Gelatin hydrogels cross-linked by γ-ray irradiation using 60Co as γ-ray source were prepared. As a model of controlled release of low-molecular-weight compounds, absorption and release of methylene blue, a water-soluble cationic dye, was investigated. Irradiated gelatin hydrogels did not redissolve at temperatures over 40°C, while unirradiated gels were thermoplastic and reversibly changed the stage between gel and sol. Measurement of both the wet weight after swelling in distilled water and dry weight after freeze-drying showed that the higher-dose irradiation gave stiffer and more compact gels with the lower specific water content, irrespective of the absorbed dose rate. The time-course of absorption and release of methylene blue in aqueous solution was measured. Since absorption of dye into gelatin gels was much affected by liquid phase pH, amount of absorption was higher in pH above an IEP of gelatins. Moreover, the absorption and release of methylene blue with Type-B gelatin were higher than with Type-A gelatin, respectively. Therefore, absorption and release of the dye depend on the electrostatic interaction between the dye molecule and gelatin.


: The non-selective muscarinic antagonist ipratropium is widely used as bronchodilator. Due to its pharmacokinetic properties this drug, after inhalation, acts only locally on the airways and no unwanted anticholinergic side-effects are observed. Another approach is the use of selective muscarinic antagonists. Based on their selectivity for M3- and/or M1-receptors such drugs might show bronchospasmolytic properties without the occurrence of typical atropine-like side effects even after systemic administration. Pharmacological data of the in vivo bronchoselectivity of pirenzepine (M1-selective) and AQ-RA 721 (high affinity for M1- and M3-receptors) is presented and the use of these drugs as bronchodilators is discussed.


Background The study was conducted to investigate the effects of metformin treatment on the human gut microbiome's taxonomic and functional profile in the Latvian population, and to evaluate the correlation of these changes with therapeutic efficacy and tolerance. Methods In this longitudinal observational study, stool samples for shotgun metagenomic sequencing-based analysis were collected in two cohorts. The first cohort included 35 healthy nondiabetic individuals (metformin dose 2x850mg/day) at three time-points during metformin administration. The second cohort was composed of 50 newly-diagnosed type 2 diabetes patients (metformin dose–determined by an endocrinologist) at two concordant times. Patients were defined as Responders if their HbA1c levels during three months of metformin therapy had decreased by ≥12.6 mmol/mol (1%), while in Non-responders HbA1c were decreased by <12.6 mmol/mol (1%). Results Metformin reduced the alpha diversity of microbiota in healthy controls (p = 0.02) but not in T2D patients. At the species level, reduction in the abundance of Clostridium bartlettii and Barnesiella intestinihominis, as well as an increase in the abundance of Parabacteroides distasonis and Oscillibacter unclassified overlapped between both study groups. A large number of group-specific changes in taxonomic and functional profiles was observed. We identified an increased abundance of Prevotella copri (FDR = 0.01) in the Non-Responders subgroup, and enrichment of Enterococcus faecium, Lactococcus lactis, Odoribacter, and Dialister at baseline in the Responders group. Various taxonomic units were associated with the observed incidence of side effects in both cohorts. Conclusions Metformin effects are different in T2D patients and healthy individuals. Therapy induced changes in the composition of gut microbiome revealed possible mediators of observed short-term therapeutic effects. The baseline composition of the gut microbiome may influence metformin therapy efficacy and tolerance in T2D patients and could be used as a powerful prediction tool.


Recently, OASIS approved two standards respectively for Web Service composition and for Web Service transactions. Nevertheless, it is still unclear how WS-BPEL and the WS-TX family of specifications interoperate, i.e., how to use atomic transactions and business activities in the context of BPEL processes. In this paper, we present several transactional requirements in BPEL processes and argue that BPEL's compensation mechanism provides only limited support for a few of these requirements, e.g., it cannot cope with atomic transactions with the ACID properties. To support transactional BPEL processes, we use the AO4BPEL process container framework. In this framework, the transaction requirements of the process activities are specified declaratively in a deployment descriptor and an aspectbased container is generated automatically to integrate the process execution with the transaction middleware, which is provided as a transaction Web Service based on Apache Kandula.


The electrical activity of neurons triggered by a stimulus is characterized by a large component of noise. In his Perspective, Ferster discusses new results which reveal that, in the cortex of the brain, noise is not just noise at all, but contains information reflecting the activity in other parts of the brain. Optical imaging of cortical neurons by Arieli et al., reported in this week's issue (p. 1868), provides this new conclusion about neural noise.


Aims: The objectives of this study were to compare the wounds healing between two different surgical procedures and to evaluate the efficiency of the diode laser on wound healing after intra-oral incision. Materials and Methods: Experimental study were done on 16 New Zealand rabbits. Two types of wound incision were made in buccal mucosa of each group, each incision was made by using stainless steel scalpel blade NO.15 and other was made by Epic X diode laser. Two rabbits sacrificed of each group at 1 st ,3 rd ,7 th and 14 th days after procedures. Results: The histological findings of this study revealed that there was a significant difference for inflammatory cell infiltration in 1 st ,3 rd , 7 th days in two groups, while there was no significant difference at 14 th days period. Granulation tissue formation appeared higher in diode group , while scalpel showed less amount of granulation tissue formation . In re-epithelialization of present study at 1 st day all section showed nil scores, re-epithelization of oral mucosa appeared significant difference after three days ,and significant difference also at 7 th day between diode and scalpel , no significance differences at 14 days in two groups. Conclusions: Diode laser has many advantages for use particularly in oral surgery , due to a better hemostatic ability, but more tissue damage occurs and more inflammatory cell infiltration in site of incision if compared with group that used of surgical scalpel blade.


Objective:We sought to determine whether assessing D-Dimer might be helpful for the management of acute aortic dissection (AAD). Design:Single-center retrospective case-control study. Setting:University Hospital of Strasbourg France. Patients:Patients were 94 consecutive patients admitted to our institution with confirmed AAD and in whom D-Dimer test had been performed at presentation. These patients were matched with 94 controls presenting with clinical suspicion of dissection, which was later ruled out. Interventions:Patient characteristics and clinical course were analyzed. Measurements and Main Results:Ninety-three (99%) patients with AAD had elevated D-Dimer (>400 ng/mL) with a median D-Dimer value of 8610 ng/mL (interquartile range, 2982–20,000 ng/mL). Receiver operating characteristic curves analysis showed that D-Dimer, but not C-reactive protein, troponin, lactate dehydrogenase, or leukocyte count, was predictive of a diagnosis of AAD, with a sensitivity and specificity of 99% and 34%, respectively. D-Dimer concentration positively correlated with the anatomical extension of the dissection to the different segments of the aorta (R = .47, p < .0001). A positive relationship was observed between D-Dimer and in-hospital mortality rate among patients with AAD (p = .037). On multivariate analysis, the independent predictors of in-hospital mortality were the presence of pericardial effusion (odds ratio, 6.80; confidence interval, 1.87–27.60), D-Dimer >5200 ng/mL (odds ratio, 5.38; confidence interval, 1.27–30.87), and female gender (odds ratio, 4.96; confidence interval, 1.39–19.95). Conclusions:D-Dimers are elevated in patients with AAD and provide valuable diagnostic and prognostic information. In patients with acute chest pain and elevated D-Dimer, a diagnosis of AAD should also be considered. D-Dimer might be a useful complementary tool to the current diagnostic work-up of patients with suspected AAD.


Purpose Using both quantitative and qualitative research methods, this article explores in detail the lens wear and care habits of adapted contact lens wearers and seeks a better understanding of what enables and constrains patient compliance with appropriate lens wear and lens care. Methods The study was conducted in two phases: a preliminary online questionnaire (quantitative phase), identifying types of noncompliance, and a series of sequentially conducted focus groups (qualitative phase), exploring constraints to, and enablers of, compliance. Results One hundred participants completed the online questionnaire; 12 of them also participated in one of four focus groups. The most frequently reported aspects of noncompliance revealed were failure to replace lenses when scheduled, inappropriate lens purchase and supply, sleeping while wearing lenses, use of tap water with lenses and failure to wash hands, failure to clean and replace cases regularly, and inappropriate use of care systems. Using an iterative process, a number of "themes" associated with noncompliance were identified in the focus group discussions. The most frequently occurring themes related to the consequences that may occur if patients were noncompliant with one or more aspects of their contact lens wear and the importance of receiving instructions regarding the most appropriate way to wear and care for their lenses. Most of the themes that emerged during the analysis were both constraints to, and enablers of, compliance. Conclusions This study confirms the frequent types of noncompliance with contact lens wear and care while offering a greater understanding of what may constrain and enables contact lens wear and care compliance. Future qualitative studies may help eye care practitioners and the contact lens industry to develop strategies and tools to aid compliance and success in contact lens wear.


X-Ray Transient in Musca (GRS 1121-68 = GS 1124-683) Research Institute, Lyngby; and Space Research Institute, Moscow), report: "A new x-ray source in Musca, GRS 1121-68, has been discovered in data obtained by the WATCH detectors on Jan. 9. The spectrum of the source was harder than that of the Crab nebula, and the flux was about twice that from the Crab and increasing slowly during the observation. The source remained at a constant intensity level on Jan. 10. On Jan. 5 this source was not bright enough to be detectable by WATCH. The preliminary position is R.A. = 11h21m, Decl. = -68.1 deg (equinox 1950.0; uncertainty about 1 deg). We have not found any catalogued hard x-ray sources within our error circle; however, close to the given position, we have noted the existence of a radio pulsar (at R.A. = 11h10m, Decl. = -69 deg) with a period of 0.8 s, and a gamma-ray burst source, GRB 820829B, detected by Venera 13/14 in 1982. We have not detected any strong pulsations from the new source, but the time resolution of the available data does not allow a search for pulsations with periods shorter than about 20 s." F. Makino and the Ginga Team, Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, telex: "A bright transient x-ray source, designated GS 1124-683, was discovered with the All Sky X-ray Monitor (ASM) aboard Ginga on Jan. 8. The position determined by combining the ASM position with the line position obtained by scanning with the Large Area Proportional Counters (LAC) is R.A. = 11h24m.6, Decl. = -68 18' (equinox 1950.0). The corners of the error box are 11h23m.9, -68 08'; 11h23m.7, -68 20'; 11h25m.4, -68 37'; and 11h25m.6, -68 16'. The x-ray flux was about 0.8 Crab on Jan. 8.8 UT and 2.2 Crab on Jan. 11.04, observed with the ASM and LAC, respectively. The spectrum was of power-law type with index of about -2.3. No pulsation was observed in the period range 0.12-30 s. Optical observation is urged." R. H. McNaught, University of Adelaide, reports that A. Jones, Nelson, N.Z., found nothing to mag about 10 in a visual search of the region on Jan. 11.4 UT. R. M. West, European Southern Observatory, reports that a 10-min GPO astrograph plate was taken as La Silla, showing no new object in the 2 x 2 deg field brighter than mag 7-8; a search plate will be taken with the Schmidt telescope at La Silla.


