siRNA prevented intracellular Zn2+ redistribution, mitochondrial fragmentation and cell death. Endothelial cells derived from TRPM2 knock-out mice were resistant to oxidative stress-induced mitochondrial fragmentation.
Biochemical and immunostaining experiments revealed an unexpected presence of TRPM2 channels in mitochondria, where they mediated mitochondrial Zn2+ uptake. Accumulation of Zn2+ in the mitochondria led to mitochondrial fragmentation by promoting the recruitment of cytoplasmic Drp1, an enzyme responsible for mitochondrial fission. Taken together, the results of this thesis revealed a novel mechanism for how oxidative stress can cause excessive mitochondrial fragmentation and cell death: the mechanism involves activation of TRPM2 channels leading to increased Ca2+ entry, LMP and release of lysosomal Zn2+; Zn2+ thus released is taken up by the mitochondria, leading to Drp1 recruitment, mitochondrial fragmentation and finally cell death.

Since mitochondrial fragmentation is associated with several age-related chronic illnesses, including neuronal (Alzheimer's, Parkinson's), cardiovascular (atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction) and metabolic/inflammatory (diabetes) disorders, these results suggest that the TRPM2 channel is a novel target that could be explored for therapeutic intervention of age-related illnesses.


A two-year-old boy, born of non-consanguineous marriage was brought with delayed motor and language milestones. The parents had also noted abnormal eye movements and periodic breathing difficulty since early infancy. The child was third of three sibs and the other two sibs were normal. On examination, the child was hypotonic and mentally retarded and had severe truncal ataxia and oculomotor apraxia. Axial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) Brain showed split, segmented vermis and elongated fourth ventricle giving the midbrain an appearance of 'molar tooth' [Figure 1]. The child was diagnosed to suffer from Joubert syndrome and the prognosis explained. Joubert syndrome is a rare autosomal recessive disorder with a locus on Chromosome 9q characterized by ataxia, developmental delay and oculomotor and respiratory abnormalities in relation to cerebellar vermian and midbrain dysgenesis.[1] Joubert syndrome is often missed clinically and radiologically if not enough attention is paid to its subtle and variable clinical presentation and the imaging findings in the posterior fossa. A variety of abnormalities have been described in children with Joubert syndrome including delayed language, hypersensitivity to noise, autism, meningoencephaloceles, microcephaly, low-set ears, polydactyly, retinal dysplasia, kidney abnormalities (renal cysts), soft tissue tumor of the tongue, liver disease and duodenal atresia. Even within siblings the phenotype may vary, making it difficult to establish the exact clinical diagnostic boundaries of Joubert syndrome. The midbrain dysgenesis is responsible for the molar tooth sign on axial MRI which has also been documented in fetal brain MRI.[2]


This paper argues that in the United States and the European Union's efforts to fine-tune the analytics of regulating innovation through antitrust or competition law, and in particular with regard to refusals to license, it would be timely to consider 'wikinomics', or peer production, as well as the conditions that make this production possible. Wikinomics may offer a perspective for reconciling the need to preserve the incentive to innovate with the desire to promote effective competition in certain intellectual property (IP) markets. IP owners have cited digitisation and advances in mass communication to justify the need for stronger legislative protection in order to safeguard their incentives to innovate. Ironically, these same forces may now offer them a limited sanctuary against compulsory access under competition law. IP markets today are more highly porous than ever before. Technological change has provided entrants and competitors with unprecedented access to alternative sources of basic infrastructure to build competing IP products. It may therefore no longer be accurate to estimate the anticompetitive potential of refusing to license IPRs in accordance with industrial-age market considerations.


The author mentions two general ways of reducing peaks, the first being to furnish the peak power from a separate source such as a local steam turbine, and the second to store some of the power furnished by the power company, which is given up later when the peak demand comes on. In the case of the plant described by the author a mixed pressure turbine was installed to take the peaks, this being selected on account of available exhaust steam from pumps, air compressors, etc. The turbine is direct-connected to two direct-current generators mounted on a common bed-plate. The first plan tried was to use a motor-driven rheostat operated with clutches which in turn were operated by solenoids energized by current controlled by a contact-making ammeter. After the installation of a maximum demand meter which integrates the one-minute peaks, the rheostat control was found to be too slow and a special peak-taking device was then installed. This device consists of a rod carrying points which successively make contact with mercury cups and which is operated by the moving element of the graphic meter. These mercury contacts close relay circuits which operate to short-circuit sections of resistance in the field rheostat of the turbogenerator, raising its voltage, and also cut in sections of resistance in the field rheostat of the motor-generator set, weakening its field and thus reducing its load.


