In this paper, we present a plan of a narrative generation system based on a scenario generation method in Tabletop Role Playing Game (TRPG). This system is an application of an integrated narrative generation system (INGS) and has two objectives. The first objective is to support the development of a narrative by using the interactions between a user and the system in order to use a game form. The second objective is the knowledge acquisition in the INGS. The INGS needs conceptual dictionary knowledge (noun concept, verb concept, and so on) for constructing an event concept that refers to an occurrence in the narrative, script knowledge for constituting the structure of the narrative, and interconversion knowledge between an event and its states. The conceptual dictionary is structured manually. However, we attempted to automatically acquire script knowledge and the knowledge about the characters, things, and locations in the narrative. In this study, we attempt to acquire knowledge about the narrative structure. We intend to implement a function to perform the knowledge acquisition for the INGS when a user playing a game. As the first step, we focus on acquiring script knowledge for constituting the structure of the narrative.


Background Understanding the patient safety literature has been compromised by the inconsistent use of language. Objectives To identify key concepts of relevance to the International Patient Safety Classification (ICPS) proposed by the World Alliance For Patient Safety of the World Health Organization (WHO), and agree on definitions and preferred terms. Methods Six principles were agreed upon—that the concepts and terms should: be applicable across the full spectrum of healthcare; be consistent with concepts from other WHO Classifications; have meanings as close as possible to those in colloquial use; convey the appropriate meanings with respect to patient safety; be brief and clear, without unnecessary or redundant qualifiers; be fit-for-purpose for the ICPS. Results Definitions and preferred terms were agreed for 48 concepts of relevance to the ICPS; these were described and the relationships between them and the ICPS were outlined. Conclusions The consistent use of key concepts, definitions and preferred terms should pave the way for better understanding, for comparisons between facilities and jurisdictions, and for trends to be tracked over time. Changes and improvements, translation into other languages and alignment with other sets of patient safety definitions will be necessary. This work represents the start of an ongoing process of progressively improving a common international understanding of terms and concepts relevant to patient safety.


In this study, the utral-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) method with UV-PDA was utilized to develop a rapid, sensitive reliable method for analysis of 5 penicillin antibiotics in cosmetics productions which the presence of these penicillin in commercial cosmetics samples is prohibited. The samples was prepared by liquid-liquid extraction and then the analyses was carried out on UPLC-PDA. The chromatographic column used was Acquity UPLCTM BEH C18 (100 mm ×2.1 mm,1.7μm) and the mobile phase is Acetonitrile and potassium dihydrogen phosphate(PBS) Buffer solution pH 5.5. Chromatographic separation was obtained by gradient elution.


In this study the researcher describes and interprets the experiences with Projeto (Con)texto, a research group created in Northeast Brazil composed of eleven people with different levels of formal schooling, social classes and ages varying from 14 to 50 years old. The researcher explores the dynamics of the Brazilian relational universe and its impact on people's lives, the multiple forms of letramento (literacies) used by people in a certain cultural context to construe and convey meaning, and the process of strengthening of one's self to deal with cultural conflicts through cultural healing. The researcher gathered descriptive data during one year of involved participation with the eleven members of Projeto (Con)texto and formal and informal interviews with them. The researcher had a dual role in this research: first, he was a researcher conducting fieldwork for a doctoral dissertation; and second, he was a social interventionist facilitating a process of cultural change. The approach used for the development of this research qualifies for the category of socially responsive research, This study helped the participants in Projeto (Con)texto to understand the relational universe in which they live, bringing to a level of awareness why they do what they do in their lives. It prompted participants to liberate themselves from an oppressive culture that determined the passive role which many of them assumed in their cultural context. Projeto (Con)texto helped the participants to gain voice by discovering the roles of reading and writing in their lives and the multiple forms of communication and expression that can be used in their cultural context to construe and convey meaning. Projeto (Con)texto created an opportunity for cultural healing in Northeast Brazil.


We report two cases of severe thermal burns on the ocular surface and its adnexal appendages that developed secondary to exposure to molten heavy metal with a melting temperature of near-thousand degree Celsius. Despite aggressive intervention and strict monitoring, the profound inflammation caused significant damage to the ocular surface, ending up in an intractable infection with an unfavorable outcome. The heat of the molten metal at impact, the heat-retaining capacity of the heavy metal, the total area of the ocular surface exposed to the molten metal, and the duration of exposure determined the severity of the injury. The unfavorable outcome, despite an intensive treatment, in terms of visual acuity and cosmetic appearance, should be explicitly explained to the patient, and a psychiatrist consultation should be considered if necessary.


Concerns have been raised about my proposal that global phonemic diversity was shaped by a serial founder effect during the human expansion from Africa. I welcome this discussion of new data and alternative interpretations. Although this work highlights interesting questions for future research, it does not undermine support for a serial founder effect model of expansion of language from Africa.


: Several points are particularly relevant to an understanding of the effects of clonidine in the brain: Clonidine appears to act preferentially at alpha-2 adrenergic receptors and, in systemic doses of less than 50-100 microgram/kg, to exert its effects at autoreceptors, which initially decrease noradrenergic neuronal firing rates, NE release, and NE turnover. This action results in functional decreases of the usual effects of these neurons at their post synaptic alpha-1 and beta-adrenergic receptor-mediated projections, which are widely distributed throughout the limbic system, cerebrum, cerebellum, and spinal cord. Higher doses of clonidine appear to produce agonist effects at alpha-1 adrenergic receptors, counteracting the effects of decreases in firing rates and turnover. However, decreased function at beta receptors would continue after these higher doses owing to continued inhibition of neuronal activity and the lack of direct effects of clonidine on beta receptors. Receptors for GABA, endorphins, substance P, and ACh on LC neurons provide an anatomical and physiological basis for interactions among systems utilizing these substances as neurotransmitters in that they act on a common final noradrenergic pathway. These noradrenergic pathways, in turn, also project to and mediate functional changes in areas utilizing other neurotransmitters. Although these changes affect numerous types of behavior and responses that are measurable by psychopharmacologists, it is the neurons of the locus coeruleus and other noradrenergic neurons with similar receptor combination that provide the entry point to this NE system. Studies of the LC, therefore, may help to determine the nature of these specific effects and to characterize the effects of clonidine and other alpha-2 agonists on the brain.


: Mice infected with influenza A/Aichi/2/68 (H3N2) virus or Sendai/960 paramyxovirus were treated by inhalations of aerosol aprotinin, a broad spectrum inhibitor of proteinases. A course of inhalations of finely dispersed aerosol aprotinin including 4 exposures of 35-40 min each daily for 6 days provided respiratory administration of aprotinin in a dose about 100 kallikrein-inhibiting U/mouse per day. In mice treated by aprotinin inhalations, histological examinations showed decreased pulmonary pathology, and their body weights increased as much as in uninfected animals. In the placebo group, the weight decreased until the death of the animals. The protective effect of aprotinin inhalations was 40-80% with inoculation doses 10-100 MLD50/mouse. The treated animals died 2-4 days later than those in the placebo group. The results indicate the expedience of inhalation therapy with aerosol aprotinin in influenza and paramyxovirus respiratory infections.


Summary
The Amboseli ecosystem is in a semi-arid savannah environment in which water availability is highly seasonal, a feature which has an important bearing on the structure and efficiency of the large mammal community.

Data are presented to show that the seasonal movements, a wet season dispersal and dry season concentration of water-dependent species (obligate drinkers) can be related to the seasonality of rainfall and water availability, but that similar patterns do not prevail in the water-independent species.

Evidence suggests that water availability is a crucial parameter in calculating the carrying capacity of a range, and that the duration of ephemeral supplies, which reflect rainfall seasonality, evapotranspiration, and soil water storage capacity, is equally important. A simplified model is presented which calculates the carrying capacity of water-bound communities–taking into account these two limiting factors.

There appears to be a physiological barrier to a heavy utilization of the low water content grasses beyond reach of the water-dependent species, since most water-independent species select high water content browse in order to maintain a positive water balance. Significantly, while the water-independent community is almost exclusively composed of browsers, most water-dependent species are grazers. The biomass density of large mammals beyond 15 km from water, a radius which encloses 99-5% of the biomass of water-dependent species, is extremely low compared to areas within 10 km of water.

As a consequence of the physiological barrier to a heavy utilization of low water content forage in water-deficient areas, the food chain efficiencies are appreciably lower than those with permanent water sources. Livestock development programmes have long appreciated this constraint and employed water development schemes to increase range-carrying capacity.

Seasonality in the movement patterns of Amboseli is compared to other large mammal communities and management implications are discussed.


Abstract In the literature, analysing job adverts is considered to be a credible method for collecting data about the real demand for employees with higher education. Studies on the demand for teachers based on this data source have been conducted in many countries, but never in Poland. On this basis, the research objective was to identify regional and temporal changes in the demand for geography teachers. As part of the study we tracked all job adverts addressed to geography teachers which were published online over a period of nearly two years. It turned out there were 3,438 such job vacancies in Poland, which included part-time and full-time positions. The study results indicated vast temporal and regional differences in the demand for teachers, and also a clear imbalance in the demand for geographers between Warsaw – the capital city – and the rest of the country. It should be highlighted that both the methodology and the results presented in the paper are pioneering.