Learning robot objective functions from human input has become increasingly important, but state-of-the-art techniques assume that the human's desired objective lies within the robot's hypothesis space. When this is not true, even methods that keep track of uncertainty over the objective fail because they reason about which hypothesis might be correct, and not whether any of the hypotheses are correct. We focus specifically on learning from physical human corrections during the robot's task execution, where not having a rich enough hypothesis space leads to the robot updating its objective in ways that the person did not actually intend. We observe that such corrections appear irrelevant to the robot, because they are not the best way of achieving any of the candidate objectives. Instead of naively trusting and learning from every human interaction, we propose robots learn conservatively by reasoning in real time about how relevant the human's correction is for the robot's hypothesis space. We test our inference method in an experiment with human interaction data, and demonstrate that this alleviates unintended learning in an in-person user study with a 7DoF robot manipulator.


This paper reports an ethnographic study of work practices in the IMF, and IMF mission activity in particular. It will show how this work combines arithmetic, econometric and meeting skills with the adroit management of social processes that transform 'incomplete' or 'ambiguous numbers' into socially validated and hence 'objective for practical purposes' data. These data form the basis of epistemic certainty in the analytical work undertaken, and though this certainty is socially framed, it is treated as sufficient for substantive, robust and 'real world' macroeconomic policy making.


Charles Severance visits the Living Computer Museum in Seattle, Washington, to get back to his programming roots. The Web extra at https://youtu.be/ZHU4nzIsaIM goes behind the scenes of the author's recent visit to the Living Computer Museum. In the second Web extra at https://youtu.be/lnlL7cEJqtY, author Charles Severance provides an audio recording of his Computing Conversations column.


Introduction County Donegal has traditionally been isolated as a result of its geographical remoteness from 24/7 Primary Percutaneous Intervention (PPCI) enabled centres in the Republic of Ireland. The National Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) programme is designed to increase access to PPCI for patients with ST Elevation Myocardial Infarction (STEMI). A cross-border initiative between the SAOLTA Hospitals, HSE, Republic of Ireland and the Western Health and Social Care Trust in Northern Ireland commenced on 5th May 2016 to provide PPCI for Donegal. We sought to evaluate the initial effectiveness of this unique Cross border PPCI pathway. Methods ECG's from Donegal patients suspected of having a STEMI were transmitted from the National Ambulance Service (NAS) or Letterkenny University Hospital (LUH) ER to Altnagelvin Hospital PPCI service. All data were recorded for continuous audit purposes to assess performance indicators, ECG interpretation and the number of referrals made to the PPCI activator in Altnagelvin. All patients who had an ECG transmitted to Altnagelvin PPCI centre from May 2016 to March 2017 were included. Results 139 patients were referred with a suspected STEMI to the Cross Border PPCI pathway with 88/139 patients (63%) referred from the National Ambulance Service (NAS); the rest referred from LUH ER. 95/139 (68%) patients were turned down. Only 44/139 patients were accepted for PPCI with a false activation rate of 32%. Only 30/139 patients actually had a final diagnosis of STEMI. The mean time from STEMI diagnosis on ECG to reestablishing flow in the culprit artery was 117.8 minutes within guidelines. No complications occurred during transfer and 89% were repatriated within 24 hrs. All 95 patients that were turned down were deemed appropriate with only 10/95 (10.5%) actually requiring PCI prior to discharge. Conclusion Initial audit of this unique Cross Border PPCI pathway suggests that it is working effectively. The high referral rate and high rate of turn-downs suggest that diagnostic accuracy of ECG interpretation may need to be evaluated. The high rate of false activations is notable and also requires further investigation. The early success of this unique Cross border service is very encouraging when considering the geographical remoteness of Donegal. Work will continue to further improve this vital service for the people of Donegal.


Effusion cooling represents the state-of-the-art for liner cooling technology in modern combustion chambers, combining a more uniform film protection of the wall and a significant heat sink effect by forced convection through a huge number of small holes. From a numerical point of view, a high computational cost is required in a conjugate CFD analysis of an entire combustor for a proper discretization of effusion holes in order to obtain accurate results in terms of liner temperature and effectiveness distributions. Consequently, simplified CFD approaches to model the various phenomena associated are required, especially during the design process.
 For this purpose, 2D boundary sources models are attractive, replacing the effusion hole with an inlet (hot side) and an outlet (cold side) patches to consider the related coolant injection. However, proper velocity profiles at the inlet patch together with the correct mass flow rate is mandatory to accurately predict the interaction and the mixing between coolant air and hot gases as well as temperature and effectiveness distributions on the liners. In this sense, reduced-order models techniques from the Machine Learning framework can be employed to derive a Surrogate Model (SM) for the prediction of these velocity profiles with a reduced computational cost, starting from a limited number of CFD simulations of a single effusion hole at different operating conditions.
 In this work, an application of these approaches will be presented to model the effusion system of a non-reactive single-sector linear combustor simulator equipped with a swirler and a multi-perforated plate, combining ANSYS Fluent with a MATLAB code. The employed Surrogate Model has been constructed on a training set of CFD simulations of the single effusion hole with operating conditions sampled in the model parameter space and subsequently assessed on a different validation set.


A power factor correction (PFC) based Synchronous buckboost converter fed brushless DC motor drive and an economic solution for low power applications is presented in this paper. A voltage source inverter which comprises low switching losses is fed from the dc link voltage is used to control the speed of BLDC motor. The dc link voltage is controlled by a synchronous buck boost converter which receives power from a diode bridge rectifier unit. Analysis of PFC synchronous buckboost converter is made and its performance was assessed under continuous and discontinuous modes of operation. A BLDC motor is well known for its low maintenance, good efficiency and higher price. So reducing the cost of the BLDC motor has become essential. Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) technique has been broadly used to control power converter circuits. The results reveals that the harmonics in the output voltage and current has been reduced compare to buck boost converter.


Human alpha-1-antitrypsin (A1AT), a native serine-protease inhibitor which protects tissue damages from excessive protease activities, is used as an augmentation therapy to treat A1AT-deficienct patients. However, A1AT is sensitive to oxidation-mediated deactivation and has a short circulating half-life. Currently, there is no method that can effectively protect therapeutic proteins from oxidative damage in vivo . Here we developed a novel biocompatible selenopolypeptide and site-specifically conjugated it with A1AT. The conjugated A1AT fully retained its inhibitory activity on neutrophil elastase, enhanced oxidation resistance, extended the serum half-life, and afforded long-lasting protective efficacy in a mouse model of acute lung injury. These results demonstrated that conjugating A1AT with the designed selenopolymer is a viable strategy to improve its pharmacological properties, which could potentially further be applied to a variety of oxidation sensitive biotherapeutics.


Formulaic expressions often carry a strong sense of social contract and perform specific pragmatic purposes (Bardovi-Harlig, 2012) and therefore play a crucial role in developing L2 pragmatic competence. The present study investigated whether and how the explicit instruction of refusal and thanking formulaic expressions can foster acquisition and retention of these expressions and help L2 learners in developing their pragmatic competence and overcoming challenges they face while performing these speech acts. The results imply that explicit instruction of such expressions and semantic formulas can increase learners' understanding of the complex phenomenon of formulaicity and help their spoken language become more pragmatically appropriate, more grammatically accurate, more fluent, concise and confident. Explicit instruction also helps L2 learners to overcome the challenges they may face while performing refusal and thanking speech acts.


Utilization of wireless sensor network technology can improve the anticipation of the occurrence of fire hazards in the smart home; this is done by replacing the human task in monitoring the situation around the home by using multiple sensors which can directly interact with the environment. The goal of this paper is building the early fire detection systems on smart home-based wireless sensor network monitoring. Sensors are used to detect the level of fire danger include temperature sensors, humidity, carbon monoxide, and smoke. The system use fuzzy logic inference systems to process the data from the four sensors in order to improve the reliability and accuracy of the information provided for the system that will give warning to users. Based on the results obtained, the system has been able to give an alarm warning to users appropriately. The proposed system also implement sleep scheduling method in the system which can improve the delivery efficiency of data packets and can reduce battery resource usage.


For some years now the debate on the subject of Industry 4.0 has focused on technical improvements in job design expected to yield gains in productivity and profitability and on the whole question of the future of work performed by human beings. Industry 4.0 has become a catchword describing developments in automation and digitalization involving automated objects – products, machines and other industrial equipment, especially items used in the logistics sector. These objects belong to a so-called cyber-physical system (CPS). This


The Yixian Formation (the Lower Cretaceous) of China is world famous for its fossils of early angiosperms. Although these diverse angiosperms demonstrate an unexpectedly great diversity, few are preserved as whole plants (not mention of monocots), making our understanding of them incomplete. Here, we report a fossil angiosperm, Sinoherba ningchenensis gen. et sp. nov (Sinoherbaceae fam. nov.), from the Yixian Formation of China; this fossil has a physically connected underground stem with fibrous rootlets, a stem with branches and nodes, leaves with parallel-reticulate veins, and a panicle of female flowers with an ovary surrounded by perianth. Morphological and phylogenetic analyses revealed that Sinoherba is an herbaceous monocot taxon. This newly discovered fossil underscores the great diversity of angiosperms in the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation.