The objective of this study was to identify factors that determine the bone
mineral density (BMO) in postmenopausal Malay women. A total of 113
subjects residing in the Klang Valley participated in the study on a vol untary
basis. Study subjects were healthy Malay women aged between 50 to 65
years old who had attained menopause at least 5 years at the time of the
study.
The BMO of total body, proximal femur, femoral neck, wards, trochanter and
lumbar spine L2-L4 as well as fat mass (FM) and lean body mass (LBM)
were measured using the dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (OEXA).
Information on sociodemographic and reprod uctive history were collected
using a questionnaire. Food intake was assessed using a three-day food
record and a semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire. Physical activity
was assessed using a three-day physical activity record, an open ended
questionnaire and a pedometer. Knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP)


Integration of wind power into existing power grids and electricity markets is a technical and economic challenge due to its variable nature. Therefore, it requires an additional backup capacity. Wind power and battery storage are complementary of each other. This study investigated the utilization of a lithium-ion battery storage system to mitigate day ahead bid deviations and market integration issues resulting from intermittent nature of wind power in Turkey. Data of an existing 30 MW wind farm is used for the study and having added Lithium-ion batteries has been contemplated. Financial analyses were performed by considering the lithium-ion investment, variable costs and current market prices. NPV of both systems were found positive. It shows that with declining battery prices, storage systems become more applicable and the need for energy storage regulation for storage system to enter the market is presented.


Accurate methods that test the eye irritation potential of chemicals, which do not involve the use of animals, are needed to meet new regulatory standards. We evaluated the applicability and predictive capacity of five in vitro tests for eye irritation: the Hen's Egg Test-Chorioallantoic Membrane (HET-CAM) assay; the Chorioallantoic Membrane-Trypan Blue Staining (CAM-TBS) assay; the Fluorescein Leakage Test (FLT); the 3T3-Neutral Red Uptake (3T3-NRU) cytotoxicity assay; and the red blood cell (RBC) haemolysis assay. A panel of 16 chemicals (some at multiple concentrations) was assessed by using the five tests, and the results were compared with historical in vivo Draize test data. The results showed rank correlation and class concordance between the five alternative methods and the Draize test for the 16 chemicals. These in vitro assays had good predictive capacity, reproducibility and reliability when compared to the Draize test. The best relationship was between the HET-CAM, CAM-TBS and FLT results, and the modified maximum average score(s) (MMAS). A prediction model (PM) was developed, based on the maximum possible correlation between the MMAS and the HET-CAM, CAM-TBS and FLT results. The PM had a good predictive capacity when compared to the results of animal tests, indicating its potential value for the in vitro screening of chemicals for eye irritation effects.


OBJECTIVE
Deficits in the ability to perceive time have been proposed as an etiologic mechanism in the development of the cognitive and behavioral characteristics associated with ADHD. However, previous studies testing the presence of timing deficits have produced idiosyncratic results. This is in large part due to the underutilization of insights from basic timing research, and from the inherent difficulty that arises when a single index of performance (i.e., reaction time [RT] or accuracy) is used to index the health of what is essentially a multiple-component process. The current article utilizes a diffusion model approach to isolate the component processes involved in timing (i.e., internal clock speed, decision-making speed, speed/accuracy trade-off strategies, and nondecision time) using a well-validated timing task.

METHOD
Fifty children with ADHD and 32 non-ADHD controls aged 8-12 completed a temporal bisection procedure.

RESULTS
Diffusion model parameters indicated that both the internal clock and decision-making speeds were slower among children with ADHD. However, the strength of evidence for slowed decision making far outweighed evidence for a slower internal clock.

CONCLUSIONS
Slower evidence accumulation during decision making is domain-general deficit in ADHD. Such slowing is consistent with adaptive-gain theories, which posit that a suboptimal ratio of neural signal-to-noise is characteristic of children with ADHD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).