The oral administration of thiocolchicoside as skeletal muscle relaxant remains a less effective management of rheumatism and arthritis owing to poor oral bioavailability. Hence the present study was aimed to develop and evaluate nanoparticles containing thiocolchicoside as potential oral drug delivery system. The thiocolchicoside loaded chitosan nanoparticles were prepared by ionic gelation of chitosan with tripolyphosphate anions (TPP). The nanoparticles were characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Zeta potential analyser, Fourier Transform Infra-red (FTIR) Spectroscopy and X- ray diffraction (XRD). All the prepared formulations resulted in nano range size particles (200 - 700 nm). The entrapment efficiency were found to be 74%- 81% respectively. The thiocolchicoside was found to be dispersed in the nanoparticles in microcrystalline polymorphic form. The invitro release profile of thiocolchicoside from the nanoparticles showed a sustained release of the drug over a period of 5 hrs.


Structural analysis of the Tabaco anticline, Cerrejón mine, Northern Colombia (South America) Dora Luz Marín Restrepo University of Stavanger, 2013 Supervisor: Nestor Cardozo Ph.D. External Supervisor: Camilo Montes Ph.D. The Tabaco anticline is located in the Cesar-Ranchería basin of northern Colombia, South America, close to the transpressional collision between the Caribbean and South American plates. The anticline is bounded by the Cerrejón thrust to the east, the right lateral strike slip Oca fault to the north, and the left lateral strike slip Ranchería fault to the south. The anticline is asymmetric and verges to the SE, with a NW limb dipping in average 26°W, a SE limb dipping 41°E, and a fold axis 217°/7° (trend and plunge). The fold's vergence is opposite to that of the Cerrejón thrust. In this thesis, I make a 3D structural model of the Tabaco anticline using a high resolution dataset from the Cerrejón open coal mine in an area of about 10 km2. This 3D model contains 17 coal seams and 67 faults. The thesis is divided in three main parts: Construction of a 3D structural model, fault displacement analysis, and restoration of the anticline. Four different patterns in the contours of fault throw were observed: 1) Low throw in the middle of the fault and high throw in the areas around, 2) Highest throw at one corner of the fault and not in the center, 3) Highest throw in the middle of the fault, and 4) In conjugated faults, highest value of throw at the intersection of the two fault planes. Most of the faults show pattern 3. Patterns 1 and 2 are mostly due to lack of sampling of the entire fault surfaces. Faults show a consistent pattern of slip in the area. 3D restoration of the anticline using a flexural slip technique suggests a total v shortening of 18%. Fault-related strain (from the analysis of fault displacement) and fold-related strain (from the restoration of the coal seams) are related, with the highest values of fold-related strain associated with a fault in the core of the anticline, and the faults located in the SW anticlinal limb. Fold-related strains are also high in the SE, steeply dipping anticlinal limb. The results of this study show that the anticline was affected by uplift of the Santa Marta massif, Perijá range deformation, and strike-slip movement of the Oca , Samán and Ranchería faults.


Silk has been used in biomedical applications for centuries. The potential of silk for application in tissue engineering is currently being explored. The purpose of this study was to develop new method of mineralizing silk with carbonate apatite and determine cell response. The cocoons were placed in sodium bicarbonate solution and heat treated. The treated silk fibers were mineralized with carbonate apatite (CHA) using precipitation and new microwave methods. The mineralized and non-mineralized silks were characterized using SEM, EDS, XRD, FT-IR, and TGA. Cell response to mineralized silk and non-mineralized silk was determined using human osteoblast like cells (MG-63). The microwave method was more efficient than the precipitation method in terms of the amount of minerals incorporated with the silk and time required for mineralization. EDS, FT-IR and XRD identified CHA in the mineralized silk. In terms of cell response, greater production of type 1 collagen was observed with CHA mineralized silk compared with non-mineralized silk.


It has become a promising direction to measure similarity of Web search queries by mining the increasing amount of click-through data logged by Web search engines, which record the interactions between users and the search engines. Most existing approaches employ the click-through data for similarity measure of queries with little consideration of the temporal factor, while the click-through data is often dynamic and contains rich temporal information. In this paper we present a new framework of time-dependent query semantic similarity model on exploiting the temporal characteristics of historical click-through data. The intuition is that more accurate semantic similarity values between queries can be obtained by taking into account the timestamps of the log data. With a set of user-defined calendar schema and calendar patterns, our time-dependent query similarity model is constructed using the marginalized kernel technique, which can exploit both explicit similarity and implicit semantics from the click-through data effectively. Experimental results on a large set of click-through data acquired from a commercial search engine show that our time-dependent query similarity model is more accurate than the existing approaches. Moreover, we observe that our time-dependent query similarity model can, to some extent, reflect real-world semantics such as real-world events that are happening over time.


The multipotency of scaffolds is a new concept. Skeletal muscle acellular scaffolds (MAS) implanted at the interface of Tibialis Anterior/tibial bone and masseter muscle/mandible bone in a murine model were colonized by muscle cells near the host muscle and by bone-cartilaginous tissues near the host bone, thus highlighting the importance of the environment in directing cell homing and differentiation. These results unveil the multipotency of MAS and point to the potential of this new technique as a valuable tool in musculo-skeletal tissue regeneration.


REASONS FOR PERFORMING STUDY
Although clinical disorders of equine maxillary cheek teeth (CT) infundibula are common, anatomical knowledge of these structures is poor.

HYPOTHESIS
Anatomical examinations of sectioned CT infundibula will better define their shapes and sizes and allow identification of infundibular cemental variations and changes.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Cheek teeth were extracted post mortem from 33 horses, aged 3-30 years, without a clinical history of dental disease. The CT were sectioned longitudinally in the bucco-palatal plane through the widest aspects of both infundibula. The infundibular surfaces were then assessed morphologically, including by measurements of areas of cemental variations and changes. Specimens from selected teeth were examined histologically.

RESULTS
Infundibular length and infundibular surface area, and infundibular length as a proportion of dental crown length progressively decreased with age, e.g. infundibular length was up to 89 mm after eruption to 2 mm in one older horse. Triadan 06 and 09 positions had significantly shorter CT and therefore infundibula, than the other 4 Triadan positions. Only 11.7% of infundibula were filled completely with normal appearing cementum, 8.2% of infundibula (especially the 09 position) had complete cemental caries; 22.6% of infundibula had areas with cemental hypoplasia and the remaining 57.5% of infundibulae had a variety of other cemental appearances, including the presence of central defects, localised occlusal caries and cemental discolourations. Histology showed the presence of an apical blood supply to infundibular cement in younger horses.

CONCLUSIONS
Anatomical variations of CT infundibular cement are very common and some changes, such as areas of localised cemental hypoplasia, may predispose to the development of infundibular caries.

POTENTIAL RELEVANCE
This more complete description and quantification of CT infundibular anatomy should allow more rational assessment and treatment of equine CT infundibular disorders.


type="main"> 'Water grabbing' in the Mekong River has been accelerating at a feverish pace. The stakes have never been greater. Talks between international socio-environment groups, public–private dam partners, and Mekong countries are increasingly fractious and dysfunctional. The departure of the multilateral agencies, such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, from large-scale infrastructure funding has allowed the private sector access to investment opportunities in hydropower, and as a result facilitated the promise of rapid hydropower growth in the Lao PDR. The antagonism of international social and environmental groups towards these dams is due primarily to the transboundary impacts of multiple constructions and modifications to the Mekong. We posit that the dilemma in the negotiations over the Mekong dams in Lao can be best understood from the perspective of misaligned incentives-objectives. We examine the major stakeholders involved in contractual negotiations and group parties according to their aligned incentives-objectives. We employ a criteria trade-off framework to show that if talks take place over two rounds under particular rules, compromises of objectives and trading of incentives are possible. We stipulate that a Pareto-optimal solution is indeed possible—if a non-partisan, authoritative agent with retributory powers to design and enforce corrective incentives for all stakeholders takes part in both negotiation rounds.


ABSTRACT The Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management (IYTCM) programme aims to equip teachers with the strategies and skills necessary to promote socio-emotional child development. In Ireland, educational psychologists from the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) are involved in the delivery of the IYTCM programme training to primary school teachers. This study sought to ascertain experiences of the continuing professional development (CPD) offered to teachers by NEPS during IYTCM programme dissemination. A qualitative research design using semi-structured interviews was adopted. Data were collected from primary school teachers and educational psychologists. Findings indicate that the sustained CPD, facilitated by NEPS, during programme delivery, presents as an effective approach to teacher CPD and to educational psychology service delivery. The study highlights the importance and efficacy of customising programme delivery, co-constructing behaviour plans and facilitating sustained support. The evaluation considers implications of the findings and possible further developments for this model of working.


Abstract. Streptocarpus peltatus Randrian., Phillipson, Lowry & Mich. Möller (Gesneriaceae) is described as a new species from southeastern Madagascar. It differs from other Malagasy members of the genus by its distinctly peltate leaves that are glabrous on both surfaces and by the absence of staminodes. It is only known from a small area of mid-elevation humid forest on the eastern slopes of the Vohimena Range in southeastern Madagascar. An illustration and color images are provided along with a distribution map and a risk of extinction assessment following the IUCN Red List categories and criteria, which indicates a status of Critically Endangered.