The old IEEE/ANSI flutter measurement standard did not predict subjective Butter; it also failed to specify several important characteristics of the meter. Comerci proposed a "flutter index" method but it was never adopted. Results of several workers were incorporated in 1962 in a German Standard (DIN) Weighted Peak Flutter measurement. The NAB flutter measurement of 1965 incorporates the frequency weighting of the DIN Standard, and the volume indicator of Comerci. CCIR adopted the DIN method in 1966. Experiments in the U.S.A. comparing the DIN and NAB methods showed the DIN method to be more satisfactory, and this method is incorporated in the new IEEE Standard 193-1971, based on an IEC draft. Circuits to achieve the desired time and frequency responses are given, as well as suppliers of commercial flutter meters and test records to the new standard.


Discovering sensitive and specific biomarkers for systemic oxidative damage is essential to better understand the role of oxidative stress in human disease. Once these roles are more clearly understood we are able to identify novel drug and nutraceutical targets. This volume goes beyond conventional analytical methods of measuring antioxidant activity overall and provides insight to the discovery of biomarkers that reveal information on specific areas of oxidative stress. Contributed by an international list of experts, the book, organized into 5 parts, describes both conventional biomarkers and recent developments in this area.


In the USA, botanical dietary supplements are presumed to be safe, but this is not necessarily always the case. Extracts of the evergreen tree yohimbe, Pausinystalia johimbe, though banned in many countries, are sold in hundreds of dietary supplements in the USA. We analyzed 49 brands of supplements labelled as containing yohimbe or yohimbine available for sale from seven major retailers in the USA. Supplements were analyzed using ultra high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to photodiode and quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry detectors for quantity of three alkaloids found in P. johimbe (yohimbine, rauwolscine, and corynanthine). The alkaloids were confirmed on the basis of retention time, ultraviolet spectra, and mass spectra against reference standards. The quantity of the most active alkaloid, yohimbine, per recommended serving ranged from none detected to 12.1 mg. Thirty-nine percent of the supplements (19/49) did not contain rauwolscine and corynanthine suggesting that the yohimbine was either from highly processed plant extract or synthetic in origin. Only 11 supplement brands (22%, 11/49) listed a specific quantity of yohimbine on the label. Most of these were inaccurately labelled (actual content ranged from 23% to 147% of the content on the label). Eighteen percent (9/49) of the supplements' labels did not provide any information about yohimbine's adverse effects. Of the 49 yohimbine supplement brands sold at seven major retail chains in the USA, only 4.1% (2/49) provided consumers with both accurate information about the quantity of yohimbine as well as information about yohimbine's known adverse effects. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Objective: Altered fetal cardiac function is reported in diabetic pregnancies (DM) with myocardial hypertrophy. Postnatally it regresses but the role of myocardial dysfunction in the aetiology of late stillbirth remains uncertain. Methods: We performed fetal echocardiography to assess morphology, including wall and septal measurements, functional assessment using Doppler inflow, outflow and myocardial velocities (DTI), and long axis amplitude (LAX) at the atrioventricular ring using M-mode, in 53 DM pregnancies and 78 controls (N). Results: Full datasets were obtained in 72/78 (92%) N and 50/53 (94%) DM pregnancies. Both showed significant gestational rises in Doppler flow velocities, DTI and LAX confirming maturation of fetal diastolic and systolic function. Although DM fetuses had increased free wall and septal thickness, septal function was ''supranormal'' compared to N with significantly higher values of DTI (early diastole, p = 0.03; late diastole p = 0.0005; systole p = 0.03) and left free wall and septal LAX (p = 0.01 & p = 0.04). Free wall LAX correlated with aortic (Ao) and pulmonary (PV) velocities (LAX L & Ao, r = 0.60, p = 0.00001 and LAX R & PV, r = 0.43, p = 0.002) and septal LAX with both Ao and PV velocities (LAX S & Ao, r = 0.46, p = 0.0008 and LAX S & PV, r = 0.49, p = 0.0003) confirming the close relationship of LAX with ventricular ejection. Increased late myocardial velocities in the left atrium (p = 0.01) in DM, possibly augment filling of the hypertrophied ventricle. Conclusions: DM fetuses show appropriate diastolic and systolic responses to myocardial hypertrophy without evidence of true cardiomyopathy. This study does not provide evidence for an aetiological role in stillbirth.


The forkhead transcription factor FOXP1 is involved in B-cell development and function and is generally regarded as an oncogene in activated B-cell-like subtype of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma, lymphomas relying on constitutive nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) activity for survival. However, the mechanism underlying its putative oncogenic activity has not been established. By gene expression microarray, upon overexpression or silencing of FOXP1 in primary human B cells and DLBCL cell lines, combined with chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by next-generation sequencing, we established that FOXP1 directly represses a set of 7 proapoptotic genes. Low expression of these genes, encoding the BH3-only proteins BIK and Harakiri, the p53-regulatory proteins TP63, RASSF6, and TP53INP1, and AIM2 and EAF2, is associated with poor survival in DLBCL patients. In line with these findings, we demonstrated that FOXP1 promotes the expansion of primary mature human B cells by inhibiting caspase-dependent apoptosis, without affecting B-cell proliferation. Furthermore, FOXP1 is dependent upon, and cooperates with, NF-κB signaling to promote B-cell expansion and survival. Taken together, our data indicate that, through direct repression of proapoptotic genes, (aberrant) expression of FOXP1 complements (constitutive) NF-κB activity to promote B-cell survival and can thereby contribute to B-cell homeostasis and lymphomagenesis.


The distribution of promyelocytic leukemia protein between the nucleus and cytoplasm controls Smad activation. Transforming growth factor β (TGF-β) regulates a wide variety of biological activities by binding to cell surface serine/threonine kinase receptors. Canonical TGF-β signaling is mediated by Smad proteins, which transduce the TGF-β signal from the cell surface into the nucleus to regulate transcription. Upon TGF-β binding and receptor activation, the TGF-β receptor phosphorylates Smad2 and Smad3. SARA (Smad anchor for receptor activation) and cPML (cytoplasmic promyelocytic leukemia protein) recruit Smad2 and Smad3 for phosphorylation by the TGF-β receptor. cPML is sequestered in the nucleus by the homeodomain protein TGIF (TG-interacting factor), a negative regulator of TGF-β signaling. Recently, PCTA (PML competitor for TGIF association) has been shown to compete with cPML for binding to TGIF, resulting in the accumulation of cPML in the cytoplasm, where it mediates the interaction between Smad2/3 and SARA and coordinates the phosphorylation of Smad2 and Smad3 by the TGF-β receptor. Accordingly, PCTA promotes TGF-β–mediated transcriptional regulation and growth inhibition. Thus, PCTA defines a new regulator in TGF-β signaling.


This study reports physician perceptions of the administrative fluency of hospice programming and the comparative service qualities of hospice and acute care hospitals on 11 care needs of the terminally ill. Hospice programs evidence organizational sophistication levels which belie their institutional youth. Hospice had a clear advantage within our stacked comparison of care delivery for the terminally ill. Supporting our model of organizational adaptation, however, the performance gap was smallest on those attributes physicians rate as most important to the terminally ill. Finally, hospice referral rates are statistically explained more by administrative prowess than perceived advantages in care delivery. This compels hospital and hospice attention to informational and relational marketing to physicians.


Numerous clinical and preclinical studies have suggested several health promoting effects for the dietary consumption of extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) that could protect and decrease the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD). Moreover, recent studies have linked this protective effect to oleocanthal, a phenolic secoiridoid component of EVOO. This protective effect of oleocanthal against AD has been related to its ability to prevent amyloid-β (Aβ) and tau aggregation in vitro, and enhance Aβ clearance from the brains of wild type mice in vivo; however, its effect in a mouse model of AD is not known. In the current study, we investigated the effect of oleocanthal on pathological hallmarks of AD in TgSwDI, an animal model of AD. Mice treatment for 4 weeks with oleocanthal significantly decreased amyloid load in the hippocampal parenchyma and microvessels. This reduction was associated with enhanced cerebral clearance of Aβ across the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Further mechanistic studies demonstrated oleocanthal to increase the expression of important amyloid clearance proteins at the BBB including P-glycoprotein and LRP1, and to activate the ApoE-dependent amyloid clearance pathway in the mice brains. The anti-inflammatory effect of oleocanthal in the brains of these mice was also obvious where it was able to reduce astrocytes activation and IL-1β levels. Finally, we could recapitulate the observed protective effect of oleocanthal in an in vitro human-based model, which could argue against species difference in response to oleocanthal. In conclusion, findings from in vivo and in vitro studies provide further support for the protective effect of oleocanthal against the progression of AD.


While the Internet can help pursue important educational goals, there are also negative aspects that limit its usefulness in a classroom setting. We discuss the design and implementation of Web database applications that aim to retain most of the positive characteristics of the Internet and the novel ideas the Web has brought, while minimizing the pedagogically questionable aspects of the medium. The main idea behind such an application is the combination of a Web-based multimedia digital library with specific educational communication activities. This is an implementation of the "Educational Knowledge Network" framework, which can be viewed as a Web-microcosm adapted to educational objectives. Pedagogical advantages of this model include the development of inquiry, communication and cooperation while learning a particular subject matter. Technical merits include ease of development, platform-independence, scalability and extensibility.


