Hutchinson's n‐dimensional hypervolume concept underlies many applications in contemporary ecology and evolutionary biology. Estimating hypervolumes from sampled data has been an ongoing challenge due to conceptual and computational issues. We present new algorithms for delineating the boundaries and probability density within n‐dimensional hypervolumes. The methods produce smooth boundaries that can fit data either more loosely (Gaussian kernel density estimation) or more tightly (one‐classification via support vector machine). Further, the algorithms can accept abundance‐weighted data, and the resulting hypervolumes can be given a probabilistic interpretation and projected into geographic space. We demonstrate the properties of these methods on a large dataset that characterises the functional traits and geographic distribution of thousands of plants. The methods are available in version ≥2.0.7 of the hypervolume r package. These new algorithms provide: (i) a more robust approach for delineating the shape and density of n‐dimensional hypervolumes; (ii) more efficient performance on large and high‐dimensional datasets; and (iii) improved measures of functional diversity and environmental niche breadth.


Thirteen years after the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, investment in women as agents of change in peacebuilding remains inadequate. One of the unexplored entry points for strengthening womens contributions to peacebuilding relates to the way in which they use, manage, make decisions on and benefit from natural resources. Indeed, womens relationship to natural resources, coupled with shifting gender norms in conflict affected settings, provides opportunities for enhancing their political participation and enabling them to engage more productively in economic revitalization. With this report, UNEP, UN Women, UNDP and PBSO invite the international community, national governments and civil society to ensure that peacebuilding efforts fully include women, especially when it comes to managing natural resources.


The goal behind Domain Adaptation (DA) is to leverage the labeled examples from a source domain to infer an accurate model for a target domain where labels are not available or in scarce at the best. Recently, there has been a surge in adversarial learning based deep-net approaches for DA problem – a prominent example being DANN approach [9]. These methods require a large number of source labeled examples to infer a good model for the target domain; but start performing poorly with reduced labels. In this paper, we study the behavior of such approaches (especially DANN) under such scarce label scenarios. Further, we propose an architecture, namely TRAVERS, that amalgamates TRAnsductive learning principles with adVERSarial learning so as to provide a cushion to the performance of these approaches under label scarcity. Experimental results (both on text and images) show a significant boost in the performance of TRAVERS over approaches such as DANN under scarce label scenarios.


BACKGROUND
The impact of the ageing population on the paediatric clinical experiences of general practice registrars is unknown.

METHODS
A secondary analysis of the Registrar Clinical Encounters in Training dataset to examine the distribution of visit proportions and length, and the most common diagnoses seen (by patient age) by registrars in the general practice setting.

RESULTS
Children aged less than 4 years comprised 9% of patients seen, 5-14 years, 8%, and 15-19 years comprised 6%. Registrars spent the most time in consultations with patients aged 65+ years and the least time with children aged 5-14 years. Registrars reported significantly more extended consultations of more than 40 minutes with seniors than with children aged less than 4 years. Of all consultations for children aged less than 4 years, only one was for more than 40 minutes.

DISCUSSION
Exposure of general practice registrars to chronic illness in children, and to a range of diagnostic conditions, may be quite limited. Specific efforts and interventions may be required to ensure that registrars gain adequate experience to provide competent primary care to all age groups.


This article reports the orthodontic treatment of a 14 years and 2 months old female patient, presenting both anterior and posterior unilateral left crossbite, related to a transverse atrophy of the maxilla and a severe negative tooth-arch discrepancy in the upper arch. A maxillary expansion with a modified Haas appliance was the first therapeutic attempt. Then, fixed appliances were used in both arches, and the second left premolar was extracted. The space for the upper left lateral incisor was achieved with compressed springs and tooth movement was accomplished with double archwires. The final result showed a good intercuspation, considering that the left molar relation remained as a Class II, which demanded special occlusal adjustments. This case was presented to the Brazilian Board of Orthodontics and Facial Orthopedics, representing category 5, as a partial requirement for the BBO certificate.


OBJECTIVES
The aim of the study was to assess indications, procedural success, complications, echocardiographic, and clinical outcomes of percutaneous pulmonary valve implantation (PPVI) in adult patients with congenital heart disease (CHD).

BACKGROUND
PPVI offers a non-surgical treatment option for failing prosthetic conduits in pulmonary position. However, efficacy and clinical outcomes after PPVI are still underreported.

METHODS
From January 2008 to March 2016, 25 adult CHD patients with right ventricular outflow tract (RVOT) stenosis and/or pulmonary regurgitation underwent PPVI in our institution. Clinical and echocardiographic data was collected at baseline, at 12 months of follow-up and yearly afterwards.

RESULTS
Tetralogy of Fallot and repaired pulmonary atresia were among the most prevalent underlying congenital defects. Twenty-one (84%) received a Medtronic Melody® and four (16%) patients an Edwards Sapien valve prosthesis. The PPVI procedure was successful in all 25 patients. Pre-stenting was performed in all but two (8%) patients. PPVI reduced peak-to-peak pulmonary valve gradient from 43 (IQR 28-60) mmHg to 16 (IQR 14-22) mmHg (P < 0.001). Periprocedural complications occurred in two (8%) patients (tricuspid valve damage, pulmonary artery perforation). Over a median follow-up of 43 (IQR 18-58) months all patients were alive. Only two (8%) required re-operation and two (8%) developed stent fractures (one of them had not undergone pre-stenting). NYHA functional class improved significantly, with 20 (80%) patients in NYHA class I on follow-up.

CONCLUSIONS
PPVI with Medtronic Melody or Edwards Sapien valve conduits is safe and provides effective relief from right ventricular outflow tract obstruction or pulmonary regurgitation.


This investigation builds on the Alvarez et al. (2021) Project Completion Report (PCR) analysis and its aim is to assess the implications of that study for the current portfolio of projects under execution at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). We use the sample of PCRs which reached operational closure (CO) in 2017 and 2018 to estimate the impact that design and execution performance characteristics of projects played in the likelihood of ending as successful and/or effective. Based on the estimated coefficients, we construct risk curves to isolate the effect specific characteristics have on the likelihood of a project being classified as unsuccessful/ineffective. We then use the estimated coefficients and, using the actual values for the current portfolio of projects in execution, identify the fraction of the portfolio that is at risk of ending as unsuccessful/ineffective projects. According to our analysis, of the 249 projects assessed, 39 have a 50% or less chance of being successful. Thirteen (13) projects have less than a 10% chance. For about 70% of the projects analyzed, given the characteristics they exhibit, the likelihood that they end up successful has already been curtailed. The type of analysis presented here can help IDB Management identify key performance indicators to keep track of during execution to periodically assess the level of risk it is willing to accept in terms of projects ending unsuccessful/ineffective as rated by the current PCR methodology.