2. I, too, passed stomach tubes on four successive children so premedicated, only to find that the aspirates were in order one-fifth of an ounce, two-fifths of an ounce, one-fifth of an ounce, and nil. What a difference this is from Dr. McDonald's 8 oz.t He must invoke other causes than alcoholic gastrogogism to explain the fiuid which he obtained. A quite large dose of one gramme of methylpentynol contains as much alcohol as one half-teaspoonful of guid Scotch whisky, or two and one-half teaspoonfuls of Australian beer-hardly enough to make one's mouth water, let alone one's stomach. With several of my colleagues, I remain weli satisfied with the methvl-pentynol plus hyoscine oral premedication, the ward sisters are pleased with the low level of postanresthetic nausea, and the mothers are getting their children home again without respiratory complications despite my clansman's fears to the contrary. Yours, etc.,


In most organisms the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle is a fundamental hub in metabolism. The TCA cycle is the origin and the endpoint of a broad spectrum of intermediates and provides the cell with energy and cellular building blocks. Especially in bacteria the pathway importantly contributes to their broad metabolic abilities.
In this work it is shown that the majority of the TCA cycle enzymes in Bacillus subtilis interact with each other via protein-protein interactions and a model for a TCA cycle metabolon is established. The assembly in complexes seems to be a common feature of metabolic enzymes like the enzymes of the TCA cycle. A complex of enzymes might lead to higher local substrate concentrations and might enhance metabolic fluxes by substrate channeling. Furthermore, interactions between enzymes of the TCA cycle and enzymes of connected metabolic pathways, like gluconeogenesis or nitrogen metabolism, are identified. Consequently, it can be assumed that the connection of the pathways via protein-protein interactions might directly trigger the flux through the different pathways.
Another aim of this work was to elucidate the mechanism of malate-mediated carbon catabolite repression (CCR) and to analyze the role of the B. subtilis malate dehydrogenases in malate metabolism. For malate-mediated CCR an unknown mechanism was supposed to be active in B. subtilis. However, in this work it is demonstrated that malate-mediated repression is achieved by the global mechanism of CCR via the CcpA/HPrK pathway and that malate triggers the formation of ATP and fructose 1,6-bisphosphate levels sufficient for CcpA/HPrK pathway activation. Malate is a preferred carbon source of B. subtilis and for an efficient utilization B. subtilis relies on a number of specific transporters and enzymes. Here, the essential role of the malate dehydrogenase and the phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase in malate utilization and the role of the malic enzymes of B. subtilis to supply the cell with NADPH, NADH and ATP are demonstrated.
Finally a novel mechanism of TCA cycle branch control is identified. In B. subtilis, the regulation of the TCA cycle is mainly exerted at the transcriptional level. Especially the expression of the first two enzymes, citrate synthase and aconitase, is controlled by a complex interplay of several transcription factors. In this work it is demonstrated that the iron regulatory protein aconitase is able to bind the mRNA of citrate synthase under high intracellular citrate concentrations and thus to destabilize its transcript to reduce the level of citrate synthase protein in the cell.


Stories matter. They matter to those intent on maintaining structures of power and privilege, and to those being crushed by those structures. In the United States, the space to tell, and to hear, our stories has been expanding. This means that the histories and lived realities of those who have been excluded, particularly people of color, are seeping into mainstream discourse, into the books our children read, the movies and television shows they watch, and the many websites comprising social media. Critical race theory has played a role in this expansion. It insists that we recognize the legitimacy of the stories of those deemed "Other" because they have been erased or distorted beyond recognition in the dominant narrative. 3 Critical race theory has helped ensure that the legacies of genocide and broken treaties, of the cruelties imposed upon enslaved persons, of the forced inclusion and exclusion of those regarded simply as disposable labor, have worked their way into the realm of what can be talked about. Critical race scholars have exposed immigration injustices and called out xenophobia and Islamophobia. All this discomfits those who benefit, or believe they benefit, from the status quo.


The Central Rift Valley (CRV) of Ethiopia is a closed basin for which claims on land and water have strongly increased over the past decade resulting in over-exploitation of the resources. A clear symptom is the declining trend in the water level of the terminal Lake Abyata. The actual productivity of most cereals in the CRV is less than 2 t ha-1 associated with low input use and poor crop management. Consequently, there are two major development objectives in the CRV, i.e. producing sufficient food for the increasing population, while at the same time ensuring efficient use of limited water and land resources under variable and changing climate conditions. The low productive cereal systems and a declining resource base call for options to increase crop productivity and improve resource use efficiency in order to meet the growing demand for food. In this thesis, the recent impacts were quantified of climate change, land use change and irrigation water abstraction on water availability of Lake Abyata of the CRV. The trends in lake levels, river discharges, basin rainfall, temperature and irrigation development (ca. 1975-2008) were analysed and the additional evapotranspiration loss resulting from temperature change and irrigated land were computed. We also analysed land use change (1990-2007) and the associated changes in runoff. Results showed that temperature has increased over 34 years (p We analysed a large number of data from farmers' fields (>10,000) and experimental data across the CRV from 2004-2009 to quantify the gaps (Yg) between actual (farm) and experimental (water-limited potential - Yw) yields of maize and wheat in homogenous farming zones. We found that the average (2004-2009) yield gap of maize and wheat ranged between 4.2-9.2 t ha-1, and 2.5-4.7 t ha-1, respectively, across farming zones. The actual N and P application in farmers' fields was low, as about 46% of maize and 27% of wheat fields did not receive fertilisers. We calibrated, validated and used the Agricultural Production System Simulator (APSIM) model to explore intensification options and their trade-offs with water losses through evapotranspiration. Variety selection and N fertilization were more important for yield gap closure than crop residue management and planting density, and the magnitude of their effect depended on soil type and climate. There was a trade-off between intensification and water use through evapotranspiration, as increasing yield comes at the cost of increased transpiration. However, this trade-off can be minimized by choosing location-specific N levels at which both water use efficiency (WUE) and gross margin are maximised. These application rates varied between 75 and 250 kg N ha-1 across locations and soils, and allowed producing 80% of Yw of maize and wheat. Climate change was projected to lower Yw of maize and wheat by ca. 15-25% and 2-30%, respectively, compared to current climate conditions. An automated gridded simulation framework was developed to scale up the promising intensification options from field scale to basin scale. We then aggregated basin scale production and identified trade-offs between production and water use for different land use scenarios. This procedure allowed designing land use scenarios based on a spatially explicit optimization of WUE and gross margin per grid cell. Consequences of land use scenarios for food production and water use at basin level were evaluated. Results of the different land use scenarios demonstrated that crop intensification options for which WUE and gross margin are maximised can meet the projected food demand (year 2050) of the growing population in the CRV while at the same time saving large areas of the currently cultivated land. In the intensification scenarios total water loss through evapotranspiration from agricultural land is reduced compared with water loss from current cultivated land and low crop productivity levels. It is concluded that the current land use together with climate change and water abstraction for irrigation negatively affected the basin level water balance in CRV over the past decade. Furthermore, the scope for further expansion of farmland to increase food production is very limited. The focus should, therefore, be towards intensification also because the existing yield gaps are huge and hence the scope for intensification is large. Model-based exploration of intensification options can be used to prioritize promising options, to close the yield gap and for quantifying trade-offs. Scaling up of promising options allows to assess whether the food demand of the growing population can be met while at the same time saving the less productive land and water per unit agricultural product.


1. The energy requirement of a jump of 3.5 cm. height by the rabbit flea, Spilopsyllus cuniculi , is 2.25 ergs. This must be delivered in 0.75-1.0 msec. over a distance of 0.37-0.5mm., which is not compatible with direct muscular action.

2. The anatomy of the jumping mechanism has been re-examined and its action studied by high-speed cinematography. The following explanation is offered. The main impulse comes from the depression of the metathoracic femur, whose depressor muscle originates on the notum. In the resting position the attachment of the depressor tendon to the femur is over-centre with respect to the trochanter-femoral joint. When the muscle contracts energy is stored in a resilin pad located between notum and pleuron. This energy is released by a second muscle which pulls the depressor tendon away from the over-centre position, thus enabling it to depress the femur.

3. Operations on live fleas have provided evidence in support of the proposed mechanism.

4. The depressor muscle is capable of providing 1.96 ergs on each side.

5. The resilin pad is capable of storing 4 ergs on each side.

6. Species which are better jumpers have larger resilin pads.


"Student engagement is concerned with the interaction between the time, effort and other relevant resources invested by both students and their institutions intended to optimise the student experience and enhance the learning outcomes and development of students and the performance, and reputation of the institution".1

The Higher Education Academy's Meaningful Student Engagement Programme aims to help universities enhance the engagement of disabled students in the design and delivery of learning and teaching. Northumbria University was one of ten institutions selected to participate in this programme. The focus at Northumbria was on inclusive assessment and this was achieved through the SEA (Student Engagement with Assessment) Project. Commencing in January 2011, the overall aim of the project was to create a roadmap for the university to move towards more alternative and inclusive assessment methods and practice. Working in partnership with students, current and inclusive assessment practices have been explored. This has led to a number of pilots with staff, students and the students union looking at different aspects of inclusive assessment. This case study reports on the main findings from this project.


Movement of snowmelt water through a thin saturated layer at the infiltrating base of a snowpack is modelled by applying the kinematic wave theory. Analytical solutions are obtained for flow depth, velocity and discharge assuming that the rate of input to the saturated layer due to vertical percolation is constant. This assumption results in a linear rise and recession of the snowmelt hydrograph. The solutions are extended to the case of time-varying input. An explicit consideration of infiltration leads to a free boundary problem.