The widely used explosive 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) and its degradation products are of large environmental concern because of their toxic properties and high concentrations encountered in contaminated soils. Batch experiments were used to study TNT* (the sum of TNT and its degradation products) bonding to dissolved (DOM) and particulate (POM) soil organic matter. Reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) was used as a separation technique in combination with 14C-labeled TNT to determine free TNT and TNT* bound to DOM. By use of dialysis we showed that DOM did not interfere with the HPLC analysis of free TNT. Depending on pH and total TNT concentration, the relative distribution of TNT* among water, POM, and DOM varied between 60 to 90, 10 to 30, and 0.5 to 6%, respectively, after 22 h of equilibration. The association of TNT* to DOM was strongly pH dependent and followed a nonlinear Langmuir isotherm. The association of TNT* to POM was less pH dependent and data were equally well fitted by linear and nonlinear isotherms. Particulate organic matter had 6.4 (pH 6.2) to 22 (pH 5.2) times greater capacity to bind TNT* than DOM, but the binding strength (the slope of the isotherm) was greater for DOM. The TNT degradation was enhanced with increasing concentration of soil organic matter, resulting in a stronger bonding of TNT* to DOM and POM. Based on our results, combined with other recent findings, we suggest that it is mainly the degradation products of TNT that associate with DOM and POM, and that the association with DOM is mainly of ionic character involving specific DOM sites. The greater binding capacity and a weaker, linear type of isotherm suggests a nonspecific type of partitioning in POM, possibly of hydrophobic character.


In this study we evaluated three immunologic methods for confirmation of clinical diagnosis of Chagas' disease, in 120 in-patients. The skin testing with the T12E antigen and the immunofluorescence were positive in 10% of cases. The hemagglutination was positive in 14.1% of these patients. The co-positivity of results of skin-testing with hemagglutination and of this latter with immunofluorescence reached 7.5% of cases. However, only 5% of co-positivity was achieved with results of skin testing, immunofluorescence and hemagglutination. Furthermore, 19.1% of the in¬patients showed at least one out of these exams to be positive. The specificity of the skin testing paralleled that of the immunofluorescence. The sensitivity of these exames, however, was lower than that obtained by the indirect hemagglutination. These data show that the skin testing with T12E antigen allows the diagnosis of Chagas' disease by a simple and handy method.


The increase availability of genome scale metabolic models of Escherichia coli and computational successes is revolutionizing the field of metabolic engineering and synthetic microbiology. E. coli has been experimentally established to produce D-lactate under micro-aerobic conditions when pyruvate formate lyase (PFL) genes are knocked out. However, investigation on the in silico prediction and for evaluation of the effect of PFL genes knockout on the production of D-lactate using E. coli genome scale metabolic model with regulatory on/off minimization (ROOM) under the OptFlux software platform remained under explored. Here, we demonstrate that metabolic engineering strategies using the OptFlux software platform by gene knockout simulation of pflA/b0902, pflB/b0903, pflC/b3952 and pflD/b3951 have been predicted to increase D-lactate production in E. coli and hence maintaining a growth rate that is 96% of the wild-type model. The deletion of the PFL genes have been established to increase D-lactate production in E. coli . The results obtained in this study is in agreement with the previously established experimental studies. These findings suggests that the OptFlux software platform using ROOM as the simulation algorithm, can prospectively and effectively predict future metabolic engineering targets for increased D-lactate production in E. coli and/or other microbial chemical syntheses.


Despite the rising popularity of vertical axis wind turbines, or VAWTs, the wakes behind these machines is much less well understood than those behind horizontal axis wind turbines, or HAWTs. A thorough understanding of wakes is important as they can cause turbines in wind farms to produce less power than anticipated and increase the fatigue loading on turbines due to vibrations. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the wake behind a vertical axis wind turbine in atmospheric flow stereo-PIV is implemented in a boundary-layer wind tunnel to produce snapshots of the 3-component velocity field in the wake at various downstream positions. The boundaries of the wake are readily observed due to the high velocity gradients and turbulence present here. Two pairs of counter-rotating vortices similar to those in the wake of yawed HAWTs are also observed. An examination of the momentum fluxes behind the turbine demonstrates that the mean flow induced by these vortices entrains a large quantity of momentum from the unperturbed boundary layer flow above the wake. This effect proves to play an even more significant role than turbulence in reintroducing momentum into the wake. In order to comprehend why the VAWT produces these vortices we modify the double-multiple stream-tube model typically used to predict VAWT performance to incorporate crosswind forces. The similarity between VAWT and yawed HAWT wakes is found not to be coincidental as both cases feature rotors which exert a lateral thrust on the incoming wind which leads to the creation of counter-rotating vortex pairs.


Currently, the manufacturing industry is experiencing a data-driven revolution. There are multiple processes in the manufacturing industry and will eventually generate a large amount of data. Collecting, analyzing and storing a large amount of data are one of key elements of the smart manufacturing industry. To ensure that all processes within the manufacturing industry are functioning smoothly, the big data processing is needed. Thus, in this study an open source-based real-time data processing (OSRDP) architecture framework was proposed. OSRDP architecture framework consists of several open sources technologies, including Apache Kafka, Apache Storm and NoSQL MongoDB that are effective and cost efficient for real-time data processing. Several experiments and impact analysis for manufacturing sustainability are provided. The results showed that the proposed system is capable of processing a massive sensor data efficiently when the number of sensors data and devices increases. In addition, the data mining based on Random Forest is presented to predict the quality of products given the sensor data as the input. The Random Forest successfully classifies the defect and non-defect products, and generates high accuracy compared to other data mining algorithms. This study is expected to support the management in their decision-making for product quality inspection and support manufacturing sustainability.


the paper examines the gender dimensions of personal income tax (PIT) in Uganda with an eye on the possible gender biases that may be embedded in the tax system. It further addresses the issues of Uganda achievement of substantive gender equality rather than formal equality as regards the impact of taxes from a gender perspective. This is in line with Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against all people as if they are the same and synonymous with equality of opportunity... we find that PIT paid by different household earning types increases gender inequality. We also find that some tax systems only worsens gender gaps and hardly is a useful tool that could be used to close the gender gaps. This paper proposes how PIT could be reformed with a view to using taxation as a tool for the realization of substantive gender equality.


Water is life. In South Africa it is a crucial element in the battle against poverty, the cornerstone of prosperity and a limiting factor to growth. As a fundamental and indispensable natural resource, no regional or national development plan can take shape without giving primary consideration to water. Due to water being an essential component to human and ecological life the scarcity has focused the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DW AF) to converge into the protection, use development, conservation, management and control of water resources. The Water Act (Act No. 54 of 1956) encompassed various shortcomings and therefore was replaced with the National Water Act (Act No. 36 of 1998) (NW A). The promulgation of the NW A gave effect to Section 24 of the Constitution, which entitles "everyone to an environment that is not harmful to their health or well-being". Therefore the government has an obligation to protect the water resources. In order to address this problem, government introduced the Licensing System. Therefore the "polluter pays" concept was introduced, a waste discharge fee is charged to the user. This was introduced to deter users from wasting the resources and to promote sustainable development. The information was presented in the form of a case study between the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry and Mhlathuze Water. An evaluation and assessment was conducted of the current licensing procedure for Mhlathuze Water and recommendations were made for the process to occur efficiently. The License is a legal document between the government and the water user and it stipulates conditions that should be complied with all the time. It is valid for forty years, however will be reviewed every five years by the relevant authority. Monitoring and auditing will be conducted on a regular basis. In the conditions stipulated are not complied with, the license will be revoked.


Aims and Objectives: To identify the causes of visual impairment and blindness in students of Kaduna State Special Education School (KASSES) and make recommendations for the planning of eye care, including prevention and management of the avoidable causes of childhood blindness in our environment. Background: Childhood blindness is one of the priorities of vision 2020: The Right to sight. The "blind years" attributable to childhood is comparable to that of age related cataract (the commonest cause of blindness worldwide). Significant proportions of the causes of childhood blindness are avoidable and can be identified after a screening exercise and treated. Periodic screening will also provide current data for planning and implementation of childhood blindness prevention programmes. Materials and Methods: All the students of the blind section of KASSES who were present during the study were examined and the Georgia Project′s screening protocol for visual impairment in children was completed for each of them. The data was analyzed using Analyze-it V2.22 (2010) statistical software. Results: A total of 71 students were examined. M:F ratio was 1.7:1. The age range was between 6-29 years but 76% were within the bracket of 10-19 years. Seventy percent were blind, 21% had severe visual impairment, and 9% had moderate visual impairment. Cataract was the commonest cause of blindness (25.3%), followed by trauma (16.9%), optic atrophy, buphthalmos, and retinitis pigmentosa (12.7% each). Others were corneal scarring/staphyloma (9.9%), Rubella (7.0%), and a case each of bilateral ankyloblepharon and uveitis (1.4%). Conclusion: The causes of visual impairment in KASSES are largely avoidable. Incorporation of Primary Eye Care (PEC) into Primary Health Care (PHC) will drastically reduce needless blindness, especially in childhood and the morbidity and mortality associated with the blind years. Early identification of students with treatable causes such as cataract should also be encouraged through regular school screening and health education.


The lower reaches of the River Ure, on the flanks of the Pennine Hills in northern England, contain sedimentary and erosional landforms that are a record of fluvial activity during deglaciation and valley-glacier retreat at the end of the last (Devensian) glacial period, and in the subsequent post-glacial Holocene. Terraces and channels, most of which are now relict features well above the altitude of the present river, attest to the impacts of massive meltwater discharge and deposition of sand and gravel outwash, and dynamic river regimes with rapid incision. Through field survey, we have created a detailed geomorphological map of these landforms and glacial and fluvioglacial surface deposits, as well as the terraces and palaeochannels that were abandoned by the river due to avulsion and incision-driven course changes. We have recorded the nature of the outwash gravels, now effectively terrace features, from exposed sections in working quarries, one of which we discuss here. The palaeochannels have accumulated sediment fills and we have examined several which lie within the range of 100 and 16 m above present sea level. The results of lithostratigraphic, palynological, and radiocarbon analyses at two main and three subsidiary sites indicate that palaeochannel ages range from almost 14,000 to approximately 4000 calibrated years ago in a clear altitudinal sequence. The oldest are probably caused by rapid incision due to deglaciation-driven isostatic uplift. The similarity in date of the three downstream sites suggests that a late Holocene combination of climatic deterioration and increased human activity in the catchment caused instability and entrenchment. Pollen data from the channel fills provide relative dating, and agree well with pollen records from other regional Lateglacial and Holocene sites. Non-pollen palynomorph (NPP) analysis at one of the sites allows reconstruction of the hydrological history of channel infill. This research shows that the application of an integrated suite of research techniques can yield a highly detailed understanding of fluvial evolution and landscape history.