A 21-year-old man presented to the emergency department with a 36 h history of a painful, itchy maculopapular rash and associated vesicles to his arms and neck. He had no history of exposure to new chemicals or hygiene products and no significant medical history. His physiological observations were normal and systemic examination was unremarkable. On close inspection the rash was noted to be present only on areas of skin exposed while wearing a polo shirt. On further questioning it transpired that he had been gardening 12 h prior to the development of the rash. A diagnosis of phytophotodermatitis was made. The patient was discharged with chlorphenamine, simple analgesia and the advice to wear a long-sleeved t-shirt and sunscreen when gardening in future. Phytophotodermatitis is a cutaneous reaction caused by contact with light-sensitising compounds found in plants and exposure to ultraviolet A radiation. It is self-limiting and can be managed symptomatically.


In recent years, dramatic increase in the cost of health care has compelled practitioners to draw a balance between improving efficiency and reducing costs. A discrete-event simulation model has been constructed to assist a typical two-physician family practice healthcare clinic in evaluating potential resource allocations to improve operating efficiencies and patient satisfaction. A performance measure, constructed on a monetary scale (dollars/day), strives to simultaneously satisfy the conflicts of patients, medical staff, and clinic owners by capturing system dynamics. Utility of medical resources is studied from the point of view of a local two-physician nephrology clinic in the light of resource flexibility, resource scheduling, and resource allocation to arrive at an 'efficient utility frontier', a reflection of patient satisfaction.


Decision quality is often evaluated based on whether decision makers can adequately explain the decision process. Accountability often improves judgment quality because decision makers weigh and integrate information more thoroughly, but it could also hurt judgment processes by disrupting retrieval of previously encountered cases. We investigated to what degree process accountability motivates decision makers to shift from retrieval of past exemplars to rule-based integration processes. This shift may hinder accurate judgments in retrieval-based configural judgment tasks (Experiment 1) but may improve accuracy in elemental judgment tasks requiring weighing and integrating information (Experiment 2). In randomly selected trials, participants had to justify their judgments. Process accountability neither changed how accurately people made a judgment, nor the judgment strategies. Justifying the judgment process only decreased confidence in trials involving a justification. Overall, these results imply that process accountability may affect judgment quality less than expected.


It is well known how to use an intuitionistic meta-logic to specify natural deduction systems. It is also possible to use linear logic as a meta-logic for the specification of a variety of sequent calculus proof systems. Here, we show that if we adopt different focusing annotations for such linear logic specifications, a range of other proof systems can also be specified. In particular, we show that natural deduction (normal and non-normal), sequent proofs (with and without cut), tableaux, and proof systems using general elimination and general introduction rules can all be derived from essentially the same linear logic specification by altering focusing annotations. By using elementary linear logic equivalences and the completeness of focused proofs, we are able to derive new and modular proofs of the soundness and completeness of these various proofs systems for intuitionistic and classical logics.


Since the turn of the twenty-first century, popular Malay television fiction has been thriving and gaining popularity. Through staggering online reruns, this sheer popularity broadens the expanse of multifaceted issues. This paper contextualizes popular TV fiction within a space of imperfection, focusing on audience responses to Julia, Adam & Hawa, and About Dhia. Using the lens of democratic habits of mind according to Mezirow: "respect for others, self-respect, willingness to accept responsibility for the common good, willingness to welcome diversity and to approach others with openness," this paper reveals two of the many emerging themes, namely, forgiveness and repentance, which can intensify possibilities for acknowledging human faults, vulnerability, and imperfection between the private/public and self/society. By considering reactions of some of the many popular TV fiction audience, this paper presents unfolding, interactive twenty-first-century insights into what it means to pursue an imperfect duty, whose responsibility could be understood in the sense of forgiveness and repentance.


Aim: The aim of the present study is to identify bacterial aetiology of surgical site infections. Material and methods: The study was a cross sectional study which was carried in the Department of Microbiology, Anugrah Narayan Magadh Medical College and Hospital, Gaya, Bihar, India for one year. Using sterile cotton swabs, two pus swabs/ wound swabs were collected aseptically from each patient suspected of having SSI. Gram stained preparations were made from one swab for provisional diagnosis. The other swab was inoculated on nutrient agar, 5% sheep blood agar (BA) and MacConkey agar (MA) plates and incubated at 37°C for 24-48 hours before being reported as sterile. Growth on culture plates was identified by its colony characters and the battery of standard biochemical tests. All the isolates were tested for antimicrobial susceptibility by Kirby Bauer disk diffusion technique on Muller Hinton Agar. Results: Out of 230 samples, 120 samples were culture positive (52.17%). Among 120 positive samples 67(55.83%) were males. Maximum no. of culture positive samples in age 2030 years (32.5%) followed by 30-40 (17.5 %) and then followed by 40-50 (15.83%) of age group respectively. Out of 120 culture positive samples S.aureus (26.67%) was the most common pathogen isolated followed by Escherichia coli. (23.33%), Citrobacter spp. (15.83%) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (9.17%), Klebsiella spp 10(8.33%), CONS 8(6.67%), Enterobacter spp. 7(5.83%), Acinetobacter spp 3(2.5%) and Proteus spp. 2(1.67%) respectively. Conclusion: We conclude that SSIs are common among patients undergoing surgeries.


In this study, the concept of a statistically D-bounded sequence in a probabilistic normed (PN) space endowed with the strong topology is introduced and its basic properties are investigated. It is shown that a strongly statistically convergent sequence and a strong statistically Cauchy sequence are statistically D-bounded under certain conditions. A sequence which goes far away from the limit point infinitely many times and presents random deviations in a PN space may be handled with the tools of strong statistical convergence and statistical D-boundedness.


One of the major problems with participatory design is that it is extremely difficult to apply it to current developments. Software development for the mass market is one aspect of current developments which has been addressed. The problem of how to apply participatory design invariably leads to questioning its relevance to present-day circumstances. It is suggested that new patterns of dominance must be revealed. The usability method known as 'personas' has been demonstrated to remedy the problems of including social and political issues in mass market software developments. This paper demonstrates how the application of personas to a mass market software development project failed because of patterns of dominance in the telecom branch which were unrecognised at the time. The identifying of these patterns of dominance contributes to a better understanding of some of the new patterns of power and domination in mass-market software developments that PD stands before.