Antiplatelet is an important drug for patients with coronary heart disease undergoing drug-eluting stent implantation. Current guidelines recommend dual antiplatelet with aspirin and a P2Y12 inhibitor for at least 12 months. Continuation of DAPT beyond 12 months may be considered for preventing very late stent thrombosis. Several patient-related factors that contribute to stent thrombosis have been recognized, including diabetes and advanced age, but the optimal DAPT duration for these patients is still controversial. This article reviews the efficacy of extended (>12 months) compared to standard (12 months) DAPT for reducing myocardial infarction and stent thrombosis rates, especially in diabetic elderly patients. Literature screening was conducted at PubMed and Cochrane database using "dual antiplatelet", "duration", "adult-onset diabetes mellitus", "elderly" and, "drug-eluting stent" as keywords. Article types were limited to meta-analysis, systematic review, randomized clinical trial, or clinical trial that compared the efficacy of extended to standard duration of DAPT. Clinical outcomes used were myocardial infarction and stent thrombosis. The initial search was done to find relevant studies specifically assessing diabetic and elderly patients, then widened to diabetic and non-diabetic patients of any age above eighteen years. A total of 5 clinical trials and 1 meta-analysis were reviewed, showing an overall risk reduction of stent thrombosis and myocardial infarction. This review has several limitations, such as its potential selection bias and under-represented proportion of diabetic and elderly patients. High-risk subgroups like diabetes mellitus has a tendency of increased ischemic risk, while advanced age could have both increased ischemic risk and bleeding risk. This review suggests that it is better to reserve extended dual antiplatelet therapy for patients with high ischemic risk and low bleeding risk (tailored therapy).


This study reexamines whether option price monotonicity properties hold in a liquid market with little market friction and considers the validity of the monotonicity properties in light of option market characteristics. We confirm that option prices do not monotonically correlate with underlying spot prices and that call and put prices often increase or decrease together, indicating that the monotonicity properties are not consistent with the observed option price dynamics. The violations of monotonicity properties are associated with not only market microstructure effects, trade sizes, and option leverage but also other market characteristics such as trade direction, individual investor demand, foreign investor trading, and market volatility. Violation occurrences tend to be clustered, and their relationship with option market characteristics has not been affected by the recent market reform. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark


Industry lobbying is traditionally thought of as a non-excludable good subject to collective action problems that are most easily solved by concentrated industries. However, there is very little empirical support for this hypothesis. In this paper, we address a major shortcoming of existing work on the topic: Its near-exclusive reliance on data from the US. Using comparative firm-level survey data from up to 74 countries, we construct an industry-level indicator of concentration and test its effect on firms' lobbying activity. Using multilevel Extreme Bounds Analysis and Bayesian Variable Selection techniques to account for model uncertainty, we find no evidence that industry concentration is a predictor of lobbying activity. We discuss the implications of these non-findings for the literature and outline possible avenues for further research.


Results are here presented of an environmental, sedimentological and morphological reseach at Joaquina Beach, Santa Catarina Island, developed during november 1992 - march 1994. Along 8 pro files were observed erosional and depositional features in the inactive dune, foredune, backshore and foreshore sectors. The textural analysis of the 117 surface samples revealed the predominance of fine and medium sandy sediments, quartzose, well to moderately sorted, negative skewness and platicurtic/mesocurtic curtosis. The grains are subrounded, medium sphericity and superficially polished. The beach shows up balanced equally environmentally, with the exception of the northern extremity, that has been affected by antropic action, mainly for to touristic purposes, like shops, restaurants, hotels and parking lots.


Aimes: Vocabulary, written or oral, may potentially mirror the attitudes, emotionality, thinking styles, mentality and cultural tendencies among people. This research aimed to scrutinise the emotion-related words (ERWs) vs. the cognition-related words (CRWs) of three Persian dictionaries (namely, Moeen, Amid and Moaser), exploring cultural differences in terms of positive/negative and somatic/non-somatic aspects. Method: All entries in these three dictionaries were scrutinised by three independent judges all of whom were psychologists. The final judgments incorporated feedback which included descriptive and qualitative comments provided by a cognitive linguist. Non-parametric data (frequencies and ratios) on somatic/non-somatic, positive/negative and common/uncommon components of the target words were analysed by SPSS for Windows v19. Results: The results show that the ratio of negative ERWs is higher than positive ERWs, compared to both positive and negative CRWs. Moreover, 30-45% of ERWs were somatic (contained body-related component/s). Conclusion: The findings appear to be in line with theories suggesting that people with Eastern cultural backgrounds are more likely to express their feelings through body-related words; a fact that may be correlated with the high level of somatisation symptoms in Eastern countries.


This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 13th
International Conference on Text, Speech and Dialogue, TSD
2010, held in Brno, Czech Republic, in September 2010. The 74
full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from
144 submissions. The papers present a wealth of
state-of-the-art research and development results in the field
of natural language processing with emphasis on text, speech,
and spoken language, ranging from theoretical and
methodological issues to applications in various fields, such
as web information retrieval, the semantic Web, algorithmic
learning, dialogue systems, etc.


We introduce a new training paradigm that enforces interval constraints on neural network parameter space to control forgetting. Contemporary Continual Learning (CL) methods focus on training neural networks efficiently from a stream of data, while reducing the negative impact of catastrophic forgetting, yet they do not provide any firm guarantees that network performance will not deteriorate uncontrollably over time. In this work, we show how to put bounds on forgetting by reformulating continual learning of a model as a continual contraction of its parameter space. To that end, we propose Hyperrectangle Training, a new training methodology where each task is represented by a hyperrectangle in the parameter space, fully contained in the hyperrectangles of the previous tasks. This formulation reduces the NP-hard CL problem back to polynomial time while providing full resilience against forgetting. We validate our claim by developing InterContiNet (Interval Continual Learning) algorithm which leverages interval arithmetic to effectively model parameter regions as hyperrectangles. Through experimental results, we show that our approach performs well in a continual learning setup without storing data from previous tasks.


The current study examined the association between social capital and subjective well-being (SWB) in rural Ethiopia. The current study used the 2009 Ethiopian Rural Household Study (ERHS) with a sample of 1277 households. It was hypothesized that social capital is positively associated with SWB, that cognitive social capital would have a stronger association with SWB than would structural social capital, and that the relationship between social capital and SWB will differ by region. The study included an examination of the interaction between regions in Ethiopia, social capital, and SWB. It was found that membership in an equub, generalized trust, and perceptions of the trustworthiness of government were significantly associated with SWB. Significant interaction terms were Oromia and participation in a work party and Tigray and trustworthiness in neighbors. These findings are consistent with the research linking social capital to SWB (Bjornskov 2006; Helliwell 2006; Sarracino 2010). The findings of this study also support previous research indicating a stronger association between cognitive social capital and SWB over structural social capital and SWB (Bjornskov 2006; Yip, Subramanian, Lee, Wang and Kawachi 2006). There were some significant interactions between social capital, region, and SWB. This study can be used to inform policymakers interested in social capital and SWB approaches. More research is needed on memberships in associations and their relationship with SWB in rural Ethiopia.


Certain long non-coding (lnc)RNAs have been reported to serve important roles in the genesis and progression of thyroid cancer (TC). Recent studies have demonstrated that the expression of lncRNA H19 is upregulated in TC tissues; however, knowledge of the associated molecular mechanisms is limited. Therefore, the present study aimed to clarify the roles of H19 in TC. The mRNA expression of lncRNA H19 in TC tissues was determined using reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis, and the effects of H19 knockdown on cell viability and apoptosis in vitro were assessed using MTT and flow cytometric assays, respectively. Finally, the signaling pathways involved in the effects of H19 were examined. The results indicated that H19 was upregulated in TC tissues. Silencing of H19 inhibited the cell viability and promoted apoptosis of FTC-133 and TPC-1 TC cells, accompanied by an increased expression of B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2)-associated X protein and caspase 3, and repressed expression of Bcl-2. The results of western blot analysis suggested that the levels of phosphorylated phosphoinositide-3 kinase (PI3K) and phosphorylated AKT were attenuated by H19 silencing. These results suggest that lncRNA H19 exerts an oncogenic function in TC, in part through the PI3K/AKT pathway.


PURPOSE Contrary to physicians' concerns that face-to-face patient time is decreasing, data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) indicate that between 1988 and 1998, durations of primary care outpatient visits have increased. This study documented how physicians spend time during the workday, including time outside the examination room, and compared observed face-to-face patient care time with that reported in NAMCS. METHODS Using time-motion study techniques, for each of 11 physicians, 2 patient care days were randomly selected and documented by direct observation. Physician time spent on face-to-face patient care and 54 activities outside the examination room were documented. Data represent 12,180 minutes of work and 611 outpatient visits. RESULTS The average workday duration was 8.6 hours, and face-to-face patient care accounted for 55% of the day. Work outside the examination room relevant to a patient currently being seen averaged 14% of the day. Work related to a patient not physically present accounted for one fifth (23%) of the workday. The combination of face-to-face time and time spent on visit-specific work outside the examination room assessed by direct observation was significantly less than the 2003 NAMCS estimate of visit duration assessed by physician report (13.3 vs 18.7 minutes, P <.001). CONCLUSIONS Nearly one half of a primary care physician's workday is spent on activities outside the examination room, predominately focused on follow-up and documentation of care for patients not physically present. National estimates of visit duration overestimate the combination of face-to-face time and time spent on visit-specific work outside the examination room by 41%.