This commentary suggests that understanding the "Folk Psychology of Souls" requires studying a problem articulating ontology with psychology: How do human beings, both as perceivers and thinkers, track and refer to (1) living and dead intentional agents and (2) supernatural agents? The problem is discussed in the light of the principle of the ontological commitment in agent tracking.


In 1942 the French historian Louis Febvre published his epoch-making study of Rabelais, in which he noted the absence of atheism in the Middle Ages. Febvre explained this absence as a kind of blocage mental . In the life of society and the individual, Christianity was of overriding importance. Its festivals constituted the rhythm of the year; important transitions in the life of the individual - birth, marriage, and death - were completely integrated into religious life, as were everyday activities. Churches, whose bells would always remind the forgetful believer of their existence, often dominated the landscape. It was simply impossible to think Christianity away from medieval society. Subsequent research has modified Febvre's findings to some extent,3 but his main findings still stand. Antiquity was not that different from the Middle Ages in this respect. The ancient Greeks and Romans also moved in a landscape where temples were everywhere, where gods adorned their coins, where the calendar went from religious festival to festival, and where religious rites accompanied all major transitions in life. Consequently, atheism never developed into a popular ideology with a recognizable following. All we have in antiquity is the exceptional individual who dared to voice his disbelief or bold philosophers who proposed intellectual theories about the coming into existence of the gods without, normally, putting their theories into practice or rejecting religious practice altogether. If we find atheism at all, it is usually a "soft " atheism or the imputation of atheism to others as a means to discredit them.


When a gas or vapour is flowing through a microchannel, the system can become too small for the Navier-Stokes approach to be valid: the Knudsen number becomes too large. Modelling techniques that include the particle nature of the fluids should be used. A particle simulation method is Molecular Dynamics (MD). MD-simulations have been shown to give accurate results both in the gas phase and in the liquid phase. In a two-phase flow, the phase transition between the liquid phase and gas phase is important. In MD simulations, this phase transition can be modeled. It is important that in the MD simulations, the phase at transition is modeled thermodynamically correct. The goal of this research is to develop a method to validate particle-based models, such as MD, by comparing simulation results to experimental results. This is done by simulating an equilibrium situation of evaporation and condensation. After an equilibrium situation has been established, the following properties are calculated: Temperature profile, density profile, pressure profile and enthalpy. The analysis for Molecular Dynamics was performed, using Argon-particles. After the simulations were run and shown to be in equilibrium, the thermodynamic properties are analyzed and shown to agree with experimental results from literature for the liquid and vapour phase. It is shown that the cut-o radius in Molecular Dynamics simulations should be chosen carefully: when the potential energy function is cut o after more than 4.5 molecular diameters, the simulation results for density, pressure and enthalpy agree with experimental results.


The "case history" of Folsom Dam emphasizes the need for geologic reasoning in the site location, planning-design, and construction phases of multi-purpose projects. Construction afforded an unusual opportunity to evaluate current exploration techniques in highly fractured and deeply weathered granitic and metamorphic rocks.The project totals 4.8 miles of dam and consists of: an overpour gravity section with partially enveloping earthfill wing dams on the American River; Mormon Island earthfill dam across an ancestral channel; eight smaller earthfill saddle dams on tributary drainages; two diversion tunnels; and appurtenant structures.The main dam and most of the saddle embankments are founded on quartz diorite (Upper Jurassic). Metamorphic rocks of the Amador group (Middle-Upper Jurassic) form the foundation at the Mormon Island site. In addition to weathered bedrock, overburden consists of Recent mining debris and Pliocene (?)-Pleistocene channel gravels. The quartz diorite is extensively fractured by a complicated joint system; locally the closely spaced joints simulate a shear or fracture zone.The erratic weathering of quartz diorite constitutes a serious foundation and excavation problem. Commonly outcrops proved to be residual "boulders" underlain by highly weathered rock to considerable depths. The composition and origin of minerals in the fresh and weathered stages (slight, moderate, highly) of quartz diorite are tabulated for use in predicting the conditions at new sites involving similar rock; megascopic and microscopic criteria for subdividing the weathered rock are correlated with their respective engineering-physical properties. The most important factors controlling the depth and extent of weathering are: spacing of joints and fractures; degree of microfracturing; and the physiographic history of the area.Geologic investigations included a variety of subsurface techniques, i.e., borings, "man-sized" openings, geophysical surveys, and use of a bore hole camera. Several limitations became apparent with conventional exploration techniques; data from "man-sized" openings supplemented the cored borings.At the main dam, foundation excavation was performed in three contract stages; conditions exposed at subsequent levels aided in estimating the final foundation. The extremely varied excavation and final foundation rock are recorded in an exploded stage diagram; actual subsurface geologic features of typical "lift" surfaces are correlated with logs of cored borings and resistivity survey data. Three sizeable fault zones traverse the foundation; special dental treatment and added excavation exposed unquestionable foundation rock.The core trench of many earthfill dams was grouted on the split-method pattern. Adequate grouting of the highly weathered quartz diorite (moderately permeable) proved difficult due to its inhomogeneity and clayey-filled fractures. At Mormon Island, innumerable springs issued from the schistose foundation and necessitated a grout curtain to a depth of 60 feet.Sources of construction materials consisted of: (1) natural aggregate and pervious fill from alluvium deposits; (2) impervious earthfill "borrowed" selectively from outcrops of highly weathered quartz diorite; and (3) rip-rap of quartz diorite from the main dam, power house and tailrace excavations.To gain additional power head, the natural channel was lowered and the power house placed in a deep excavation. Geologic problems inherent to the excavation included design of a 250 foot open-cut slope and treatment of fractures and joints in a rock "ledge" between the spillway channel and partially underground power plant.


The experiment was carried out at the farm of Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Pundibari, Cooch Behar, West Bengal from August to October of 2011-12 and 2012-13, respectively. To investigate the effect of phosphorus enriched vermicompost on yield of ground nut under irrigated conditions. The experiment was laid out in a RBD design with 14 treatments which replicated thrice. Highest pod yield was obtained from T7, that receiving 150% phosphorus through rockphosphate enriched vermicompost grade-I) (2400.50 kg ha-1) whereas, the treatment receiving 100% recommended dose through sole application of chemical fertiliser (T1) (1479.00 kg ha-1) was lowest yield. Dry matter accumulation increased significantly with crop age. Pooled data revealed that T7 (4402.86 g m-2) performed better in all sampling days. The lowest Dry matter accumulation was observed in T1 (1096.66 g m-2). The treatment T7 recorded the highest value (4.02) of LAI at 75DAS and thereafter declined towards maturity. The highest value of 100-pod weight ,100-kernel weights and harvest index were recorded in T7 respectively (93.22 gm) (63.56 gm) and. (44.04%).It was observed that haulm yield of T4 recorded highest value of haulm yield (3541.10 kg ha-1 )and T8 recorded lowest value of haulm yield (3159.00 kg ha-1) . Pooled data revealed that T7 has highest (86.43%) shelling out and T1 has the lowest value (57.84%). Among the Phosphorus use efficiency, Highest Partial factor of productivity and Agronomic efficiency were observed in T5 respectively (55.21 kg ha-1) and (29.99 kg ha-1). Apparent recovery was highest in T7 (306.46%) and maximum value of Physiological use efficiency was noticed in T3 (26.23 kg ha-1).


In this essay, we seek to evaluate the impact of the Cabanis reform on the configuration of the health education model that became hegemonic in Argentina. First, we analyze the restructuring of the French educational system triggered by the revolution of 1789, primarily in its political and institutional dimensions. Second, we briefly discuss the process of the social, ideological and institutional reconstruction of the health system in post-revolutionary France. Third, we introduce the Cabanis reform, a proposal for medical education based on professionalism, disciplinarity and specialization that resulted in a higher education system without universities, looking into its main curricular and pedagogical aspects. Finally, we evaluate the sequence of events and processes that, throughout the 19th century, with strong Cabanisian influence through the Idéologie, shaped both the principal features of teaching health and medicine and the higher education model based on faculties currently predominant in the Argentine Republic.


This report describes a case of necrotizing fasciitis presenting with septic shock due to an Aeromonas infection. The patient cut his foot while mowing the lawn and then spent time in a pool with black mold. He began feeling ill and developed swelling and a quarter-sized black area on his right lower extremity. Despite being hemodynamically unstable with systolic blood pressure in the low 70s, the patient was transferred to our facility from outside hospital 100 miles away. Upon arriving to facility, the patient appeared to be septic and the infected area of skin had grown. Irrigation and debridement were performed and appropriate antibiotic therapy was given; however, the patient subsequently died on hospital day 8. On review of the literature, cases of necrotizing fasciitis due to Aeromonas infection have been treated successfully with the aforementioned therapy; however, there is high mortality associated with these infections, many times related to a delayed diagnosis. Our patient also had multiple poor prognostic factors including hepatic dysfunction and immunosuppression.


The Women and War Project unit has been conducting a study of the impact of armed conflict on women and the normative and operational responses to their needs by the ICRC in carrying out its activities. This study will be published in 2001 and forms the basis for the implementation of a specific pledge on women and war made by the ICRC at the 27th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (Geneva, 1999) for four years from the year 2000. In that pledge, the ICRC undertook to increase its promotion both of the protection accorded to women by international humanitarian law and of the prohibition of sexual violence. It will also endeavour to ensure that all its protection, health and assistance activities appropriately meet the needs of women war victims in order to alleviate their plight.