Thermal power plants are facilities that convert the chemical energy of solid, liquid and gas fuels respectively into thermal, mechanical and electric energy. The presumption of establishing a fossil fuel plant on this fertile area is putting the security of the agricultural products of the area at risk. A face to face survey was carried out with the 90 of the farmers living close to the planned area for the establishment of the fossil fuel plant in Suluova county of Amasya province. According to the survey results 43% of the farmers stated that fossil fuel plant is a necessity but it should be established far away from the agricultural estates whereas 30% of them think that these kind of fuel plants should not be established on any account and 27% of them expressed no opinion about the issue. A total of 60% of the farmers think that the agricultural consequences of the planned fossil fuel plant are not considered adequately; and 73% of the farmers think that a presumed fossil fuel plant in the area will negatively affect the yield and the quality of the agricultural products and 56% say that the agricultural estates will be negatively affected by it. Majority of the farmers stated that they would try to prevent the establishment of the plant even if they knew they would not succeed.


Abstract This article has been championed on account of the experience of (perceived) economic rationalization which seem to be the foremost of patients' care as opposed to addressing distress to human existing well-being, while in a state of being tormented with agonizing news of prolonged ill health. Several considerations have been proposed as a way of addressing the need to rationalize resources in ensuring the long standing history of the NHS focus on 'free health care' is critically covered, but not in a way that destroys confidence on the ability of professionals to manifest ethical prudence in their acts of judgments about whether patients care is to be made immediate or prolonged on a waiting list. There is certainly serious impacts to be comprehended with in situation of economic rationality through services provided by the NHS; it is believed that tangible outcomes about definitive care for patients can be addressed collaboratively.


IN THIS PAPER, FORMING LIMIT DIAGRAMS (FLDS) FOR AN ALUMINUM ALLOY ARE PREDICTED THROUGH NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS USING VARIOUS LOCALIZED NECKING CRITERIA. A COMPARATIVE STUDY IS CONDUCTED FOR THE FLDS DETERMINED BY USING THE LEMAITRE DAMAGE APPROACH AND THOSE OBTAINED WITH THE MODIFIED GURSON–TVERGAARD–NEEDLEMAN (GTN) DAMAGE MODEL. TO THIS END, BOTH DAMAGE MODELS COUPLED WITH ELASTO-PLASTICITY AND ACCOUNTING FOR PLASTIC ANISOTROPY HAVE BEEN IMPLEMENTED INTO THE ABAQUS/EXPLICIT SOFTWARE, THROUGH THE USER-DEFINED SUBROUTINE VUMAT, WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF LARGE PLASTIC STRAINS AND A FULLY THREE-DIMENSIONAL FORMULATION. THE RESULTING CONSTITUTIVE FRAMEWORKS ARE THEN COMBINED WITH FOUR LOCALIZED NECKING CRITERIA TO PREDICT THE LIMIT STRAINS FOR AN AA6016-T4 ALUMI-NUM ALLOY. THREE OF THESE NECKING CRITERIA ARE BASED ON FINITE ELE-MENT (FE) SIMULATIONS OF THE NAKAZIMA DEEP DRAWING TEST WITH VARIOUS SPECIMEN GEOMETRIES, WHILE THE FOURTH CRITERION IS BASED ON BIFURCATION THEORY. THE SIMULATION RESULTS REVEAL THAT THE LIMIT STRAINS PREDICTED BY LOCAL CRITERIA, WHICH ARE BASED ON FE SIMULATIONS OF THE NAKAZIMA TEST, ARE IN GOOD AGREEMENT WITH THE EXPERIMENTS FOR A NUMBER OF STRAIN PATHS, WHILE THOSE OBTAINED WITH THE BIFURCATION ANALYSIS PROVIDE AN UPPER BOUND TO THE EXPERIMENTAL FLD.


The dynamical Casimir effect is an intriguing phenomenon in which photons are generated from vacuum due to a non-adiabatic change in some boundary conditions. In particular, it connects the motion of an accelerated mechanical mirror to the generation of photons. While pioneering experiments demonstrating this effect exist, a conclusive measurement involving a mechanical generation is still missing. We show that a hybrid system consisting of a piezoelectric mechanical resonator coupled to a superconducting cavity may allow to electro-mechanically generate measurable photons from vacuum, intrinsically associated to the dynamical Casimir effect. Such an experiment may be achieved with current technology, based on film bulk acoustic resonators directly coupled to a superconducting cavity. Our results predict a measurable photon generation rate, which can be further increased through additional improvements such as using superconducting metamaterials.


Particle loss due to the emission of single energetic beamstrahlung photons in beam collisions is shown to impose a fundamental limit on storage-ring luminosities at energies greater than 2E~140 GeV for head-on collisions and 2E~40 GeV for crab-waist collisions. Above these threshold energies, the suppression factor due to beamstrahlung scales as 1/E^{4/3}, and for a fixed power of synchrotron radiation, the luminosity L is proportional to R/E^{13/3}, where R is the collider radius. For 2E > 150 GeV, both collision schemes have similar luminosity limits. The luminosities attainable at storage-ring and linear-collider (LC) 2E=240 GeV Higgs factories are comparable; at higher energies, LCs are preferable. This conference paper is based on my recent PRL publication [1], supplemented with additional comments on linac-ring e+e- colliders and ring e+e- colliders with charge compensation (four-beam collisions).


To establish a method for determination of glycyrrhizic and glycyrrhetinic acids in Weiyanning Granule. The contents of glycyrrhizic and glycyrrhetinic acids are determined by HPLC under conditions as follows: Diamonsil C18 (4.6 mm × 250 mm, 5 μm) column, mobile phase of acetonitrile- 0.05 mol/L ammonium acetate solution (A: 0.05 mol/L ammonium acetate solution; B: acetonitrile, gradient elution: 0~30 min: 32% B; 30~60 min: 75% B); flow rate of 1.0 ml/min; and detection wavelength of 250 nm. The determined linear range of glycyrrhizic acid is 0.320~1.920 μg, and average recovery is 98.6%, with RSD = 1.98%; linear range of glycyrrhetinic acid is 0.039~0.234 μg, and average recovery is 97.3%, with RSD = 3.20%. The method established in this paper is simple, accurate and reproducible, which provides a new way for the quality control of Weiyanning Granule.