The "enhancement" phenomenon evoked in rats by administration of donor lymphocytes and recipient-anti-donor-lymphocyte antibodies prior to organ transplantation brings about "continuous alloantigen elimination". This new concept is based on the experimental data from studies on the distribution of radiolabelled alloantigen and alloantibody in the recipient lymphoid organs and suggests that immediately after organ transplantation to the "enhanced" recipient, the circulating antibodies bind to the donor transplantation antigens both on endothelial cells and those shed into recipient blood circulation. The formed alloantigen-alloantibody complexes are trapped in the spleen and after opsonization and binding to the migrating splenocytes are transported to the liver for further processing. The process of continuous binding of alloantigen and elimination as alloantibody-alloantigen complexes in the lymphoid organs of the recipient prevents activation of the recipient effector cells and their migration to the graft. The organ grafts survive above 100 days. Although there is no evident rejection in the allograft itself a phenomenon of "rejection alert" is seen in the lymphoid tissue. The lymphocytes originating from the organ graft donor injected intravenously are rejected in the "enhanced" recipient spleen and nodes within 6 hours. The "physiological" site of elimination (rejection) of alloantigens are the lymphoid organs, as it happens with invading pathogens. The allotransplant is spared since its alloantigens are "blocked" by anti-donor-specific antibodies, the complexes are continuously detached and washed-off by the percolating blood and eliminated in the lymphoid tissues and liver.


OBJECTIVE
To examine the in vitro antifungal effects of water-soluble pure elemental boron with an alkaline solution against Candida species, Trichophyton species, and Aspergillus fumigatus that cause superficial mycosis.

METHODS
The study was conducted at the microbiology laboratory of Kahramanmaras Sutcu Imam University Hospital, Kahramanmaras, Turkey, from June to December 2018, and comprised fungal strains isolated from patients with superficial mycosis who visited the dermatology clinic. The in vitro antifungal effects of the boron solution at various concentrations were determined using the microbroth dilution method. Candida albicans ATTC 90028 and Candida albicans MYA 274 served as the quality control strains, while fluconazole and amphotericin B were used as comparator antifungal agents. Data was analysed using SPSS 22.

RESULTS
Of the 58 strains, 28(48.3%) were Candida albicans, 9(15.5%) non-Candida albicans, 12(20.7%) Trichophyton rubrum, 4(6.9%) Trichophyton mentagrophytes, 2(3.4%) Trichophyton species and 3(5.2%) were Aspergillus fumigates. Boron at a concentration of 78.125 μg/mL inhibited the growth of Candida albicans. The 50% and 90% minimum inhibitory concentrations of the solution in non-Candida albicanswere 78.125 and 312.5 μg/mL, respectively, whereas those in Trichophyton rubrum were 312.5 and 625 μg/mL, respectively. The 50% minimum inhibitory concentration of the solution in Aspergillus fumigatus was 625 μg/mL, whereas the 90% minimum inhibitory concentration could not be determined.

CONCLUSIONS
Boron is an inexpensive, non-antibiotic element with potential uses as an antifungal agent.


A Practical Guide to the Highly Dynamic Area of Massively Parallel Sequencing The development of genome and transcriptome sequencing technologies has led to a paradigm shift in life science research and disease diagnosis and prevention. Scientists are now able to see how human diseases and phenotypic changes are connected to DNA mutation, polymorphism, genome structure, and epigenomic abnormality. Next-Generation Sequencing Data Analysis shows how next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies are applied to transform nearly all aspects of biological research. The book walks readers through the multiple stages of NGS data generation and analysis in an easy-to-follow fashion. It covers every step in each stage, from the planning stage of experimental design, sample processing, sequencing strategy formulation, the early stage of base calling, reads quality check and data preprocessing to the intermediate stage of mapping reads to a reference genome and normalization to more advanced stages specific to each application. All major applications of NGS are covered, including: RNA-seq: mRNA-seq and small RNA-seq Genotyping and variant discovery through genome re-sequencing De novo genome assembly ChIP-seq to study DNAprotein interaction Methylated DNA sequencing on epigenetic regulation Metagenome analysis through community genome shotgun sequencing Before detailing the analytic steps for each of these applications, the book presents the ins and outs of the most widely used NGS platforms, with side-by-side comparisons of key technical aspects. This helps practitioners decide which platform to use for a particular project. The book also offers a perspective on the development of DNA sequencing technologies, from Sanger to future-generation sequencing technologies. The book discusses concepts and principles that underlie each analytic step, along with software tools for implementation. It highlights key features of the tools while omitting tedious details to provide an easy-to-follow guide for practitioners in life sciences, bioinformatics, and biostatistics. In addition, references to detailed descriptions of the tools are given for further reading if needed. The accompanying website for the book provides step-by-step, real-world examples of how to apply the tools covered in the text to research projects. All the tools are freely available to academic users.


Abstract Background: Two randomized clinical trials, the Study of Ascending Levels of Tolvaptan in Hyponatremia 1 and 2 (SALT-1 and SALT-2), showed that tolvaptan was an efficacious and safe therapy for the treatment of hyponatremic patients with the syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone secretion (SIADH). Hypothesis: This study evaluated the potential cost savings associated with tolvaptan usage based on the SALT-1 and SALT-2 trials. Methods: Hospital length of stay (LOS) reduction associated with tolvaptan versus placebo was evaluated among hyponatremic patients with the SIADH (serum sodium < 135 mEq/L) from the combined data of the SALT-1 and SALT-2 trials. The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project 2009 Nationwide Inpatient Sample database was used to estimate hospital cost and LOS for hospitalizations of adult (age ≥ 18 years) patients with the SIADH. A cost-offset model was constructed to evaluate the impact of tolvaptan on hospital cost and LOS, with univariate and multivariate Monte Carlo sensitivity analyses. Results: In the SALT-1 and SALT-2 trials, patients with the SIADH receiving tolvaptan had a shorter hospital LOS than patients receiving placebo (4.98 vs 6.19 days, respectively). There were 21 718 hospitalizations for the SIADH identified from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Nationwide 2009 Inpatient Sample database, with a mean LOS of 5.7 days and mean total hospital costs of $8667. Using an inpatient tolvaptan treatment duration of 4 days, with a daily wholesale acquisition cost of $250, the cost-offset model estimated an LOS reduction among SIADH hospitalizations of 1.11 days. The total cost offset, including tolvaptan drug cost, was estimated to be $694 per admission. The cost-neutral break-even duration of tolvaptan therapy is 6.78 days. Univariate and multivariate sensitivity analyses demonstrated consistent cost reduction associated with tolvaptan usage. Ten thousand cycles of Monte Carlo simulation showed the 95% CI for cost offset to be $73 to $1405. Conclusion: Based on the SALT-1 and SALT-2 trials, tolvaptan usage is associated with a shorter hospital LOS than placebo among patients with the SIADH. Including the drug cost for 4 days of inpatient tolvaptan therapy, tolvaptan is associated with an estimated mean hospital cost reduction of $694 per admission in the United States.


The foreign military forces and international organisations that have operated in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) since 1992 recruited thousands of local people, often young students, to work as interpreters. Drawing on 31 life history interviews conducted in 2009–10 with language workers who grew up in former Yugoslavia, this paper seeks to answer whether certain age groups and social strata that emerged from socialist Yugoslav society were better able to benefit in the 'SFOR economy' that resulted from the effects of international intervention in BiH. In the process, it combines applied-linguistics approaches to language-learning narratives with area-studies perspectives on postsocialism to show how particular forms of language learning equipped people to adjust to the socio-economic crisis. Although all Bosnian schools taught foreign languages, pupils were assigned arbitrarily to different languages and English was not available in all schools. This study suggests on a limited sample that education outside the state classroom was a more helpful source of the necessary cultural capital to work as an interpreter and was easiest to access for children of urban professional families. The interpreting jobs that these subjects found during and after the war made them more privileged than workers on local-currency wages but less privileged compared to their parents' pre-war lives. The work-based identity they went on to construct was informal and has not produced a public narrative that constructs interpreters as a recognised social group.


Given some geometric elements such as points and lines in R/sup 3/, subject to a set of pairwise distance constraints, the problem tackled in this paper is that of finding all possible configurations of these elements that satisfy the constraints. Many problems in robotics (such as the position analysis of serial and parallel manipulators) and CAD/CAM (such as the interactive placement of objects) can be formulated in this way. The strategy herein proposed consists of looking for some of the a priori unknown distances, whose derivation permits solving the problem rather trivially. Finding these distances relies on a branch-and-prune technique, which iteratively eliminates from the space of distances entire regions which cannot contain any solution. This elimination is accomplished by applying redundant necessary conditions derived from the theory of distance geometry. The experimental results qualify this approach as a promising one.


Multi-modality is an important feature of sensor based activity recognition. In this work, we consider two inherent characteristics of human activities, the spatially-temporally varying salience of features and the relations between activities and corresponding body part motions. Based on these, we propose a multi-agent spatial-temporal attention model. The spatial-temporal attention mechanism helps intelligently select informative modalities and their active periods. And the multiple agents in the proposed model represent activities with collective motions across body parts by independently selecting modalities associated with single motions. With a joint recognition goal, the agents share gained information and coordinate their selection policies to learn the optimal recognition model. The experimental results on four real-world datasets demonstrate that the proposed model outperforms the state-of-the-art methods.


The purpose of this study is to identify what students at the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs in National Research University Higher School of Economics Moscow contribute to quality in foreign language education. Quantitative and qualitative methods were employed in the study. The findings indicate that quality education for the students involves three main components: 1.competitive environment at the university, which provides students with a wide range of programs, perfect facilities; 2. qualified teachers who create friendly atmosphere and maintain effective communication at the lesson and 3. Supportive curriculum materials.