Marketing is under immense pressure to perform: required to submit reports to management, judged by the sales department based on whether it helps sales, scrutinized by financial controlling regarding how efficiently it uses budgets, and last but not least, under constant review by customers, markets and the public. Marketing faces more dilemmas and conflicts of interest than any other part of a company. The reason for this lies in the lack of a plan for marketing planning. This book not only identifies numerous examples of this problem as experienced by businesses, it also offers ways of solving the problem. Ralf Strauss highlights a 7 phase process for marketing planning, where the potential marketing can reach is demonstrated. Useful check lists included in this book allow the readers to readily create their own plans for a marketing planning. With insights drawn from more than 150 case studies included in the book, Marketing Planning by Design covers areas such as: How to overcome existing hurdles of marketing planning and marketing strategy. How to set up a project for managing the marketing planning cycle. How to develop a really target group and content driven marketing planning, which is stepwise cascaded from a program, campaign down to a tactical level. How to make marketing accountable in terms of performance measurement. How to implement an enhanced marketing planning in the organisation. How to systematically integrate Web 2.0 into marketing planning, or how to link marketing with modern IT. This highly practical book is destined to be a must-have reference work on any marketers desk.


Several processes of meson production in proton-deuteron collisions have been measured simultaneously using a calibrated magnetic spectrograph. Among these processes, the η meson is seen clearly as a sharp missing-mass peak on a slowly varying background in the p + d → He + X reaction. Knowing the kinematics of the other reactions with well determined masses, it is possible to deduce a precise mass for the η meson. The final result, m(η) = 547.311 ± 0.028 (stat) ± 0.032 (syst) MeV/c, Preprint submitted to Elsevier Science 5 February 2008 is significantly lower than that found by the recent NA48 measurement, though it is consistent with values obtained in earlier counter experiments.


When a metastable hydrogen test beam is exposed to a constant or oscillating electric field, Lyman-α (121.6 nm) emission occurs. This results from the Stark quenching of the metastable 2s level, induced by the field. The intensity of the radiation is proportional to the square of the electric field amplitude and it is recorded by a lock-in technique, which gives an excellent signal to noise ratio. This provides us with a very sensitive and non intrusive method to measure the electric field value, called EFILE (Electric Field Induced Lyman-α emission). Sensitivity is as good as 0.1 V/cm in the case of an oscillatory field resonant with the Lamb shift frequency ≈ 1 GHz. Hydrogen ions are produced in a magnetic multicusp source by a thermo-electronic discharge. The ions are extracted from the source, focused by a series of electrostatic lenses and accelerated to 500 eV. The beam interacts with cesium vapor which produces atoms in the metastable 2s 1/2 state. In the diagnosed volume, the beam passes between a pair of plane electrodes separated by 5 cm. One of them is grounded, the other one is polarized to generate an electric field. The diagnosed volume can be kept under vacuum or exposed to an argon plasma. Lyman-α emission from the beam passing between the plates is measured as a function of the polarized plate voltage. A saturation of the signal is observed at large field amplitudes, which is explained through oscillatory and geometrical mechanisms. A function that takes this saturation into account is used as a calibration for the subsequent electric field profile measurements in the case of a constant voltage applied between the plates in vacuum. We find a good agreement between our results and a finite element method calculation of the profile.


Tuberculosis (TB) is the single largest killer among infectious diseases. The recent resurgence of TB together with outbreaks of multidrug resistant tuberculosis has focused attention on understanding the mechanisms of such drug resistance. Because of the relative neglect of TB research in the past and late arrival of mycobacterial genetic tools, the molecular mechanisms of drug resistance in TB remained largely unknown until very recently. In this paper we review recent progress on the mechanisms of resistance to three major anti-TB drugs; isoniazid, rifampicin and streptomycin. While the resistance mechanisms for rifampicin and streptomycin are similar to those found in other bacteria, isoniazid susceptibility and resistance is unique to Mycobacterium tuberculosis. So far, mutations in two chromosomal loci, katG and inhA have been found to be involved in isoniazid resistance in TB. Identification and characterization of mutations responsible for resistance opens up new possibilities for rapid detection of drug resistant strains. Molecular understanding of drug resistance and drug action in M. tuberculosis may eventually lead to rational design of new anti-TB drugs.


Protein-Energy Malnutrition (PEM) and micronutrient deficiencies are currently the most important nutritional problem in most countries. The use of mushroom flours is limited due to limited knowledge about their functional and their interactions. Nutritional and functional properties of mushroom (Agaricus bisporus and Pleurotus ostreatus) flours and their blends with maize flour were investigated using standard analytical techniques and Pearson correlations. In this study, maize flour was replaced with mushroom flours at different levels; a control sample (0%), 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% of mushroom flour. Protein content of maize flour increased with increased mushroom flour content from 6.9% to 15.87 % (A. bisporus) up to 19.32% (P. ostreatus). The mineral content increased from 2.84 – 8.74mg/100g and 3.13 – 5.41 mg/100g for iron and zinc in the composite flours. A significant increase in fiber (0.53-5.89%) and Ash (1.33-6.59%) was observed. Fat, moisture, carbohydrates and energy did not increase. It was observed a positive significant linear effect (p≤0.05) in the composite flours on foaming capacity, foam stability, fat absorption capacity, water retention capacity, water absorption capacity, solubility index and swelling capacity and a negative linear effect on compact density, bulk density and syneresis was found. Gelation capacity, emulsifying activity and emulsions stability of the maize flour in blend were not affected with adding P. ostreatus, while a slight decrease was observed with adding A. bisporus. These results suggested that these nutrient rich mushroom flours under investigation could serve as useful protein supplements and food fortification.


Arthur Elijah Trueman was born on 26 April 1894 at Nottingham. He was the son of Elijah Trueman and Thirza Gottee, who were both natives of Nottingham. He lived at various places near the borders of Nottingham which were always within easy reach of the country and he recorded that at an early age he was particularly interested in sketching from nature; this facility he retained throughout his life, many of his papers and books being illustrated by his own sketches and drawings. In later years, he was interested and adept in water-colours, especially landscapes, which gave pleasure to him and to his friends. In 1906, he gained a scholarship to High Pavement School, an old foundation established as a City Secondary School in Nottingham and he remained there for five years under the headmastership of Edwin Francis; before he left he had passed the Intermediate B.Sc. Examination of the University of London; it is indicative of his special interests at this time that he asked for a microscope as one of his prizes. The Field and Camera Club of the school exerted an important influence upon Trueman; he organized field excursions, and took an active part in exhibitions of natural history specimens. He also became secretary of the Nottingham branch of The Young Naturalists'' Association instituted by Percival Westall and visited other schools in the city on behalf of the Association. He took up the study of variation in the shell of the common banded snails, systematically collecting these shells and making careful distribution maps. This work resulted several years later in a short but interesting paper which is based upon a very large number of specimens. His interest in the variation in the form of shells and his assiduity in collecting them, which were to remain unabated throughout his life, were thus developed whilst he was a boy at school.


This paper addresses weakly supervised amodal instance segmentation, where the goal is to segment both visible and occluded (amodal) object parts, while training provides only ground-truth visible (modal) segmentations. Following prior work, we use data manipulation to generate occlusions in training images and thus train a segmenter to predict amodal segmentations of the manipulated data. The resulting predictions on training images are taken as the pseudo-ground truth for the standard training of Mask-RCNN, which we use for amodal instance segmentation of test images. For generating the pseudo-ground truth, we specify a new Amodal Segmenter based on Boundary Uncertainty estimation (ASBU) and make two contributions. First, while prior work uses the occluder's mask, our ASBU uses the occlusion boundary as input. Second, ASBU estimates an uncertainty map of the prediction. The estimated uncertainty regularizes learning such that lower segmentation loss is incurred on regions with high uncertainty. ASBU achieves significant performance improvement relative to the state of the art on the COCOA and KINS datasets in three tasks: amodal instance segmentation, amodal completion, and ordering recovery.


Ever tightening power caps constrain the sustained processing speed of modern processors. With computational sprinting, processors reserve a small power budget that can be used to increase processing speed for short bursts. Computational sprinting speeds up query executions that would otherwise yield slow response time. Common mechanisms used for sprinting include DVFS, core scaling, CPU throttling and application-specific accelerators.