Neuromodulation of peripheral nerves with bioelectronic devices is a promising approach for treating a wide range of disorders. Wireless powering could enable long-term operation of these devices, but achieving high performance for miniaturized and deeply placed devices remains a technological challenge. We report the miniaturized integration of a wireless powering system in soft neuromodulation device (15 mm length, 2.7 mm diameter) and demonstrate high performance (about 10%) during in vivo wireless stimulation of the vagus nerve in a porcine animal model. The increased performance is enabled by the generation of a focused and circularly polarized field that enhances efficiency and provides immunity to polarization misalignment. These performance characteristics establish the clinical potential of wireless powering for emerging therapies based on neuromodulation.


Social Work education in Spain has a relatively short history (originates
from around 1932), and is currently in the process of adaptation to the proposals made
by the European Higher Education Area. After the Bologna Plan approved in 1999,
Spanish schools of Social Work have had to introduce changes related to achieve a
uniform and high quality education system, enabling students from the universities
of the 29 European members acquire competences and professional skills required.
Throughout this article, we discuss the history and evolution of the training in Social
Work in Spain since its birth and in particular we analyze how the Plan established
by Bologna has affected it, reflecting on how advantages and disadvantages of this
agreement have influenced Social Work degree.


This study aims at identifying the obstacles to teaching English in public schools in Saudi Arabia from the perception of teachers and supervisors. A mixed-method approach was adopted: two instruments were used for data collection, a close-ended questionnaire and an open-ended interview. A total of 50 copies of the questionnaire have been distributed to teachers and supervisors of English language, followed by open-ended interviews with six chosen English language teachers and supervisors. Qualitative and quantitative data have been elicited to aid in the evaluation. The findings of the study have revealed that: There is a scarcity of development programs, scarcity of in-service training, weakness of in-service training programs, low students' motivation, overuse of traditional teaching methods, scarcity of using teaching aids and modern technology, weakness of school supplies, and scarcity of language laboratories. These are the major obstacles to teaching English in public education schools in Saudi Arabia from the teachers' and supervisors views.


Recent growing frameworks such as the IoT, IIot, Cloud/Fog/Edge computing, CPS, etc, bring the networking platforms on which they rely to the spotlight, as first class citizens of an increasingly software-dependent landscape. As a result, networks play an increasingly central role in supporting the needed system-wide properties. In particular, we have been working to provide openness and adaptivity together with timeliness guarantees. This combination seems fundamental to support inherently dynamic applications in a resource efficient way, covering not only the cases of systems of systems, systems with variable number of users, components or resources but also systems that undergo frequent live maintenance and even reconfiguration during their lifetime. Examples range from autonomous vehicles to collaborative robotics, remote interactions, fog/edge computing, flexible manufacturing, etc. We postulate that combining openess and adaptivity with guaranteed timeliness can only be achieved with an adequate communication abstraction supported on adequate protocols. To this end, we have been proposing channel reservation-based communication as a means to provide scalable and open latency-constrained communication and thus enable a more efficient system design. In this talk we will show our recent work in using Software-Defined Networking (SDN) to provide standard interfaces for traffic flexibility. We proposed extending the SDN OpenFlow protocol with adequate services to take advantage of flexible real-time communication protocols and thus provide standard interfaces for flexible real-time reservations, too. We call it the Real-Time OpenFlow framework (RTOF). We end describing and assessing a prototype implementation based on the HaRTES Ethernet switches. 2012 ACM Subject Classification Computer systems organization → Real-time systems; Networks → Programmable networks