Seismologists are eagerly seeking new and preferably low-cost ways to map and track changes in the complex structure of the top few kilometers of the crust. By understanding it better, they can build on what is known regarding important, practical issues. These include telling us whether imminent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are generating telltale underground signs of hazard, about mitigation of induced seismicity such as from deep injection of wastewater, how the Earth and its atmosphere couple, and where accessible natural resources are. Passive seismic imaging usually relies on blind correlations within extended recordings of Earth's ceaseless "hum" or coda of well-mixed, small vibrations. In this article, we propose a complementary approach. It is seismic interferometry using opportune sources—specifically ones not stationary in time and moving in a well-understood configuration. Its interpretation relies on an accurate understanding of how these sources radiate seismic waves, precise timing, careful placement of pairs of listening stations, and seismic phase differentiation (surface and body waves). Massive freight trains were only recently recognized as such a persistent, powerful cultural (human activity-caused) seismic source. One train passage may generate a tremor with an energy output of a magnitude 1 earthquake and be detectable for up to 100 km from the track. We discuss the source mechanisms of train tremors and review the basic theory on sources. Finally, we present case studies of body- and surface-wave retrieval as an aid to mineral exploration in Canada and to monitoring of a southern California fault zone. We believe noise recovery from this new signal source, together with dense data acquisition technologies such as nodes or distributed acoustic sensing, will deeply transform our ability to monitor activity in the shallow crust at sharpened resolution in time and space.


For the first time, a unique expert system able to give assistance to designers in surface engineering has been built. Not only is this software able to provide multi-layer coating solutions, but it is also able to rank different solutions according to their technico-economical interest. In addition to its ability to solve corrosion and wear concerns, it is also able to deal with surface finishing properties (like brightness, weldability, electrical conductivity, biocompatibility, …). This paper describes the structure of this expert system together with its main operation principles and future developments.


This study examines how institutional actors interpret, influence and respond to skills availability in the labour market for graduates. It researches and draws lessons from the Maltese experience of managing graduate employability over three decades, focusing on the three fastest-growing economic sectors, namely, Accountancy, Pharmachem and ICT, each of which is the subject of a case study. The study investigates the interaction of governments, firms, higher education institutions and professional associations in identifying skills shortages and gaps, as well as in devising policy frameworks and skills regimes at national, sectoral and corporate levels. Drawing upon theories of employability and employee skills, first, there is development of an analytical framework to examine how these institutional actors affect the labour market, which informs the analysis of the three case studies. The qualitative research involved an interpretative analysis of key policy documents related to graduate employability and seventy in-depth interviews with interlocutors positioned in strategic policy making, senior management, academic, expert and professional leadership roles within government, regulators, major corporations, higher education institutions, training providers and professional associations. The data was thematically analysed. Twelve key themes emerged from the in-depth interviews, which included the following: use of different language; the meaning of employability; the value of credentials; the role of the University; perceptions; expectations; competitiveness; modes of training provision; labour mobility; placements and incentives; collaboration and skills gap. The institutional actors across the three focal sectors, namely, accountancy, pharmachem and ICT tended to emphasise some themes more than others, these having previously been identified in scholarly literature (Appendix 1). Both patterns and inconsistencies emerged from a comparison of the accountancy, pharmachem and ICT sectors. In so far as the labour market is concerned, the study revealed a lack of technical skills and major non-technical graduate skills gaps, specifically, in the aspects of communication, teamwork and problem-solving. A number of professional characteristics or behaviours were also identified as lacking with Accountancy, Pharmachem and ICT graduates, namely, attitude, confidence, drive, professional outlook, independent working, personality fit and a 'can do' approach. The study revealed the absence of permanent systemic connections between the formulation of national and sectoral economic strategies on the one hand, and higher education and training policies on the other. Consequently, state higher education institutions have been responding reactively to labour market needs, which could explain the endemic skills gap which the study found. The study concludes by discussing limitations and limits to this research as well as recommending policy initiatives and further research that could contribute to the science and practice of public policy in this field. Key words: graduate employability, employability skills, skills gap, policy makers, labour market


This article discusses how, and with what consequences, the news in today's increasingly global and porous environment tells us about ourselves, showing us images that are often uncomfortable, strange and disturbing. In particular, it examines how, in times of conflict, in narrating and imaging 'us' as a nation, the news media can contribute to an ethical project of estrangement — achieving distance from ourselves, seeing ourselves as others, as a way to address injustice and enhance democratic public spheres. The analysis is based on a comparison of coverage of the 2005 riots in France and the reporting of the 2008/9 Gaza war in Israel. The discussion explores ways in which the aesthetics of news can be mobilized for estrangement, what incentives journalism might have for promoting an ethics of estrangement, and the opportunities and dangers this project entails. This exploration shows how Silverstone's concept of proper distance may play out in different situations of news coverage of conflict, especially when there is a tension between national and international reporting.


The examinations carried out before and in various periods after surgery (in 3, 6, and 12 months) included assessment of the visual function at a short distance (vision acuity, absolute accommodation volume, relative accommodation reserve, ciliary muscle working capacity, vision production, subjective assessment of the vision from a short distance), sensitivity to glare, sensitivity to changed contrast, and dusk vision status. The best condition for studies at a short distance after surgery are created in patients with high myopia, whereas in medium and weak myopia a period of adaptation to close vision is necessary. The studies have revealed a reduced sensitivity to changed contrast and elevated sensitivity to glare. No reliable data on changes in the light sensitivity were available.


Membrane fractionation studies were performed on Salmonella typhimurium lkyD(Ts) and E. coli cha(Ts) mutants that appeared to be blocked at a late stage of the cell division cycle. In both cases growth of the mutant strains at nonpermissive temperatures was associated with accumulation of a characteristic cell envelope fraction (fraction OML) that contained inner membrane, murein, and outer membrane components. The isolated fraction corresponded in composition and bouyant density to a fraction from wild-type strains that had previously been suggested (M. H. Bayer, G. P. Costello, and M. E. Bayer, J. Bacteriol. 149:758-767, 1982; K. Ishidate, E. S. Creeger, J. Zrike, S. Deb, B. Glauner, T. J. MacAlister, and L. I. Rothfield, J. Biol. Chem. 261:428-443, 1986) to contain adhesion sites between inner membrane, murein, and outer membrane. The accumulation of OML in LkyD- and Cha- cells was prevented by treatments that blocked DNA synthesis. The effects of interference with DNA synthesis did not appear to involve the SOS response.