The Rockall Continental Margin Project was a 3-year research programme, undertaken
between April 1992 and March 1995, designed to investigate the geology and resource
potential of part of the frontier area west of Scotland. The programme was funded by a
consortium comprising the British Geological Survey (BGS) and 8 exploration companies -
BP, British Gas, Conoco, EE Caledonia, Elf, Enterprise, Esso and Mobil. The study has
focused on the central and northern Rockall Trough, although several long transect lines were
run across the Rockall Plateau and into the Iceland Basin to provide a margin-wide
assessment of the geological framework. Over the duration of the project, multichannel
seismic, gravity, magnetic and bathymetry data, together with boreholes and shallow-sample
information were acquired by the consortium. These data form the basis of this 5-volume
report. A descriptiono f the geology and prospectivityo f the surveyed area comprises volume
1, whilst the data on which the geological interpretation is based, including biostratigraphy,
petrology and geochemistry of the boreholes and shallow samples, are presented in volumes
2 to 5.
The widespread distribution of Upper Cretaceous to lower Palaeogene volcanic rocks
continues to hinder our understandionfg t he geological frameworkof the Rockall Continental
Margin. Whilst it has been proved that Lower Proterozoic gneisses form continental basement
on Rockall Bank, and are therefore part of the Islay structural terrane, the pre-Cretaceous
supracrustal infill of the Rockall Trough and Hatton-Rockall Basin remains conjectural.
Reworked palynomorphs of Carboniferous, Jurassic and Early Cretaceous age have been
identified in lower Palaeogene sediments recovered on the western margin of the Rockall
Trough, but their provenance is uncertain.
The present morphological expressiono f the Rockall Continental Margin largely reflects late
Mesozoic-Cenozoic extensional tectonism associated with North Atlantic sea-floor spreading.
In mid-Cretaceous time, the Rockall Trough was the focus of extreme crustal attenuation
associated with abortive continental breakup along the axis of the basin. The growth of the
axid Rosemary Bank and Anton D o h s eamounts may have been initiated duringth is phase
of crustal thinning. When the axis of spreading shifted westwards, the margin was affected
by extensive volcanism concomitant with the split between Rockall Plateau and Greenland,
that formed the North-East Atlantic OceaInn. the study area, this volcanismis manifested by
the areally extensive, Paleocene to lower Eocene lavas and sills.
The continental margin subsequently underwent regional differential subsidence punctuated
by intermittent tectonism. This is reflected in the post-volcanic, sedimentary succession for
which, for the first time, a unified seismic stratigraphy linking the Rockall Trough and
Hatton-Rockall Basin has been established. Three main post-volcanic seismic-stratigraphical
sequences have been defined; upper Paleocene to lower upper Eocene, upper Eocene to
middle Miocene, and middle Miocene to Holocene. Stratigraphical control and inter-basin
correlation are based on a databaseo f BGS boreholes and shallow samples, DSDP boreholes
and well 164/25-2 (courtesy of BP).
Late Paleocene to early late Eocene sedimentation occurred amidst continuing tectonic
instability across the margin. This has been well demonstrated on the edge of Rockall Bank
where a prograding shelf-margin sequence penetratebdy borehole 94/3 preserves a record of
fluctuating alluvial to shallow-marine sedimentation, interrupted by phases of uplift, erosion and sporadic volcanism. Late Eocene subsidence in the Rockall Trough and Hatton-Rockall
Basin provided the downwarped, basin-margin unconformity onto which upper Eocene to
middle Miocene sediments onlap. This is a major sequence boundary and essentially marks
the onset of deep-water, current-controlled sedimentation in both basins. In the Rockall
Trough, the main buildup of the Feni Ridge sediment drift occurred during this interval.
A phase of mid-Miocene tectonism resulted in the initiationo f the Barra Fan, on the eastern
margin of the Rockall Trough, and may also have instigated a change in regional
palaeoceanography culminating in the developmenotf a widespread unconformity across the
Rockall Trough and Hatton-Rockall Basin. On the Hebrides Slope, middle Miocene to
Holocene sediments form a thick, prograding, clastic weAd gthei.n ner package of deep-water
sediments is preserved in the Rockall Trough and, on the western margin of the trough, an
erosional regime has prevailed throughout this interval. This has resulted in a marked
asymmetry to the depositional sequence architecture across the Rockall Trough. The Hatton-
Rockall Basin was similarly dominated by deep-water processes but, in contrast to the Rockall
Trough, a much thicker sedimentary succession has accumulated in this basin.
In terms of prospectivity, circumstantial evidence suggests that Carboniferous, Mesozoic or
lower Tertiary source rocks may be present in the Rockall Trough, but no definite
thermogenic source has been proved. Potential hydrocarbon indicators include gas blanking,
fluid-migration structures and locally high methane concentrations in surface sediments. The
identification of tilted fault blocks on the western margoifn the Rockall Trough, in bothU K
and Irish waters, illustrates one possible hydrocarbon-trapping mechanism that may be
applicable to this area. Other potential trapping styles include fault-scarp fans and lowstand
slope-apron or basin-floor fans.


Athletes present unique challenges in that their demands are highly specific to their sport and activity. Many sports and positions place extreme demands on the shoulder and the mechanisms of injury may be highly specific to a particular sport. Unique injury patterns are associated with certain sports, for example: swimmer's shoulder, volleyball shoulder, rugby shoulder and so on. Additionally, most sports are seasonal – hence the injuries and treatments associated with the sport will be too. There is a lot of anxiety around a professional athlete's injury, not only from the athletes themselves but also from their coaches, dependents and their sports agent. The decision to operate on an athlete should never be taken lightly and generally always involves a multi-disciplinary approach including the surgeon, team therapist and team doctor.


This paper reports about on-going research into interaction design patterns in intercultural remote collaboration. It proposes that interaction and interface design patterns help to communicate and generate new design knowledge in supporting intercultural teamwork. It describes methods used to observe and develop design patterns in collocated, remote and blended collaborative learning and design contexts, and reports preliminary findings of interface and interaction design patterns, which support intercultural remote collaboration.


When a research vessel passes over a herring school or layer, the herring may avoid the vessel by swimming downwards and horizontally. The fish may also change its orientation, which may alter its mean target strength. Consequently, the echo abundance measured by the relatively narrow echo sounder beam does not always reflect the true density of the school. The fish reaction is strongest in the upper parts of the water column. This avoidance behaviour has been quantified in several experiments where a stationary, submerged transducer has been used to measure the changes in echo abundance during the passage of a survey vessel. In this paper two approaches for correcting the echo abundance for avoidance are investigated. The first approach is to correct the echo abundance in each depth layer separately; the second is to correct the total echo abundance, letting the correction depend on the mean depth of the fish at passing. In both approaches generalized linear models are fitted to the experimental data. Since the parameters are estimated with uncertainty, this uncertainty can be taken into account when the fitted models are used for correcting standard survey data.


A large triangular arylene–ethynylene macrocycle featuring unique circularly arranged –[D–π–A]3– electronic characteristics is designed and synthesized. The shape-persistent π-conjugated backbone is composed of alternating electron-rich dialkoxyphenanthrene and electron-deficient dicyanodibenzo[f,h]quinoxaline units, connected by ethynylene linkers. The synthesis of such a special macrocyclic molecule is realized by employing a post-cyclization functional group installation strategy. The absorption and emission spectra of the macrocycle are found sensitively dependent on the solvent polarity. By virtue of a conjugated π-scaffold and a cyclic –[D–π–A]3– motif, evident two-photon absorption (2PA) and two-photon excitation fluorescence properties are exhibited, with a 2PA cross section maximum of 3 × 103 GM determined by the Z-scan method.


Wireless Underground Sensor Networks (WUSN) consists of buried sensors nodes which are expected to communicate through the soil. The significantly high attenuation caused by the soil properties is the main challenge for their feasibility. This challenge is accentuated with Impulse Radio Ultra-Wide Band (IR-UWB) WUSN because of the very low transmitted power. This paper first studies the impact of the soil on performances of a new small UWB buried antenna and then analyzes the effect of soil properties on the communication link from underground to aboveground. This study includes the effect of soil moisture, burial depth and frequency. Measurements are achieved in a sample of soil composed of standard pebbles used in railway (railroad ballast). The simulations and measurements results show that with short distances and low soil moisture underground to aboveground UWB communication is possible.


Influences of aging precipitation of Cr2N and Chi (χ) phases on the resistance to pitting corrosion and intergranular corrosion of 18Cr-18Mn-2Mo-0.77N high nitrogen steel (HNS) as a type of fundamental and structural materials were investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern and electrochemical methods. Intergranular, cellular Cr2N and χ phases precipitate gradually along grain boundaries and inward grains. The volume fraction of precipitation presents a C-curve with a nose temperature of 850°C during 2h aging treatment. The solution-treated (ST) HNS exhibits the highest pitting corrosion potential because of high nitrogen content in steel, and especially no precipitation. The pitting corrosion resistance of aged HNS decreases because of the formation of aging precipitation which results in the depletion of Cr and Mo in the matrix. The pitting corrosion potentials firstly decrease then increase as the same tendency as the amount of precipitation expect 850°C and 900°C. Double loop electrochemical potentiokinetic reaction (DL-EPR) results show that the change tendency of IGC susceptibility is well consistent with the amount of precipitation of aged HNS for 2h at various temperatures. With prolonging the aging time at 850°C, aged HNS presents more obviously intergranular sensitization due to the formation of aging precipitation which results in the depletion of Cr and Mo.


Polylactide (PLA) has emerged as one of the most promising bio-based alternatives to petroleum-based plastics, mainly because it can be produced from the fermentation of naturally occurring sugars and because it can be industrially compostable. In spite of these benefits, the industrial ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of l-lactide (L-LA) still requires the use of highly active and thermally stable metal-based catalysts, which have raised some environmental concerns. While the excellent balance between activity and functional group compatibility of organic acid catalysts makes them some of the most suitable catalysts for the metal-free ROP of L-LA, the majority of these acids are highly volatile and subject to decomposition at high temperature, which limits their use under industrially relevant conditions. In this work we exploit the use of a nonstoichiometric acid–base organocatalyst to promote the solvent-free and metal-free ROP of L-LA at elevated temperatures in the absence of epimerization and transesterification. To do so, a stable acidic complex was prepared by mixing 4-(dimethylamino)pyridine (DMAP) with 2 equiv of methanesulfonic acid (MSA). Both experimental and computational results indicate that DMAP:MSA (1:2) not only is highly thermally stable but also promotes the retention of stereoregularity during the polymerization of L-LA, leading to PLLA with a molar mass of up to 40 kg mol–1 and a chiral purity in excess of 98%. This result provides a new feature to exploit in organocatalyzed polymerization and in the design of new catalysts to facilitate the path to market.


Tutors working for The Open University of Israel (OUI), a distance learning institution, are often the only academic staff who have direct contact with students. Their performance is therefore crucial for the university. The nature of their job, however, might hinder optimal performance: they are temporary and part time employees, and thus have low job security. Their academic freedom is limited and, in most OUI learning centers, they are professionally isolated. These factors can negatively affect tutors' organizational identification, job satisfaction, and motivation. This study is focused on two sets of variables that serve as possible predictors of identification, satisfaction, and motivation: (1) role perceptions (job importance and job richness); and (2) organizational attachment (relations with the university, attentiveness of the university and the university's appreciation of their work). Seventy-one (n = 71) tutors completed a general survey. Regression analysis and path analysis revealed that identification and job satisfaction were well predicted by job importance and organizational attachment, while work motivation was not. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.