The primary objective of this study is to develop new computational methods for solving a general random eigenvalue problem (REP) commonly encountered in
 modeling and simulation of high-dimensional, complex dynamic systems. Four major
 research directions, all anchored in polynomial dimensional decomposition (PDD), have
 been defined to meet the objective. They involve: (1) a rigorous comparison of accuracy,
 efficiency, and convergence properties of the polynomial chaos expansion (PCE) and PDD
 methods; (2) development of two novel multiplicative PDD methods for addressing
 multiplicative structures in REPs; (3) development of a new hybrid PDD method to account
 for the combined effects of the multiplicative and additive structures in REPs; and (4)
 development of adaptive and sparse algorithms in conjunction with the PDD methods. The major findings are as follows. First, a rigorous comparison of the PCE and PDD
 methods indicates that the infinite series from the two expansions are equivalent but
 their truncations endow contrasting dimensional structures, creating significant
 difference between the two approximations. When the cooperative effects of input
 variables on an eigenvalue attenuate rapidly or vanish altogether, the PDD approximation
 commits smaller error than does the PCE approximation for identical expansion orders.
 Numerical analysis reveal higher convergence rates and significantly higher efficiency
 of the PDD approximation than the PCE approximation. Second, two novel multiplicative
 PDD methods, factorized PDD and logarithmic PDD, were developed to exploit the hidden
 multiplicative structure of an REP, if it exists. Since a multiplicative PDD recycles
 the same component functions of the additive PDD, no additional cost is incurred.
 Numerical results show that indeed both the multiplicative PDD methods are capable of
 effectively utilizing the multiplicative structure of a random response. Third, a new
 hybrid PDD method was constructed for uncertainty quantification of high-dimensional
 complex systems. The method is based on a linear combination of an additive and a
 multiplicative PDD approximation. Numerical results indicate that the univariate hybrid
 PDD method, which is slightly more expensive than the univariate additive or
 multiplicative PDD approximations, yields more accurate stochastic solutions than the
 latter two methods. Last, two novel adaptive-sparse PDD methods were developed that
 entail global sensitivity analysis for defining the relevant pruning criteria. Compared
 with the past developments, the adaptive-sparse PDD methods do not require its
 truncation parameter(s) to be assigned a priori or arbitrarily. Numerical results…


Model-driven development is a pragmatic approach to software development that embraces domain-specific languages (DSLs), where models correspond to DSL programs. A distinguishing feature of model-driven development is that clients of a model can select from an open set of alternative semantics of the model by applying different model transformation. However, in existing model-driven frameworks, dependencies between models, model transformations, and generated code artifacts are either implicit or globally declared in build scripts, which impedes modular reasoning, separate compilation, and programmability in general. We propose the design of a new module system that incorporates models and model transformations as modules. A programmer can apply transformations in import statements, thus declaring a dependency on generated code artifacts. Our design enables modular reasoning and separate compilation by preventing hidden dependencies, and it supports mixing modeling artifacts with conventional code artifacts as well as higher-order transformations. We have formalized our design and the aforementioned properties and have validated it by an implementation and case studies that show that our module system successfully integrates model-driven development into conventional programming languages.


The above-cited article has been retracted by the American Diabetes Association, the publisher of Diabetes. This article was previously the subject of an expression of concern in the March 2015 issue of the journal (Diabetes 2015;64:1068–1070. DOI: 10.2337/db15-ec03).

As noted in the March 2015 expression of concern, the American Diabetes Association asked the corresponding author's institution, the University of Campinas, to review the following issues with the article:

The issues described in the March 2015 expression of concern were then reviewed by an investigative commission appointed by the …


When the conquistadors arrived in Florida in the early sixteenth century, as many as 350,000 native Americans lived in the territory. For more than twelve centuries their ancestors had resided there, fishing, hunting, gathering wild plants, and sometimes cultivating crops. Two and a half centuries later, Florida's Indians were gone. Focusing on those native peoples and their interactions with Spanish and French explorers and colonists, Jerald Milanich describes this massive cultural change. Using information gathered from archaeological excavations and from the interpretation of historical documents left behind by the colonial powers, he explains where the native groups came from, where they lived, and what happened to them. He closes with the tragic disappearance of the original inhabitants in the eighteenth century and the first appearance of the ancestors of Florida's present Native Americans.


Objective To assess the value of the central vein sign (CVS) on a clinical 3T scanner to distinguish between multiple sclerosis (MS) and neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD). Methods Eighteen aquaporin-4-antibody-positive patients with NMOSD, 18 patients with relapsing-remitting MS, and 25 healthy controls underwent 3T MRI. The presence of a central vein in white matter lesions on susceptibility-weighted imaging, defined as a thin hypointense line or a small dot, was recorded. Results The proportion of lesions with the CVS was higher in MS than NMOSD (80% vs 32%, p < 0.001). A greater proportion of lesions with the CVS predicted the diagnosis of MS, rather than NMOSD (odds ratio 1.10, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.04 to 1.16, p = 0.001), suggesting that each percent unit increase in the proportion of lesions with the CVS in an individual patient was associated with a 10% increase in the risk of the same patient having MS. If more than 54% of the lesions on any given scan show the CVS, then the patient can be given a diagnosis of MS with an accuracy of 94% (95% CIs 81.34, 99.32, p < 0.001, sensitivity/specificity 90%/100%). Conclusion The clinical value of the CVS in the context of the differential diagnosis between MS and NMOSD, previously suggested using 7T scanners, is now extended to clinical 3T scanners, thereby making a step towards the use of CVS in clinical practice. Classification of evidence This study provides Class III evidence that the CVS on 3T MRI accurately distinguishes patients with MS from those with seropositive NMOSD.