The major aim of the work presented in this thesis was to generate personalized proteomics profiles by improving the chromatographic aspects of the proteomic experiment. In the first chapter an overview of proteomics is given and several practical aspects of a proteomic workflow are highlighted. An important aspect is the high complexity and the intrinsic dynamic range of the samples analyzed in proteomics. In order to reduce this complexity and perform a comprehensive study a separation strategy (involving one or more separation steps) is required. A detailed description of reversed phase chromatography is given in this chapter as is the most widely used chromatographic methodology in proteomics. Furthermore, an overview of mass spectrometers is given which includes details of both ionization sources and mass analyzers. Protein quantification is also described as in chapter 3 a quantitative proteomics workflow was applied. A separate section for intestinal stem cell biology describes the characteristics of adult stem cells, in general, and of intestinal stem cells, in particular. The impact of the identification of intestinal stem cells is also addressed and how this led to the development of organoids. Moreover, applications of organoids to investigate disease, colorectal cancer in this case, is further explored. In the second chapter we aimed to build an in-house ultra-high pressure liquid chromatography system with a high separation efficiency and resolution. An easy to implement design was constructed. Particles with small diameter (1.8 μm) were used in the stationary phase with the aim of obtaining an increased efficiency compared to conventionally used 3 μm particles. Thanks to advancements in HPLC system design, particularly with respect to generating and maintaining pressures, we were able to implement columns containing smaller particles (1.8 μm) in dimensions of 50 μm x 40 cm. Several flow rates were studied and gradients ranging from 23 to 458 minutes were optimized. The level of performance of this system was tested by coupling it to an Orbitrap Velos achieving over 4500 proteins with the longest analysis time. Furthermore, a mass spectrometer with faster sequencing speed was used (TripleTOF) which enables us to identify over 1400 proteins in a 23-minute gradient. In the third chapter we performed personalized proteome profiles of healthy and tumor human colon organoids. Peptides were extracted from the organoid samples and dimethyl labeled in order to obtain quantitative information. The optimized reversed phase chromatography described in chapter 2 was used here after SCX prefractionation, to perform a comprehensive proteomics study. Furthermore, two state-of-the art mass spectrometers were used which allowed us to perform optimal peptide sequencing for each SCX fraction. Proteins extracted from organoids grown from seven patients were analyzed and the data was combined with transcriptomics data. Although generic features of colorectal cancer could be obtained across all the patients, our data clearly revealed that each patient possesses a distinct organoid signature at the proteomic level. Key to a comprehensive proteomics study is knowing how PTMs are interconnected, it is important to get an insight into the specific proteoforms present. This is a problem in bottom-up shotgun proteomics approaches since this interconnectedness is removed by the proteolysis step and the generation of peptides. Sadly, it is currently suboptimal to perform full protein sequencing (top down) in a high-throughput manner. A compromise is found in middle-down proteomics, which tries to sequence larger peptides (ideally above 3 kDa) in a shotgun-type experiment. In the fourth chapter we set out to optimize a workflow for the emerging technology of middle-down proteomics. Starting from the sample preparation to the state-of-the- art chromatographic separations and alternative MS fragmentation techniques for the identification of larger peptides are covered. The improvements made to the workflow clearly boost the detection and sequence coverage of middle-range peptides making a step forward towards the identification of specific proteoforms.


Cryptocurrency – including a particular initial denomination known as Bitcoins – has received since 2009 wide and growing publicity in technology, finance, U.S. and international law enforcement, as well as general public journalism and popular press. This recent popular press coverage of cryptocurrency (how and from where do Bitcoins originate?, how much is one worth today or tomorrow?, will it last with all the stumbling implementation and technical intricacies?, purchasing illegal drugs and guns with Bitcoins!) overshadows cryptocurrency's applicability to financial and currency system theories which have been developed and predicted for decades or more: the fundamental theory of currency; currency denationalization; a return to an international standard monetary unit (before nationalized fiat); the inefficiency of costly 3rd-party-trust currency models; and global concerns about currency hegemonies as well as political influence of monetary policy, and currency hedge/speculation.As the moral panic of Bitcoin and similar initial implementations of cryptocurrency fade and cryptocurrency systems gain traction underground or aboveground anywhere in the world, U.S. and international public policymakers and regulators will need to surveil, understand, and evolve public policy to accommodate any aspect of cryptocurrency which develops from technical novelty to realization of predicted grand monetary theories. Some of those areas of evolution include: national central bank monetary control; public sector dependence (oversight, taxing, fees) on private sector financial models and structures; and viability of traditional national and international law enforcement techniquesU.S. federal and major subnational public sector policymakers and regulators must remain vigilant for and educated about cryptocurrency usage whether in nationalized or denationalized use cases or they risk missing early opportunities to shape the rapidly changing landscape of digital financial systems in the U.S and abroad. This vigilance and awareness could be in the form of continued congressional hearings and regulatory surveillance. But a more proactive approach including federal grants for research and study of cryptocurrency, promotion of national and international symposia regarding currency technology and implications should be pursued.The nature of cryptocurrency's raison d'etre and early-adopter motivation foretells a disruptive network-effect adoption despite entrenched interests' efforts at preclusion similar to numerous recent technical innovations in the private sector like music or other intellectual property downloads, retail shopping, taxis services, hotel lodging, traditional print journalism, and traditional communication systems.


Although machines have surpassed humans on visual recognition problems, they are still limited to providing closed-set answers. Unlike machines, humans can cognize novel categories at the first observation. Novel category discovery (NCD) techniques, transferring knowledge from seen categories to distinguish unseen categories, aim to bridge the gap. However, current NCD methods assume a transductive learning and offline inference paradigm, which restricts them to a predefined query set and renders them unable to deliver instant feedback. In this paper, we study on-the-fly category discovery (OCD) aimed at making the model instantaneously aware of novel category samples (i.e., enabling inductive learning and streaming inference). We first design a hash coding-based expandable recognition model as a practical baseline. Afterwards, noticing the sensitivity of hash codes to intra-category variance, we further propose a novel Sign-Magnitude dIsentangLEment (SMILE) architecture to alleviate the disturbance it brings. Our experimental results demonstrate the superiority of SMILE against our baseline model and prior art. Our code is available at https://github.com/PRIS-CV/On-the-fly-Category-Discovery.


This guideline has been well thought out, and is a useful basis for the general practitioner to diagnose and manage hearing loss. However, it advises watchful waiting in children with otitis media, a questionable view. In evaluating simple diagnostic tools, the speech recognition is overvalued at the expense of audiometry and the tuning-fork test. Posttraumatic perforation of the eardrum, in combination with hearing loss is incorrectly presented as a self-limiting problem in the majority of cases.


The biogenic vermetid reef is a key habitat of coastal ecosystems that modifies the shoreline morphology and increases the local biodiversity. Despite its ecological relevance, rarely it is subjected to an accurate management and is often exposed to several human activities. This study aims to distinguish between the effects of different typologies of anthropic uses on the physical structure of the vermetid reef. A comparison between totally protected, partially protected and strongly anthropized reefs has been done and two variables have been analysed: the substratum complexity and the density of reef-building organism. Both the variables show higher values in totally and partially protected reefs, demonstrating the importance of conservation strategies for the correct management of this important bioconstruction.