: A 10-year old Nigerian boy was admitted to hospital with a history of swelling in the neck, change of voice, dysphagia and dyspnoea of 2 weeks duration. He died on the 2nd day of admission. Autopsy revealed a thymoma infiltrating the thyroid, trachea and neck muscles and transforming the tracheal lumen into a slit like space. The condition is considered worthy of record on account of its rarity and of the short clinical course terminating in death. The authors feel that the most important factor in determining the prognosis of thymoma is the presence or absence of gross invasion.


The 1970s are in the limelight of a growing historiographic attention, partly due to the recent opening of
new archival resources. 1973, in particular, has a special interest in the historian's eyes, as many are the
events that happened that year: to name but a few, the Chilean coup, the October War, the ensuing oil
crisis, the Vietnamese peace treaty. So it is may be not entirely surprising that not much attention has been
paid to the Year of Europe, a nebulous American initiative destined to sum up to nothing practical - as
Kissinger himself put it, it was destined to be the Year that never Was.1 It is my opinion, however, that its
failure should not conceal its historical interest. Even though transatlantic relations have sometimes been
seen as an uninterrupted history of crisis,2 in 1973 they reached what could then be considered as their
unprecedented nadir. I believe that a thorough analysis of the events that during that year found the US
increasingly at odds with the countries of Western Europe is worth carrying out not only to cast a new
light on the dynamics of transatlantic relations but also to deepen our comprehension of the internal
dynamics of the actors involved, mainly the Nixon administration and a unifying Europe. The Nixon
administration had not carefully planned what the initiative actually should have amounted to, and its
official announcement appears to have been one of Kissinger's coups de theatre. Yet the Year of Europe
responded to the vital priority of revitalising the relations with Western Europe, crucial ally, for too long
neglected. But 1973 did not end with the solemn renewal of the Atlantic Declaration that Kissinger had
sought. On the contrary, it saw, for the first time, the countries of the newly enlarged EC engaged in a real,
if short-lived, solidarity on foreign policy, which highlighted the Nixon administration's contradictions
regarding European integration. Those, in addition to the numerous tensions that already strained
transatlantic relations, gave birth to a downward spiral of incomprehensions and misperceptions, which the
unexpected deflagration of the October war seriously worsened. However, even though the tensions did
not disappear, the European front soon started to disintegrate, mainly under the strains imposed by the oil
crisis. Significant changes in the leadership of the main European countries helped to get the tones back to
normal. During the course of 1974-5, the substantial failure of the Euro-Arab dialogue, the Gymlich
compromise, frequent and serene bilateral meetings bear witness that the worst was over.


Countries around the world face pressing, often similar, water problems. International projects in which knowledge is transferred from one country to another can contribute to solving these problems. Building on the experiences of three Dutch-funded flood risk management projects in Romania, this research investigates the effectiveness of externally supported knowledge transfer projects.

The focus of the research is on the dynamic interactions between actors and their diverse motivations, cognitions and resources. In various chapters, we introduce insights about policy implementation, policy and knowledge transfer, governance, evaluation, knowledge management and social learning. We use these insights to examine the supportiveness of Romania's governance structure, the criteria affecting the effectiveness of knowledge transfer projects, the interactive process between actors with diverse knowledge backgrounds, processes of social learning and the influence of contextual factors. Furthermore, we compare the effectiveness of the three studied cases using the evaluation framework that was developed.

We demonstrate that international water projects, which are implemented with external support, are less effective than hoped for. The interactions between various actors enable the sharing and acquisition of knowledge, but do often not result in the actual application of knowledge. Follow-up actions are needed but get stuck in the absence of an actor who is able and willing to coordinate or take the lead in the mobilization of (financial) resources. We recommend moving towards a longer term perspective on international water projects. Such a perspective involved that projects are seen as learning processes, which can form the building blocks for the realization of the desired outcomes


Each semester, students go through the process of selecting appropriate courses. It is difficult to find information about each course and ultimately make decisions. The objective of this paper is to design a course recommender model which takes student characteristics into account to recommend appropriate courses. The model uses clustering to identify students with similar interests and skills. Once similar students are found, dependencies between student course selections are examined using fuzzy association rules mining. The application of clustering and fuzzy association rules results in appropriate recommendations and a predicted score. In this study, a collection of data on undergraduate students at the Management and Accounting Faculty of College of Farabi in University of Tehran is used. The records are from 2004 to 2015. The students are divided into two clusters according to Educational background and demographics. Finally, recommended courses and predicted scores are given to students. The mined rules facilitate decision-making regarding course selection.


Non-covalently crosslinked polymeric networks are promising materials towards sustainable and recyclable plastics. Here, we present the post-functionalization of poly(dimethyl siloxane) (PDMS) with supramolecular moieties, attached as grafts to the PDMS backbone, to obtain recyclable PDMS networks. We select three different supramolecular motifs that differ in interaction strength and investigate how these differences affect the dynamic behavior of the networks. The introduction of dinitrohydrazones (hydz), which afford weak supramolecular interactions by π-stacking, resulted in a viscous material at room temperature. Stronger self-association was achieved by the introduction of benzene-1,3,5-carboxamides (BTAs) and ureidopyrimidinones (UPys), which self-assemble via triple and quadruple hydrogen bonding, respectively. This resulted in a thermoplastic elastomeric material for BTA-based PDMS and brittle materials for Upy-based PDMS. Time- and temperature-dependent mechanical measurements reveal that the dynamic nature of the supramolecular bonds becomes slower upon increasing the interaction strength. The polymers are fully recyclable by solvation or compression molding without the loss of material properties. Thereby, by using one linear PDMS backbone, we demonstrate how fundamentally different material properties are obtained by changing the supramolecular interaction strength and type of non-covalent crosslinks. These molecular insights broaden the scope and application of PDMS-based sustainable materials.


Objectives: To investigate the determinants of eye disorders in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in a Tertiary Hospital in Northern Nigeria. Methods: This hospital-based study was conducted among patients with RA and SLE. Information was obtained on patients' socio-demographics, type of rheumatic disease, disease duration, activity, and prescribed medications. RAPID 3 was used among both RA and SLE patients to measure and classify disease activity as: >12 = high; 6.1–12 = moderate; 3.1–6 = low; <3= remission. Each patient had detailed ocular examination. Statistical significance was set at P < 0.05. Results: The female:male ratio was 4.3:1 for RA and all SLE patients were females. Eye disorders were present in 42% of all patients, the most common being dry eyes (38%), refractive errors (18%), and cataracts (16%). The least findings were corneal opacities (2%) and lateral rectus palsy (2%). Mean duration of disease in years was significantly higher among RA patient that had eye disorders (7.23 ± 3.44) than those without (2.23 ± 1.23) (P < 0.001). It was also higher among SLE patients with eye disorders (6.73 ± 3.93) than those without (2.13 ± 1.06) (P < 0.001). Most RA patients with eye disorders had moderate [21 (28%)] to severe [8 (11%)] disease activity whereas majority of patients without eye disorders had low activity [16 (22%)] and near remission [26 (35%)] (P < 0.001). Most SLE patients with eye disorders had moderate [9 (35%)] to severe [1 (4%)] disease activity whereas majority of patients without eye disorders had low activity [3 (12%)] and near remission [12 (46%)]. Conclusion: Eye disorders are common among RA and SLE patients, and are influenced by longer disease duration, higher disease activity, and older age. Gender and drug therapy were not found to influence the presence of eye disorders. Eye examination should be done on all RA and SLE patients at regular intervals.


Error propagation is a general but crucial problem in online semi-supervised video object segmentation.
 We aim to suppress error propagation through a correction mechanism with high reliability.
 The key insight is to disentangle the correction from the conventional mask propagation process with reliable cues.
 We introduce two modulators, propagation and correction modulators, to separately perform channel-wise recalibration on the target frame embeddings according to local temporal correlations and reliable references respectively.
 Specifically, we assemble the modulators with a cascaded propagation-correction scheme. This avoids overriding the effects of the reliable correction modulator by the propagation modulator.
 Although the reference frame with the ground truth label provides reliable cues, it could be very different from the target frame and introduce uncertain or incomplete correlations. We augment the reference cues by supplementing reliable feature patches to a maintained pool, thus offering more comprehensive and expressive object representations to the modulators. In addition, a reliability filter is designed to retrieve reliable patches and pass them in subsequent frames.
 Our model achieves state-of-the-art performance on YouTube-VOS18, YouTube-VOS19 and DAVIS17-Val/Test benchmarks.
 Extensive experiments demonstrate that the correction mechanism provides considerable performance gain by fully utilizing reliable guidance.


Sudden cardiac death in persons actively practicing In sports is usually due to cardiovascular disease. In athletes younger than 35 years, the most common diagnosis is hypertrophy of the left ventricle, an anomaly of the coronary arteries, acute myocarditis, or right-ventricular dysplasia. 80% of older athletes are found to have coronary heart disease. For those actively engaged in serious sports activities, such examinations as ECG, exercise ECG and echocardiography are essential elements of medical screening. In the case of leisure sports activities, the German Society for Sports Medicine and Prevention recommend that a medical check be done before a person starts to seriously practice sport, with the aim of identifying cardiovascular factors or anomalies.


Distant supervision is a popular method for performing relation extraction from text that is known to produce noisy labels. Most progress in relation extraction and classification has been made with crowdsourced corrections to distant-supervised labels, and there is evidence that indicates still more would be better. In this paper, we explore the problem of propagating human annotation signals gathered for open-domain relation classification through the CrowdTruth methodology for crowdsourcing, that captures ambiguity in annotations by measuring inter-annotator disagreement. Our approach propagates annotations to sentences that are similar in a low dimensional embedding space, expanding the number of labels by two orders of magnitude. Our experiments show significant improvement in a sentence-level multi-class relation classifier.