Weakness in inflammatory myopathy is commonly more prominent than is muscle fiber necrosis, suggesting additional explanations for its origin. Recent studies reveal that cell-mediated immune mechanisms are active in PMS-DMS. In experiments reported here, the effect of human mononuclear cell-derived mediator-rich supernatant upon calcium accumulation by SR membranes was examined. SR, by triggered binding and release of calcium in the vicinity of myofibrils, plays a key role in regulation of skeletal muscle contraction and relaxation. SR was derived from Lewis and Sprague-Dawley rat pelvic girdle muscles. Mediator-rich supernatants were generated by exposure of Hypaque-Ficoll-purified human mononuclear cells to PHA-P and Con-A during 72 hr of incubation in RPMl 1640 medium containing 10% autologous serum. Mitogens alone were without effect on SR. Suppression of ATP-dependent calcium accumulation was demonstrable within 40 min of exposure of SR to mediator-rich supernatants. The factor(s) producing suppression of calcium binding was nondialyzable, stable on storage at -70 degrees C, and active upon SR at physiologic calcium-loading levels. These findings may have important implications for understanding of the mechanism of weakness in inflammatory myopathies.


Supramolecular photocatalysts comprising [Ru(diimine)3]2+ photosensitiser and fac-[Re(diimine)(CO)3{OC(O)OC2H4NR2}] catalyst units can be used to reduce CO2 to CO with high selectivity, durability and efficiency. In the presence of triethanolamine, the Re catalyst unit efficiently takes up CO2 to form a carbonate ester complex, and then direct photocatalytic reduction of a low concentration of CO2, e.g., 10% CO2, can be achieved using this type of supramolecular photocatalyst. In this work, the mechanism of the photocatalytic reduction of CO2 was investigated applying such a supramolecular photocatalyst, RuC2Re with a carbonate ester ligand, using time-resolved visible and infrared spectroscopies and electrochemical methods. Using time-resolved spectroscopic measurements, the kinetics of the photochemical formation processes of the one-electron-reduced species RuC2(Re)−, which is an essential intermediate in the photocatalytic reaction, were clarified in detail and its electronic structure was elucidated. These studies also showed that RuC2(Re)− is stable for 10 ms in the reaction solution. Cyclic voltammograms measured at various scan rates besides temperature and kinetic analyses of RuC2(Re)− produced by steady-state irradiation indicated that the subsequent reaction of RuC2(Re)− proceeds with an observed first-order rate constant of approximately 1.8 s−1 at 298 K and is a unimolecular reaction, independent of the concentrations of both CO2 and RuC2(Re)−.


An exact information spectrum-type formula for the maximum size of finite length block codes subject to a minimum pairwise distance constraint is presented. This formula can be applied to codes for a broad class of distance measures. As revealed by the formula, the largest code size is fully characterized by the information spectrum of the distance between two independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) random codewords drawn from an optimal distribution. A new family of lower bounds to the maximal code size is thus established, and the well-known Gilbert-Varshamov (GV) lower bound is a special case of this family.
By duality, an explicit expression for the largest minimum distance of finite length block codes of a fixed code size is also obtained. Under an arbitrary uniformly bounded symmetric distance measure, the asymptotic largest code rate (in the block length $n$) attainable for a sequence of $(n,M,n\delta)$-codes is given exactly by the maximum large deviation rate function of the normalized distance between two i.i.d. random codewords. The exact information spectrum-type formula also yields bounds on the second-order terms in the asymptotic expansion of the optimum finite length rate for block codes with a fixed normalized minimum distance.