Abstract The Transverse Ranges in southern California have been identified as having a prominent phylogeographic role. Numerous studies have identified distinct north-south and/or east-west lineage breaks involving the Transverse Ranges. However, in evaluating their findings, most authors have regarded this complex system somewhat simplistically. In this study we more deeply investigate these breaks using two approaches: first we examine the phylogeographic history of Sepedophilus castaneus (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae) and then implement a comparative phylogeography approach applying Brooks parsimony analysis to the topologies of nine additional taxa. Phylogenetic analysis, nested clade analysis, and AMOVAs for S. castaneus agree that there is a major lineage break between the eastern and western Transverse Ranges, localized between the Sierra Pelona and the San Gabriel Mountains. The comparative phylogeographic analysis supports a generally strong concordance of area relationships with geographic proximity. It is notable, however, that the Transverse Ranges as a group do not show phylogenetic cohesion, but rather they are split into three main regions: an eastern region (San Gabriel, San Bernardino, and San Jacinto Mountains), a central region (central Transverse Ranges and Sierra Pelona) that is often grouped with the Tehachapi and Sierra Nevada populations, and a western region (northwestern Transverse Ranges and Santa Ynez Mountains) that is consistently grouped with coast range areas to the north. The lineage break between east and west Transverse Ranges is attributable to the presence of a marine embayment in what is now the Santa Clara River valley 5–2.5 million years ago.


This paper presents results of a study carried out to evaluate the effects of an organomodified nanoclay, either on its own or in combination with a polyimide, upon the fire performance of a commercially available nylon. The fire performance, as determined using cone calorimetry showed that up to 40% improvement in the peak heat release rate could be achieved at addition levels of only around 5wt% of nanoclay. The level of improvement was shown to be strongly dependent upon nanoscale dispersion with a more highly exfoliated morphology, as determined using transmission electron microscopy, which showed a greater reduction in the peak heat release rate compared to a more ordered intercalated structure. Investigation of the mechanism of fire retardancy showed that the reduction in the heat release rate is due to the nanoclay reinforcing the char layer which prevented combustible products from entering in to the gaseous phase. Generally, though, the time to ignition is unaffected by nanoclay additions. The addition of the polyimide to the nanoclay reinforced nylon was inconclusive showing little evidence of further improvements in fire performance.


In sparse recovery from measurement data a common approach is to use greedy pursuit reconstruction algorithms. Most of these algorithms have a correlation filter for detecting active components in the sparse data. In this paper, we show how modifications can be made for the greedy pursuit algorithms so that they use beamformers instead of the standard correlation filter. Using these beamformers, improved performance in the algorithms is obtained. In particular, we discuss beamformers for the average and worst case scenario and give methods for constructing them.


Background Ankle sprain occurrence and functional performance deficits may be related in adolescent athletes however, there is limited research in this population. Objective To determine if ankle sprain occurrence is associated with functional performance test (FPT) deficits in an adolescent population. Design Cohort study. Setting Biomechanics laboratory. Participants Of 65 participants from a junior soccer club, 52 (30 male, 22 female; age = 15.7 ± 1.4 years; height = 163.3 ± 7.6 cm; body mass = 59.2 ± 8.5 kg; BMI% = 62.5 ± 23.4%) completed the study. Interventions A reliable rater measured FPTs including the Star Excursion Balance Test (SEBT) in the anterior (ANT), postero-medial (PM) and postero-lateral (PL) reach directions and the Single Leg Hop Test (SLHT) during summer inter-season training. Participants were monitored for ankle sprain occurrence over the 6-month competitive season via weekly communication from the coach to the researcher. Main outcome measurements The SEBT reach distances were normalised to leg length and SLHT times were calculated in seconds. An occurrence of ankle sprain was defined as an injury diagnosed by a medical provider for which the participant missed ≥1 full day of practice or competition. Point-biserial correlations were used to assess the relationship between FPTs and ankle sprain occurrence in the 6-month time frame (α = 0.05). T-tests were used to determine differences in FPTs scores between ankle sprain occurrence and uninjured groups (α = 0.05). Results Ankle sprains occurred for 12/52 (23%) participants. A significant relationship existed between PM reach (rpb = 0.29; p = 0.04), PL reach (rpb = 0.40; p < 0.01), and SLHT time (rpb = 0.39; p < 0.01) and ankle sprain occurrence. The injury occurrence group performed significantly worse on the PL (81.4 ± 15.9% vs 70.1 ± 17.3%; p = 0.04) and PM (71.1 ± 11.3% vs 60.2 ± 8.4%; p < 0.01) reach directions. Conclusions Moderate relationships were observed between the PM and PL reach distance scores, SLHT time and ankle sprain occurrence longitudinally. Functional performance test deficits may be indicative of future ankle sprain occurrence in an adolescent population.


River bed sand and gravel are utilized more than mountain materials due to their availability and closeness to the transit roads and sites of usage. Excessive and non-technical extraction of gravel and sand bring a kind of interference in them, leading to many negative consequences. Therefore, presenting solutions to reduce these impacts and infilling mining pits are essential. In this research work, through an experimental work, locating two consequent river bed mining pits in the form of the distance between them and also their distance from the walls for the purpose of infilling and extraction management was investigated. The results obtained showed that movement of the downstream pit did not significantly affect the infilling volume and migration of the upstream pit but by movement of the pit towards the wall, the infilling volume of the upstream pit was reduced by up to 25% compared to the channel center. Concerning the downstream pit, the impact of the distance between pits depended on their distance from the wall so that if the pit was close to the channel center, the infilling volume was increased, and if it was located close to the wall, the infilling volume was increased up to a distance equal to 9 times the flow depth, and after that the infilling was reduced. In case the pits were excavated towards the channel center and the downstream pit was excavated at a distance equal to 12 times the flow depth, the best state of infilling and pit migration did occur.