The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of fatigue on genu recurvatum in collegiate and intramural athletes. The degree of genu recurvatum was determined for each participant prior to and following fatigue. The participants for this investigation were eighteen (9 males and 9 females) college age men and women. Each participant was selected based upon participation in collegiate and/or intramural athletics at Fort Hays State University during the 2000-2001 school year. All participants were included in the data analysis. The General Linear Model Repeated measures design was implemented to provide a means to examine repeated measure differences within participants (male and female) and ascertain if genu recurvatum comparison differences existed between the male and female groups at the .05 level. In this study, the dependent variables under investigation were the measures of genu recurvatum. The experimental condition involved the repeated measure of genu recurvatum prior to fatigue (pretest) and following the fatigue protocol (posttest). The fatigue protocol employed a modified Naughton-Balke treadmill protocol using a Trackmaster treadmill. All genu recurvatum measurements were obtained using the Peak performance Milton Analysis System (2D) after participants stabilized into a one-leg balance stance prior to and following fatigue. The analysis of the effect of fatigue on genu recurvatum showed no significance either between-participants effects of within-participants contrasts. Although not significant the female mean difference between pre-fatigue and post-fatigue measurements showed the greatest increase in genu recurvatum as compared to the male and the entire group when combined.


Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) therapy represents a novel strategy for a variety of diseases. Interestingly, spleen acts as an important reservoir during EPCs trafficking. Therefore, we investigated the involvement of SDF-1/CXCR4 in EPCs settlement in spleen. EPCs were cultured and characterised as previously described methods. Then, 1×106 EPCs were labelled with DiI-acLDL and intravenously infused into C57/BL6 mice. Immunohistochemical staining showed homing of transplanted EPCs in spleen 24 hours later, indicating recruitment of transplanted EPCs in spleen. Physiological distribution of EPCs in different organs was evaluated by fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) analysis of Sca-1/Flk-1 positive cells, which demonstrated physiological settlement of EPCs in spleen. Removal of splenic niche by splenectomy augmented circulating EPCs 12 and 24 hours later, indicating an important role of spleen on modulation of EPCs circulating dynamics. To determine the involvement of SDF-1/CXCR4 in EPCs migration and homing, expression of SDF-1 in spleen and CXCR4 in EPCs were revealed by ELISA and RT-PCR. Modified Boyden chamber assay disclosed that SDF-1(10, 100 ng/ml) induced EPCs migration in vitro. Injection of SDF-1 protein into spleen increased the number of splenic EPCs, while local administration of SDF-1 antibody or block of SDF-1/CXCR4 axis with AMD3100 attenuated their migration and settlement. These results indicate that the SDF-1/CXCR4 axis is involved in recruitment of EPCs to spleen which will deepen our understanding on EPCs circulating kinesics.


This national longitudinal data-based multi-population LISREL study, the most comprehensive assessment to date of racial variations in the (in)congruity between religiosity and perceived control, gauges variation among Black and White Americans in the lagged reciprocal relationship between religiosity dimensions and mastery. Racial variation in the reciprocal religiosity-perceived control relationship has hitherto gone un-addressed. Prior investigations have also typically utilised cross-sectional samples – often from regional or age-specific populations. The observed public religiosity-mastery relationship over time exhibits signs of mutual reinforcement among Blacks: public religiosity enhances Blacks' subsequent mastery, while prior mastery borderline-significantly enhances their public religiosity. The subjective religiosity-mastery relationship among Whites evinces a marginally countervailing pattern: Subjective religiosity diminishes Whites' mastery, while mastery borderline-significantly enhances their subjective religiosity. The inordinately positive public religiosity-effect on Blacks' mastery notably constitutes solid support for the "resource compensation" perspective on the impact of religiosity on mastery across dominant and subordinate groups.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the willingness of unemployed graduates to participate in agriculture with a view to showcase the potentials in Nigerian agriculture especially in the area of employment generation for the youths.

Design/methodology/approach
The study made use of primary data collected with the aid of structured questionnaires from 180 respondents from the three states of Ondo; Oyo and Osun states are the representative states from the entire South West. The binary logistic regression model was used to identify those factors that influence the willingness of the respondents who were graduates of various disciplines to participate in agriculture.

Findings
The findings of the study showed that the majority of the respondents interviewed representing 62.8 percent were unemployed with the majority of the respondents (68.3 percent) willing to participate in agriculture given the needed and required supports such as conducive environment by the stakeholders particularly the government. Educational status, marital status, gender, possession of agricultural training and employment status of respondents significantly influenced their willingness to participate in agriculture.

Research limitations/implications
The greatest limitation of this study is its sample size which is considerably small but considering the peculiarity in the challenges faced by the entire population; this limitation has been overcome, thus, making its findings valid for policy purposes. However, recommendations for further studies that would comprise the entire geopolitical zones of the country to pave way for comparative analysis were made.

Originality/value
The study is originally carried out by conducting a survey to collect the data and is coming to fill the existing gap in the literature in terms of potentials embedded in Nigerian agriculture to assist the government in providing employment opportunities for teeming youths.


A consecutive series of 98 patients ranging from 21/2 to 79 years of age underwent mitral valve replacement using the superior approach that entails an atriotomy done between the superior vena cava and the ascending aorta prolonging it into the left superior pulmonary vein. The technique opens the roof of the left atrium without dissection, frequently without the need for double cannulation of the right atrium. No mobilization of the heart is involved, which is left in its normal position. There were 62 patients undergoing replacement alone, 22 combined with coronary bypass surgery, 10 with simultaneous aortic valve replacement, 2 with coronary bypass and left ventricular aneurysm resection, and 2 others combined with ventricular septal defect (VSD) closure and placement of an extracardiac conduit. Forty‐six were done for stenosis and 52 for regurgitation. No technical difficulties were encountered, and the valve can easily be replaced through an incision slightly larger than the diameter of the prosthesis being implanted. Since the heart is not mobilized, the ventricles remain immersed in the cold topical solution (4° C) in addition to the administration of cardioplegia for myocardial protection. The access is simple and offers better exposure for the assisting surgeon than the usual inter‐atrial groove approach. Important steps of the technique are clarified.


Additional solid waste disposal imposes resource and environmental costs, but most residents still pay no additional fee per marginal unit of garbage collection. In a simple model with garbage and recycling as the only two disposal options, we show that the optimizing fee for garbage collection equals the resource cost plus environmental cost. When illicit burning or dumping is a third disposal option, however, the optimizing fee for garbage collection can change sign. Burning or dumping is not a market activity and cannot be taxed directly, but it can be discouraged indirectly by a system with a tax on all output plus a rebate on proper disposal either through recycling or garbage collection. This optimizing fee structure is essentially a deposit-refund system. The output tax helps achieve the first-best allocation even though it may affect the choice between consumption and untaxed leisure, because consumption leads to disposal problems while leisure does not.


This paper reports on a pilot project with a group of 60 second-year undergraduates studying the use of standard forms of contract in the construction industry. The project entailed the replacement of two of a series of nine scheduled lectures with a computer-based tutorial. The two main aims of the project were to test the viability of converting existing lecture material into computer-based material on an in-house production basis, and to obtain feedback from the student cohort on their behavioural response to the change in media. The effect on student performance was not measured at this stage of development. DOI: 10.1080/0968776960040115


During the interwar period the manufacturing productivity gap between the US and the UK became much larger than existing estimates suggest. In this article a new comparison of US/UK productivity levels for 1935 is presented, utilizing a more rigorous methodology to revise the widely used, but methodologically outdated, benchmark comparison by Rostas that was published in 1948. Secondly, the comparison is extended to take account of variations in input prices, and it is shown that double deflation has a substantial effect on the new benchmark, particularly at the industry level. Thirdly, labour input is adjusted for actual hours worked. US manufacturing displayed a much higher level of comparative productivity for the key industries of the second industrial revolution, such as chemicals and engineering. These results support revisionist accounts of the depression's strengthening of US productivity leadership.


When predicting the value of a stationary random field at a location x in some region in which one has a large number of observations, it may be difficult to compute the optimal predictor. One simple way to reduce the computational burden is to base the predictor only on those observations nearest to x. As long as the number of observations used in the predictor is sufficiently large, one might generally expect the best predictor based on these observations to be nearly optimal relative to the best predictor using all observations. Indeed, this phenomenon has been empirically observed in numerous circumstances and is known as the screening effect in the geostatistical literature. For linear predictors, when observations are on a regular grid, this work proves that there generally is a screening effect as the grid becomes increasingly dense. This result requires that, at high frequencies, the spectral density of the random field not decay faster than algebraically and not vary too quickly. Examples demonstrate that there may be no screening effect if these conditions on the spectral density are violated.


H2 antagonists are a common class of medications used to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease. They can cross the blood-brain barrier and can affect the central nervous system. Studies have reported that the intake of H2 antagonists may lead to mental confusion, delirium, hallucinations, sleep disturbances, and depression. Using a national database, we examined the cross-sectional association between suicidal ideation and H2 antagonists. Data were obtained from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2005-2018, in which Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) scores were used to classify participants who had depression and suicidal ideation. The study population consisted of 13,533 adult Americans with PHQ-9 information, H2 antagonist use, and all other covariates. The results showed significant associations between the use of H2 antagonists and depression (P < 0.001) or suicidal ideation (P < 0.001). The covariates of education, race, marital status, poverty income rate, smoking, and a number of comorbidities were also statically significant with both depression and suicidal ideation. A multiple logistic regression model adjusted for these covariates showed that H2 antagonist users had a 2.94 (95% CI: 2.01–4.32) higher risk of suicidal ideation than non-users. This association was strongest among participants aged 50–59 years. This study shows that suicidal ideation and depression may be caused by several factors, and H2 antagonist use may be one of them. Further studies should be conducted to increase knowledge about the psychiatric effects of taking H2 antagonists, especially in long-term treatment.