Twenty-three apple (Malus xdomestica Borkh.) cultivars were tested in the field and laboratory for their relative susceptibility to the white rot pathogen, Botryosphaeria dothidea. Wounded fruit were inoculated in the field at 2 to 3 weeks preharvest with mycelium from 14- to 21-day-old cultures. In the laboratory, detached fruit were similarly inoculated. Fruit were rated for relative susceptibility to the fungus with two criteria: disease severity of attached fruit in the field based on lesion growth (mm/degree-day) and disease severity of detached fruit in laboratory inoculations of wounded fruit (mean lesion diameter after 5 days). Based on the laboratory and field data from 2 years of study, cultivars were classified into three relative susceptibility groups: most susceptible: 'Fortune' and 'Pristine'; moderately susceptible: 'Golden Supreme', 'Creston', 'Ginger Gold', 'Sansa', 'Golden Delicious', 'Senshu', 'Orin', 'Sunrise', 'GoldRush', 'Arlet', 'Braeburn', 'Cameo', 'Enterprise', 'Fuji', 'Shizuka', 'Gala Supreme', and NY 75414; and least susceptible: 'Honeycrisp', 'Yataka', 'Suncrisp', and 'PioneerMac'. Compared to previous cultivar rankings, the results of the present study indicate that some new apple cultivars from the first NE-183 planting show greater resistance to Botryosphaeria dothidea than current standard cultivars.


In the contemporary UK policy context, multisectoral partnership initiatives and community participation are increasingly viewed as appropriate mechanisms for tackling health and social disadvantage. Such initiatives are often put into practice in contexts of industrial and economic decline, fragmented neighbourhoods, hard-pressed public services, and sustained under-investment in voluntary and community sector organisations. This paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork in a Social Inclusion Partnership (SIP) in Scotland to suggest that policy-makers and public health practitioners need a better understanding of the difficulties involved in implementing partnership and participation initiatives in this kind of context. The East Kirkland SIP was set up to tackle social exclusion and health inequalities within the most deprived neighbourhoods of a Scottish town, yet community engagement remained elusive. Partnership proved to be risky territory for all involved, marked by rivalry and suspicion between SIP members, rather than co-operation, whilst health promotion and social inclusion priorities conflicted with those of community development and regeneration. In sum, this paper presents a reality check for some contemporary policy and practice aspirations.

http://healthpolicyandutah.yolasite.com/resources/7310  Tackling health imequalities and social exclusions.pdf


The widespread and pervasive presence of devices equipped with small-size, small-cost sensors and increasing computational capacity affected our interactions, making them growingly ubiquitous and dynamic; an interaction that shifted from being indirect to becoming more physical and direct, as using gestural or vocal commands to control smart systems. In this context, we developed interfaces that draw themselves accordingly to the user need. Drawing User Interfaces receive information from the physical world (users and environment) via sensors, and react modifying their aesthetics and function.


Foreign body aspiration (FBA) is a potentially life-threatening event. The most common site of aspiration is the right main bronchus. We present the cases of two patients with a history of intravenous drug abuse, both with foreign bodies logded in the left upper lobar bronchus (ULB) probabily aspirated during a period of unconsciousness, immediately after drug injection. We believe that the position in which individuals were injected was possibly related to the location of the object. J Med Cases. 2018;9(4):112-113 doi: https://doi.org/10.14740/jmc3025w