Purpose: To assess the quality of cone beam computed tomography images obtained by a robotic arm-based and image-guided small animal conformal radiation therapy device. Method and Materials: The small animal conformal radiation therapy device is equipped with a 40 to 225 kV X-ray tube mounted on a custom made gantry, a 1024 × 1024 pixels flat panel detector (200 μm resolution), a programmable 6 degrees of freedom robot for cone beam computed tomography imaging and conformal delivery of radiation doses. A series of 2-dimensional radiographic projection images were recorded in cone beam mode by placing and rotating microcomputed tomography phantoms on the "palm' of the robotic arm. Reconstructed images were studied for image quality (spatial resolution, image uniformity, computed tomography number linearity, voxel noise, and artifacts). Results: Geometric accuracy was measured to be 2% corresponding to 0.7 mm accuracy on a Shelley microcomputed tomography QA phantom. Qualitative resolution of reconstructed axial computed tomography slices using the resolution coils was within 200 μm. Quantitative spatial resolution was found to be 3.16 lp/mm. Uniformity of the system was measured within 34 Hounsfield unit on a QRM microcomputed tomography water phantom. Computed tomography numbers measured using the linearity plate were linear with material density (R 2 > 0.995). Cone beam computed tomography images of the QRM multidisk phantom had minimal artifacts. Conclusion: Results showed that the small animal conformal radiation therapy device is capable of producing high-quality cone beam computed tomography images for precise and conformal small animal dose delivery. With its high-caliber imaging capabilities, the small animal conformal radiation therapy device is a powerful tool for small animal research.


Background: Implementing national recommendations for syphilis screening is not feasible in the emergency department (ED) setting. The purpose of this study was to determine the syphilis screening rate among ED patients tested for gonorrhea and chlamydia (GC/CT) and the syphilis prevalence among those who were tested. Methods: A 1-year retrospective cohort study in an urban ED. At the time of this study, there were no explicit syphilis screening guidelines and testing was at the discretion of the treating physician. We determined the proportion of all GC/CT-tested patients who also underwent syphilis screening and the prevalence of syphilis among this group. Predictors of syphilis screening among patients tested for GC/CT were identified. Results: GC/CT tests were performed in 3951 (4.7%) of the 83,988 ED visits, of which 332 (8.4%) were reactive. The mean age of GC/CT-tested patients was 22.6 ± 12 years, most were female (67%), black (47%), and English speaking (74%). Syphilis screening was completed in 1218 (31%) of the GC/CT-tested patients, 17 tests (1.4%) were reactive, which included 8 (0.7%) unique patients with newly diagnosed syphilis. In multivariable analysis, the following variables were predictive of syphilis screening: empirical GC/CT treatment (odds ratio [OR]: 1.9, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.6–2.3), evaluation in the low acuity section of the ED (OR: 1.8, 95% CI: 1.4–2.3), a reactive GC/CT test (OR: 1.3, 95% CI: 1.0–1.6), and age ⩽25 years (OR: 1.2, 95% CI: 1.0–1.4). Conclusion: Among ED patients tested for GC/CT, less than one-third were screened for syphilis. Failure to screen these patients likely resulted in missed opportunities for syphilis diagnosis.


Highly oxidized gold nanoparticles prepared by RF-discharge under an oxygen atmosphere were studied by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy depending on the particle size. A surface-like gold oxide was found in the case of small nanoparticles (1–2 nm) obtained at the first steps of deposition. With an increase of the particle size up to 5 nm, a bulklike gold oxide was formed. The O 1s spectra exhibited an oxygen peak at binding energy Eb = 529.4 eV for the surface-like oxide and Eb = 530.7 eV for the bulklike gold-oxide. The reaction probability of oxidized gold nanoparticles was examined in the reaction of CO oxidation at room temperature. The surface-like gold oxide interacted with CO with a high reaction probability of approximately 0.005, while CO interaction with the bulklike oxide was characterized by an induction period with lower reaction probability (0.001). The mechanisms of the interaction of oxidized gold nanoparticles with CO depending on its size are discussed.


This paper proceeds from the assumption that climate change has both natural and human (that is , anthropogenic) causes. It argues that the interaction of these two major sources are inextricable. It also notes that although more than eighty percent of the human causes of adverse climate change are attributed to de velopment activities undertaken by the advanced industrial nations, almost eighty five percent of the negative consequences of climate change are pitiably borne by the developing countries of the world. It points to the looming pre - eminence of neo - liberal development perspective as lying at the roots of the rapidly degenerating integrity of the planet earth. The paper therefore locates the solution to this menace in autonomous development strategies, which are environment friendly. This demands proactive policy measures which are synergetic - that is, in addition to global and regional networks, an inter - ministry , inter - agency and inter - departmental approach, since the phenomenon of climate change is sectorally cross cutting.


OBJECTIVE
The aim: This article aims to analyze the rates of suicide as an indicator of public mental health, to consider the suicidal map of the territory of Ukraine (including to check the manifestation of such a territorial characteristic as the Albanian paradox); calculate the price of suicide for the socio-economic development of the Ukrainian state, consider the risks of suicide that have arisen as social and criminological consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Materials and methods: The study is based on the analytical materials of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and the WHO; the information and analytical data of the GeneralProsecutor's Office of Ukraine, the State Statistics Service of Ukraine and sectoral statistics for the period of 2015-2019, etc. The article is based on dialectical, analytical, synthetic, comparative, statistical, cartographic, and sociological methods of research and the method of potential demography. The theoretical basis of the article is specialized literature on medicine, suicidology, law, sociology, and cartography.

RESULTS
Results: In Ukraine, the death rate from suicide in recent years averages 1.1% of the total number of deaths. The rate of suicide decline in Ukraine has slowed significantly over the past five years, which is an alarming symptom. There are almost strict proportions between male and female suicide (men commit four out of five suicides). The level of self-harm per 100,000 population of Ukraine remains almost stable, indicating a severe demographic crisis in Ukraine. Women in Ukraine are less likely to commit suicide than in European countries. In Ukraine in recent years, contrary to European trends, suicide has dominated among the elderly aged 65+. The number of years of potential life loss for male and female suicides in Ukraine is 103 thousand, and the number of working years is almost 100 thousand. The losses for Ukraine from the unlived life of those who died as a result of suicide in 2019 are almost USD 341 billion.

CONCLUSION
Conclusions: In 2019, suicides accounted for almost 21% of deaths from external causes among Ukraine's population. The most intense suicidal situation is observed in the central part of the country's geographical map along the imaginary vertical axis "North-South" (Kherson, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhia, Kirovohrad, Sumy, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv regions). During the COVID-19 pandemic, many additional factors increase the risk of suicide among individuals who are at heightened risk of suicide or are actively suicidal, and among the general population.