It is critical for school nurses to promote and educate others on what they do. Data can help shape the message into understandable language across education and health. While Part 1 of this article discusses NASN's progress on identifying a standardized dataset for school health services, Part 2 focuses on the analysis and sharing of data at the local level. Examples of how to use the data to improve practice and create change are included. Guidance is provided in creating and sharing data as part of an annual report as a final step in advocating for school health services commensurate with student health needs. As the work on an evidence-based uniform dataset continues at the national level, what should be the response at the local level? Do we wait, or do we continue to collect certain data? The purpose of Part 2 of this article is to describe how data being collected locally illustrate health trends, benchmarking, and school nursing outcomes and can be compiled and shared in an annual report.


While security is generally perceived as an important constituent of communication systems, this paper offers a viable security-communication trade-off particularly tailored to smart grids. These systems, often composed of embedded nodes with highly constrained resources, require, e.g., metering data to be delivered efficiently while neither jeopardizing communication nor security. Data aggregation is a natural choice in such settings, where an additional challenge is to facilitate per-hop and end-to-end security as well as a mechanism to protect the valid nodes from exhaustion threats. The prime contribution of this paper is to include into the security design framework issues related to aggregation, wireless fading and shadowing channels, physical layer parameters (such as choice of modulation, packet length, channel coder), medium access control parameters (such as average number of transmissions), routing parameters (such as choice of route). Relying on analysis and corroborating simulations, unprecedented design guidelines are derived which determine the operational point beyond which aggregation is useful as well quantifying the superiority of our protocol enriched with a protection mechanism against nonintended packets (malicious or nonmalicious) w.r.t. nonaggregated and/or unsecured solutions.


A central part of the Christian doctrine of the incarnation is that the Son of God 'becomes' incarnate. Furthermore, according to classical theism, God is timeless: He exists 'outside' of time, and His life has no temporal stages. A consequence of this 'atemporalist' view is that a timeless being cannot undergo intrinsic change—for this requires the being to be one way at one time, and a different way at a later time. How, then, can we understand the central Christian claim that the Son of God 'becomes' human? This paper examines one such explanation, drawn from a brief remark by Brian Leftow: the Word takes on flesh by exhibiting modal variation with regards to the incarnation. On this account, a timeless God 'becomes' incarnate simply due to variation across logical space: at some possible worlds He is incarnate and at others He is not. Modal variation need not, therefore, require temporality: it only requires variation across (static) possible worlds. I draw out the problems with Leftow's modal claim under the heads of Ersatzism and Genuine Modal Realism about possible worlds, respectively. I argue that in both instances, Leftow's desired cross–worldly variation of the Son's incarnation cannot be achieved.


Objective: Novel Interventions in Children's Healthcare (NICH) is a community-based, family-focused intervention for youth with T1D and is associated with improved glycemic control and lower rates of acute care utilization. This study examines whether NICH is associated with changes in preventative outpatient attendance, with specific attention to the role of social determinants of health (SDoH) as potential moderators. Methods: Youth in NICH with T1D were included if they had SDoH and electronic health record (EHR) data available (n=52). Retrospective EHR review included outpatient attendance (endocrinology, primary care) for the years prior to and following NICH initiation and social risk endorsement (e.g., food and housing security). Youth mean age was 14.5 years; 59% were female; and 77% were non-Hispanic Caucasian. Results: More than half of NICH families (52%) endorsed food insecurity, with 49% and 40% reporting housing insecurity and unreliable transportation, respectively. Prior to NICH services, minority youth and those experiencing food insecurity attended significantly fewer preventative outpatient appointments (p Conclusions: This is the first study to examine the impact of NICH on preventative care access. There were no significant differences in total number of appointments attended while in NICH, which is unsurprising given that families are already attending additional weekly home sessions during program participation. However, minority youth seem to particularly benefit from NICH services, demonstrating more equitable access to preventative outpatient care during program involvement. Disclosure A. Cantu: None. D.V. Wagner: None. C. Jenisch: None. H. Luzod: None. H. Gottfried-Lee: None. M.A. Harris: None. Funding JDRF; The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust


We present a new approach to 3D object representation where a neural network encodes the geometry of an object directly into the weights and biases of a second 'mapping' network. This mapping network can be used to reconstruct an object by applying its encoded transformation to points randomly sampled from a simple geometric space, such as the unit sphere. We study the effectiveness of our method through various experiments on subsets of the ShapeNet dataset. We find that the proposed approach can reconstruct encoded objects with accuracy equal to or exceeding state-of-the-art methods with orders of magnitude fewer parameters. Our smallest mapping network has only about 7000 parameters and shows reconstruction quality on par with state-of-the-art object decoder architectures with millions of parameters. Further experiments on feature mixing through the composition of learned functions show that the encoding captures a meaningful subspace of objects.


This study investigates three-dimensional (3-D) microporous materials as carrier systems for vanadium species for the oxidation of propene, also examining the effect of copper as a co-cation.Various 3-D systems have been studied to assess the effect of different pore characteristics and acidity on speciation and activity for the aforementioned reaction. The microporous materials used in this study were the acidic zeolites ZSM-5 and Y and neutral zeotype AlPO-5.High surface area 3-D matrix systems with shape selective properties promotes high loadings while still offering excellent speciation control. Shape selectivity played a role in zeolite Y which imposed growth limitations to the VOx species trapped inside the supercage. However the VOx species on ZSM-5 were not restricted inside the pores and sintered on the external surface.From activity studies the less acidic ZSM-5 (Si/Al=140) showed a superior selectivity towards acrolein compared to the more acidic ZSM-5 (Si/Al=15) and Y (Si/Al=15). However, the neutral AlPO-5 containing both vanadium and copper proved to be the most promising catalyst in this study.In situ X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) is an invaluable tool for studying transition metal speciation under reaction conditions, and combined with in-house catalytic measurements, the activity can be correlated with oxidation state and local environment. From in situ XAS increased reducibility was observed in the co-cationic samples of VCu:AlPO-5 and VCu:ZSM-5 (Si/Al=140). The Cu(II)/Cu(I) redox pair initiated reduction of vanadium, while vanadium stimulated reduction of Cu(I) to metallic state in propene at 450◦C. This hyper-reduction of both metals was not observed in the monometallic analogues. In addition the size of the metallic copper clusters obtained from EXAFS suggests a fraction of the particles are small enough for the pore aperture of AlPO-5, whereas the clusters reside on the external surface of ZSM-5.To study the effect of different feed compositions, various propene (C3H6) and oxygen (O2) ratios were investigated with in situ XAS and reactivity studies, of vanadium and copper containing AlPO-5 and ZSM-5. The yield of acrolein reached a maximum with flow ratio C3H6/O2= 0.5, under these conditions copper is present as a Cu(I)/Cu(II) fraction and vanadium existed as V(IV)/V(III) fraction in VCu:AlPO-5, while VCu:ZSM- 5 consisted of Cu(I) and V(IV)/V(III) fraction. Thus the activity is strongly affected by the oxidation state of the cations and also the nature of the support, as neutral carriers are favoured.EXAFS refinements revealed a Cu/V mixing suggesting copper and vanadium are indirectly bonded via bridging oxygen (Cu-O-V) in the neutral AlPO-5 not present in ZSM-5. In addition, VCu:AlPO-5 was the only catalyst producing acrolein in oxygen deficient feed. Based on these findings it was suggested that AlPO-5 containing vanadium and copper undergoes a Mars-van-Krevelen mechanism, and the bridging oxygen partakes in the insertion step.This work contributes insight into new promising catalyst systems for selective oxidation of propene. These materials display a range of different properties when 3-D carriers containing vanadium and copper are utilised. In addition this project gives in situ proof to speciation and synergism of copper and vanadium, not previously reported.


This paper proposes a new coordinated voltage control scheme to ensure voltage security of power systems. The scheme schedules reactive power injection from VAR sources, including synchronous generators and condensers, capacitor banks, switchable reactors and FACTS devices, to ensure desired loading margin of power systems for a given horizon of time. The problem is treated as voltage security constrained multi-period optimal reactive power flow (VSC-MPORPF). To incorporate scheduling of both continuous and discrete VAR sources, the VSC-MPORPF is formulated as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem, and is solved using generalized Benders decomposition (GBD). Multi-period formulation ensures both optimal switching pattern of discrete voltage controllers and voltage security for a given future horizon. Also, to make the proposed method applicable for large-scale power systems, optimality condition decomposition approach is utilized, along with the GBD. The proposed methodology is examined through case studies conducted on a simple 6-bus, the IEEE 118-bus, and a 1180-bus test systems. The results demonstrate effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed framework in real-time operation of power systems.