In a 12-year follow-up study, a low-friction, metal-on-plastic hip prosthetic system (Charnley) was compared with a high-friction, metal-on-metal prosthetic system (McKeeFarrar) in a consecutive series of 169 patients, mean age 67 at the start. Satisfactory results were reported in 92 percent of the patients. One-third of the prostheses showed radiographic signs of loosening. The cumulative aseptic failure rate was 8 percent for the Charnley prosthesis and 15 percent for the MKF prosthesis. The difference was not statistically significant.The performance of a flexible (Bute!) and a rigid (PCA) cementless femoral component was studied in a prospective, randomized study of 28 matched pairs of patients (mean age 52 years). A high rate of stem loosening was observed for the flexible prosthesis and 4 cases of fatigue breakage occurred within the 3- to 5-year follow-up period. Proximal resorption and distal hypertrophy of the femur were frequently noted on the radiographs for the rigid stem. The scintigraphic activity around stems well fixed to bone became normalized in the calcar region. In contrast, it was about 50 percent increased around the prosthetic tip. For loose prostheses, the bony uptake was more intense and did not show the same time-related decrease. The scintimetric results did not correlate well with the signs of bone remodeling seen on the radiographs. Repeated at different time intervals, bone scintimetry may be informative in the followup of noncemented THA.In a consecutive series of THAs, the straight ITI-I stem (n=65), made of titanium alloy, was compared at a 5-year review with the Lubinus femoral component (n=77), curved and made of cobalt-chrome alloy. The ITH stem showed a high frequency of surrounding radiolucent lines. Six of the stems were considered loose as compared with none of the Lubinus stems. To date, 5 have been revised and 2 more are in need of revision operations, all in the ITH group. Although the initial costs were somewhat reduced with the use of the cheaper ITH prosthesis, the estimated accumulated costs turned out to be higher in the ITH than in the Lubinus group due to the increased need for revisions.In a study of THA performed on patients 80 years and older, good pain relief was achieved but at the cost of increased postoperative complications and hospital expenses as compared with patients around 65 years of age at operation. Functional improvement was not as evident as pain alleviation. The procedure did not result in decreased use of welfare services in the elderly group of patients.An experimental study was performed on 10 rabbits. Hydroxyapatite coated titanium plugs were implanted in both femora of each animal. Five were treated for seven days with an NSAID (diclofenac) and five were used as controls, receiving no treatment. A significantly lower force was required to pull out the implants 3 weeks after surgery in the group treated with diclofenac than in the untreated group. The results indicate that even short-term treatment with NSAIDs might interfere with the process of bony ingrowth and thereby endanger primary fixation of the implant despite the presence of a hydroxyapatite coating.A new cementless prosthesis was designed in titanium alloy in order to integrate the principles ofpressfit and flexibility. In a special test set-up the endurance properties of the stem were determined. Prototypes of the prosthesis were subjected to load cycles of 4,000 N in one ·test and to a more physiologic load pattern in another test. In both tests the prostheses broke after approximately 600,000 cycles without showing any material defects. It was concluded that considerable difftculty exists in constructing an "isoelastic" stem with reasonable safety limits to fatigue failure when using titanium alloy.


Using a network trained by a large dataset is becoming popular for denoising Monte Carlo rendering. Such a denoising approach based on supervised learning is currently considered the best approach in terms of quality. Nevertheless, this approach may fail when the image to be rendered (i.e., the test data) has very different characteristics than the images included in the training dataset. A pre-trained network may not properly denoise such an image since it is unseen data from a supervised learning perspective. To address this fundamental issue, we introduce a post-processing network that improves the performance of supervised learning denoisers. The key idea behind our approach is to train this post-processing network with self-supervised learning. In contrast to supervised learning, our self-supervised model does not need a reference image in its training process. We can thus use a noisy test image and self-correct the model on the fly to improve denoising performance. Our main contribution is a self-supervised loss that can guide the post-correction network to optimize its parameters without relying on the reference. Our work is the first to apply this self-supervised learning concept in denoising Monte Carlo rendered estimates. We demonstrate that our post-correction framework can boost supervised denoising via our self-supervised optimization. Our implementation is available at https://github.com/CGLab-GIST/self-supervised-post-corr.


We propose a spatial Bayesian variable selection method for detecting blood oxygenation level dependent activation in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. Typical fMRI experiments generate large datasets that exhibit complex spatial and temporal dependence. Fitting a full statistical model to such data can be so computationally burdensome that many practitioners resort to fitting oversimplified models, which can lead to lower quality inference. We develop a full statistical model that permits efficient computation. Our approach eases the computational burden in two ways. We partition the brain into 3D parcels, and fit our model to the parcels in parallel. Voxel-level activation within each parcel is modeled as regressions located on a lattice. Regressors represent the magnitude of change in blood oxygenation in response to a stimulus, while a latent indicator for each regressor represents whether the change is zero or non-zero. A sparse spatial generalized linear mixed model captures the spatial dependence among indicator variables within a parcel and for a given stimulus. The sparse SGLMM permits considerably more efficient computation than does the spatial model typically employed in fMRI. Through simulation we show that our parcellation scheme performs well in various realistic scenarios. Importantly, indicator variables on the boundary between parcels do not exhibit edge effects. We conclude by applying our methodology to data from a task-based fMRI experiment.


We reexamine the process of loop quantization for flat isotropic models in cosmology. In particular, we contrast different inequivalent 'loop quantizations' of these simple models through their respective successes and limitations and assess whether they can lead to any viable physical description. We propose three simple requirements which any such admissible quantum model should satisfy: (i) independence from any auxiliary structure, such as a fiducial interval/cell introduced to define the phase space when integrating over noncompact manifolds; (ii) existence of a well defined classical limit, and (iii) a sensible 'Planck scale' where quantum gravitational effects become manifest. We show that even when it may seem that one can have several possible loop quantizations, these physical requirements considerably narrow down the consistent choices. Apart from the so-called improved dynamics of loop quantum cosmology, none of the other available inequivalent loop quantizations pass the above tests, showing the limitations of lattice refinement models to approximate the homogeneous sector and loop modified quantum geometrodynamics. We conclude that amongst a large class of loop quantizations in isotropic cosmology, there is a unique consistent choice.


The achievement of lasting beneficial impacts through rural water supply services has been elusive. In too many cases
significant effort and investment has been devoted to providing a service, but after a few years (or even a few months) the
system breaks down and no longer provides a useful service to the community. Much thought has gone into the question of
what is required to bring about sustainable services, but there remain missing dimensions in much of the existing literature
and practice. This paper describes a small research project, focused on one long-term rural water and sanitation programme
in south-west Uganda, which specifically addresses the question of sustainability. The paper outlines the research aims
and methodology, and presents part of the conceptual thinking derived from literature and key-informant interviews. Field
work is on-going at the time of writing, but will be completed in time for oral presentation at the conference.


The combined application of the MBT (degree of methylation) and CBT (degree of cyclization) indices, based on the distribution of branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (brGDGTs) in soils, has been proposed as a paleoproxy to estimate mean annual temperature (MAT). CBT quantifies the degree of cyclization of brGDGTs and relates to soil pH. MBT and the simplified version MBT' quantify the degree of methylation of brGDGTs and relate to MAT and soil pH. However, other factors such as soil water availability have also been suggested to influence MBT' and possibly restrict the combined application of the MBT' and CBT indices as a paleotemperature proxy. To assess the effect of hydrological conditions on MBT' and CBT, a set of 23 Iberian Peninsula soil samples, covering a MAT range from 10 to 18 °C and a mean annual precipitation (MAP) range of 405 mm to 1455 mm, was analyzed. We found that the CBT was indeed significantly correlated with soil pH in our sample set. In contrast, MBT' was not correlated with MAT but had a significant correlation with the aridity index (AI), a parameter related to water availability in soils. The AI can explain 50% of the variation of the MBT', and 70% of the residuals of MAT estimated with the MBT/CBT proxy as compared to instrumentally measured MAT. We propose that, in arid settings, where water may be an ecologically limiting factor, MBT' is influenced by hydrological conditions rather than temperature. Thus, our results suggest that the combination of MBT' and CBT indices should be applied with caution in paleotemperature reconstructions in soils from dry subhumid to hyperarid environments.


In general, the services of a distributed system are provided by some cooperative protocol entities. The protocol entities must exchange some data values and synchronization messages in order to ensure the temporal ordering of the events which are described in a service specification of the distributed system. It is desirable that a correct protocol entity specification for each node can be derived automatically from a given service specification. In this paper, we propose an algorithm which synthesizes a correct protocol entity specification automatically from a service specification in a Petri Net model with Registers called PNR model. In our model, parallel events and selective operations can be described naturally. The control flow of a service specification must be described as a free-choice net in order to simplify the derivation algorithm, however, many practical systems can be described in this class. In our approach, since each protocol entity specification is also described in our PNR model, we can easily understand what events can be executed in parallel at each protocol entity.


: One of the most generally accepted assumptions among mental health professionals is that if the mentally ill were accorded the rights and obligations of the sick role, they would be less rejected by the public. This is the first study that could be found in the literature which examines whether or not this assumption is valid. The data strongly suggest that conferring the sick role on the mentally ill does not lessen rejection, but may, in some instances, increase social rejection. A possible interpretation for this striking and unexpected finding is offered.