Objective. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of psychological distress and associated factors among outpatients in an urban hospital in South Africa. Method. A sample of 1 532 consecutively selected patients (56.4% men and 43.6% women) from various hospital outpatient departments were interviewed with a structured questionnaire. Results. Based on assessment with the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale, a measure of psychological distress, 17.1% of the patients (15.5% of men and 19.4% of women) had severe psychological distress. Logistic multiple regression identified no income, poor health status, migraine headache and tuberculosis as significant factors associated with severe psychological stress for men. For women the factors identified were lower education, no income, having been diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease, stomach ulcer and migraine headache. Conclusion. The study found a high prevalence of psychological distress among hospital outpatients in South Africa. Brief psychological therapies for adult patients with anxiety, depression or mixed common mental health problems treated in hospital outpatient departments are indicated. Accurate diagnosis of co-morbid depressive and anxiety disorders in patients with chronic medical illness is essential in understanding the cause and optimising the management of somatic symptom burden.


Multitasking improves processor utilization by allowing computation for one task to be overlapped with long latency operations involving other tasks. This requires substantial overhead to manage processes and interprocess communication, and reduces processor utilization. The paper presents a register sharing technique that supports efficient instruction stream interleaving of interacting tasks. This flexibility permits greater utilization of resources, allowing for more resident processes, and provides efficient interprocess communications in multitasking environments. Theoretical analysis and experiments using multitasking and distributed operating systems show that shared register multistreaming can sustain near optimal processor utilization for a variety of workloads.<<ETX>>


As complexity of wells, environmental regulations and the need to be as economically efficient as possible in the petroleum industry increases, it is more prevalent than ever to ensure and maintain wellbore integrity. The purpose of the cement sheath is to maintain wellbore integrity by providing total isolation between surrounding formations and the wellbore. One factor opposing the purpose of a cement sheath is hydrocarbon migration through a micro-annulus located at either the cement/casing interface or the cement/formation interface. Hydrocarbon migration hazards can be as minor as a few psi increase at surface to total blowout which in turn can be timely to repair, if possible, and create unwanted environmental concerns which ultimately effect economic returns. This study focuses on the use of a wellbore cement additive: Gilsonite as a potential agent in the mitigation of micro-annular flow through its unique affinity to hydrocarbons. Gilsonite's affinity and potential to absorb hydrocarbons in the cement matrix is analyzed thoroughly through microstructural analysis of hydrocarbon interaction with Gilsonite grains. The goal of this project is to provide a proof of concept for further microstructural analysis of Gilsonite's ability to mitigate microannular flow. To accomplish this, experimentation was broken into two sperate phases. Phase 1 consists of experimentation on pure Gilsonite to gauge if there was an affinity between Gilsonite and hydrocarbons, while Phase 2 consists of experimentation on Gilsonite rich cement.


Lifted maximum rank distance (MRD) codes, which are constant dimension codes, are considered. It is shown that a lifted MRD code can be represented in such a way that it forms a block design known as a transversal design. A slightly different representation of this design makes it similar to a q -analog of a transversal design. The structure of these designs is used to obtain upper bounds on the sizes of constant dimension codes which contain a lifted MRD code. Codes that attain these bounds are constructed. These codes are the largest known constant dimension codes for the given parameters. These transversal designs can also be used to derive a new family of linear codes in the Hamming space. Bounds on the minimum distance and the dimension of such codes are given.


Interspecific competition is an important process structuring ecological communities, however, it is difficult to observe in nature. We used an occupancy modelling approach to evaluate evidence of competition between yellow-billed (Gavia adamsii) and Pacific (G. pacifica) loons for nesting lakes on the Arctic Coastal Plain of Alaska. With multiple years of data and survey platforms, we estimated dynamic occupancy states (e.g. rates of colonization or extinction from individual lakes) and controlled for detection differences among aircraft platforms and ground survey crews. Results indicated that yellow-billed loons were strong competitors and negatively influenced the occupancy of Pacific loons by excluding them from potential breeding lakes. Pacific loon occupancy was conditional on the presence of yellowbilled loons, with Pacific loons having almost a tenfold decrease in occupancy probability when yellow-billed loons were present and a threefold decrease in colonization probability when yellow-billed loons were present in the current or previous year. Yellow-billed and Pacific loons co-occurred less than expected by chance except on very large lakes or lakes with convoluted shorelines; variables which may decrease the cost of maintaining a territory in the presence of the other species. These results imply the existence of interspecific competition between yellow-billed and Pacific loons for nesting lakes; however, habitat characteristics which facilitate visual and spatial separation of territories can reduce competitive interactions and promote species co-occurrence.


This chapter provides the Latin text and a literal translation into English of the section on prayers for beauty and a detailed critical appreciation of those lines, paying particular attention to poetic aspects such as sound, style, rhythm, diction, imagery, vividness and narrative technique, and also assessing humour, wit, irony and the force and validity of the satirical thrusts. Questions of text are considered as well, where they are of substantial importance. In this section Juvenal asks some very relevant questions (e.g. is beauty so desirable; is it worth going to great lengths to secure it; does it necessarily make you happy?). His main thrust is that this prayer is harmful, because beauty entails various serious dangers (such as rape, castration, moral corruption and death), but this basic premise is patently flawed. Messalina is cited as an example in a vivid narrative.


Federal policies have made great progress protecting the environment. But the policies sometimes have imposed inordinate costs on local governments. Managing Green Mandates describes how various federal environmental directives do not suit diverse conditions at the local level, and compel local communities to spend their revenues on reducing relatively minor risks to the public health. While policymakers have thrown far-reaching requirements at the feet of local authorities, the federal government is providing them less aid to comply with the increasingly stringent standards. The burden of these underfunded mandates can further disadvantage many overtaxed municipalities. Pietro Nivola is a senior fellow in the Governmental Studies program at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of The Laws of the Landscape: How Politics Shape Cities in Europe and America (Brookings 1999). Jon Shields is a graduate student in the Department of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia.


This paper describes the endogenous growth version of the QUEST III model and uses it to analyse the macroeconomic impact of various structural reform measures. This paper describes a micro-founded DSGE model with endogenous growth that is used to analyse the macroeconomic impact of structural reforms in Europe. The new QUEST III model is a useful tool for analysing the costs and benefits of reforms in terms of concrete and quantifiable policy measures, in particular fiscal policy instruments such as taxes, benefits, subsidies and education expenditures, administrative costs faced by firms and regulatory indices. Our results confirm the beneficial effects on output and employment of skill-biased tax reforms, measures that improve the skill composition of the labour force, R&D subsidies, raising competition in final goods market, increased financial market integration and measures that remove entry barriers in certain markets. The model also allows us to examine the adjustment path and the time lags involved before these benefits can be reaped.


What is the potential for claims based on the right to culture to ameliorate the conditions of indigenous peoples? In what ways does a right-to-culture strategy limit the potential of indigenous economic development? Karen Engle tackles these questions in her study, The Elusive Promise of Indigenous Development: Rights, Culture, Strategy. Engle's study is impressive and engaging in its questioning of the ways in which advocacy strategies impact economic development. This critical review, however, argues that Engle too readily dismisses self-determination, conceived as a human right rather than a right associated with political power, as a viable alternative to the right to culture. It also critiques Engle's argument that universal human rights are both imposed by the West and threatening to the cultural integrity of indigenous groups, arguing that universalism is capable of accommodating more difference than she gives it credit for. Finally, this review argues that Engle's book would benefit from a deeper probing of the parameters of indigenous difference and how the situation of indigenous peoples gives rise to rights distinct from other marginalised minorities.


OBJECTIVES
To assess the effect of the position of the SS on CI regarding the ability to perform posterior tympanotomy, round window visibility, and mastoid pneumatization.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
This is a prospective study, including 65 adult patients with CI performed at our center during 2017. We used 3 methods to assess SS position using a computed tomography (CT) scan. Lee's line passing through the tympanic segment of the facial nerve. Park's line passing through the facial nerve and round window membrane. Our proposed method using a parallel line from the external auditory canal and passing through the facial nerve. Relation to mastoid pneumatization on CT and to intraoperative round window visibility were assessed in relation to intraoperative position of the SS.

RESULTS
The method by Park et al. was statistically significant (p<0.001); however, a cutoff point could not be set. Lee's method was statistically insignificant (p=0.091). Our proposed method was statistically significant with a cutoff point at ≤2.46 mm (p=0.001). SS position did not affect pneumatization nor round window visibility.

CONCLUSION
The position of SS preoperatively using a CT might suggest the inability to perform posterior tympanotomy and the need to change side or approach. However, it does not affect neither mastoid pneumatization nor visibility of the round window niche through the facial recess.


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Traditional arts and professions are the carriers of our culture because they carry historical background. For this reason, traditional arts and professions and cultural heritage are easily transferred to future generations. While knife was a tool that facilitated human life in the early periods, it turned into an art in time. The art of knife and the techniques and methods used in this art have been used for many years in history. Today, there are many artists who want to prevent the art of knife from turning into a craft. They intend to take this art to an even more advanced level. In this study, we interviewed three artists as samples who dealt with knifemaking by addressing the art of knife in Düzce. Interviews and works with the artists are visualized in this work. Thus, what has been done about the art of knife in Düzce, which methods and techniques are applied have been revealed. Along with the previous methods applied to this art, traditional Turkish arts such as marbling, illumination and miniature were used as a surface decoration technique in the art of knife which is a branch of Turkish metal arts. The aim of the study is to show the path that knife art has taken from its historical background to the present day and to show the feasibility of new methods in this field and thus to indicate that knife art is open to development. It is believed that this work, in which interviews and images obtained are evaluated using a descriptive analysis, will contribute to literature related to traditional art and the art of knife. Keywords: Knife art, jewelry, metal art, cultural heritage, traditional art