Abstract The necessity for creative problem solving skills within the sciences and engineering are highlighted in benchmark and policy statements as essential abilities. None of these statements, however, offer any guidance on how these skills might be fostered, let alone assessed. This paper presents findings from the second cycle of an action research project to develop a dedicated creative problem solving module for first year engineering undergraduates. In the module problem based learning (PBL) techniques have been used with Lego Mindstorm NXT robots to develop creative problem solving skills. The focus of the module has been on developing process skills as opposed to the simple methodical solving of routine problems. Process skills have been introduced and mediated by the use of reusable learning objects (RLOs) within a virtual learning environment (VLE). Separate RLOs have also been used to develop skills in using the robots. The action research cycle has been informed by a parallel project involving interviews designed to explore the perceptions of students, academics and professional engineers of creative problem solving. Phenomenography has been used as the main research tool. Student feedback through online questionnaires, focus groups, classroom-based observation and interviews indicates that the module, and its means of delivery, has proven successful in improving creative problem solving skills. It also highlights the value of developing process skills within a practical and motivational environment.


HSDPA (high speed downlink packet access) is an enhancement to WCDMA that delivers a high-performance cellular-data capability. It is introduced into 3GPP as an evolution of WCDMA to handle a wide variety of multimedia services with different QoS requirements. In 3GPP specifications, there are three typical UMTS service classes, streaming, interactive and background, which can be transported over HSDPA. The most popular application of packet-switched streaming services, video streaming, is studied, and the traffic characteristics of such a service transported over HSDPA are analyzed. When a video sequence is coming, NodeB should decide how to choose the HS-DSCH (high-speed downlink shared channel) transport mode, i.e. codes, modulation and transport block size, depending, to some extent, on the traffic characteristics of this service delivered on the selected transport mode. Some answers are proposed, including the principles of choosing TBS, codes and modulation, delay and bandwidth requirement calculation, FER requirement guarantee, and so on. With these analysis results, the comparison of two transmission strategies, i.e. using a guaranteed number of codes and using the maximal number of codes, are presented. The simulations also identify these results and give the suggestion of channel bandwidth redundancy.


Previous studies have identified a reliable relation between the quantity of food ingested and ruminating in profoundly retarded individuals and have established some parametric characteristics of this relation. The present study investigated three different properties of food that may influence this relation. Experiment 1 examined the role of stomach distention produced by including in the subject's diet wheat bran in amounts equivalent to and exceeding the calculated amount of crude fiber in the starch-satiation diet reported by Rast, Johnston, Drum, and Conrin (1981) and Rast, Johnston, and Drum (1984). There was a decrease in ruminating, although this decrease was smaller and more gradual than in the starch-satiation condition. Experiment 2 showed that increasing calories without increasing food volume resulted in a gradual and moderate decrease in ruminating. Experiment 3 replicated and extended the first two experiments by varying both caloric intake and stomach distention as well as oropharyngeal and esophageal stimulation in a different sequence of conditions. All variables exerted some control over responding. However, the large and immediate effects of the starch-satiation procedure occurred only when subjects were permitted to consume unlimited quantities.


Poly(A-T)-rich sequences have been applied as stems of DNA dumbbell tiles for construction of single crystalline 2D DNA lattice arrays in slightly acidic solutions. These arrays show much higher stability and better organised crystalline lattice structures than those assembled from DNA dumbbell tiles with randomly sequenced stems in slightly alkaline environments. DNA nanotechnology probably provides a useful platform to study the mechanical properties of DNA duplexes with specific sequences.


Background Carotid intima media thickness (CIMT) and the presence of carotid plaque have been used for risk stratification of cardiovascular disease (CVD). To date, however, the association between multi-directional functional properties of carotid artery and CVD has not been fully elucidated. We sought to explore the multi-directional mechanics of the carotid artery in relation to cardiovascular risk. Methods Four hundred one patients who underwent carotid ultrasound were enrolled between January 2010 and April 2013. A high risk of CVD was defined as more than 20% of 10-year risk based on the Framingham risk score. Using a speckle-tracking technique, the longitudinal and radial movements were analyzed in the B-mode images. Peak longitudinal and radial displacements, strain and strain rate were also measured. Beta stiffness and elastic modulus index were calculated from the radial measurements. Results Of the overall sample, 13% (52) of patients comprised the high-risk group. In multivariate logistic regression, CIMT and elastic modulus index were independently associated with a high-risk of CVD {odds ratio (OR): 1.810 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.249–2.622] and OR: 1.767 (95% CI: 1.177–2.652); p = 0.002, 0.006, respectively}. The combination of CIMT and elastic modulus index correlated with a high-risk of CVD more so than CIMT alone. Conclusion The elastic modulus index of the carotid artery might serve as a novel surrogate marker of high-risk CVD. Measurement of the multi-directional mechanics of the carotid artery using the speckle tracking technique has potential for providing further information over conventional B-mode ultrasound for stratification of CVD risk.


The study attempts to identify a potentially reliable supervised learning technique for predicting the outcomes of mortality in an altered state of consciousness (ASC) patients. ASC is a state distinguished from ordinary waking consciousness, which is a common phenomenon in the Emergency Department (ED). Thirty (30) distinctive attributes or features are commonly used to recognize ASC. The study accordingly applied these features to model the prediction of mortality in ASC patients. Supervised learning techniques are found to be suitable for such classification problems. Consequently, the study compared five supervised learning techniques that are commonly applied to evaluate the risk of mortality using health-related datasets, namely Decision Tree, Neural Network, Random Forest, Naive Bayes, and Logistic Regression. The labeled dataset comprised patient records captured by the Universiti Sains Malaysia hospital's Emergency Medicine department from June to November 2008. The cleaned dataset was divided into two parts. The larger part was used for training and the smaller part, for evaluation. Since the ratio between training and testing samples varies between individual supervised learning techniques, we studied the performance of the modeled techniques by also varying the proportion of the training data to the dataset. We applied four percentage splits; 66%, 75%, 80%, and 90% to allow for 3-, 4-, 5- and 10-fold cross-validation experiments to evaluate the accuracy of the analyzed techniques. The variation helped to lessen the chance of over fitting, and averaged the effects of various conditions on accuracy. The experiments were conducted in the WEKA environment. The results indicated that Random Forest is the most reliable technique to model for predicting the mortality in ASC patients with acceptable accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of 70.9%, 76.3%, and 65.5%, respectively. The results are further confirmed by SROC analysis. The findings of the study serve as a fundamental step towards a comprehensive study in the future.


The circular sensing model has been widely used to estimate performance of sensing applications in existing analyses and simulations. While this model provides valuable high-level guidelines, the quantitative results obtained may not reflect the true performance of these applications, due to the sensing irregularity introduced by existence of obstacles in real deployment areas and insufficient hardware calibration. In this paper, we design and implement two sensing area modeling (SAM) techniques useful in the real world. They complement each other in the design space. Physical sensing area modeling (P-SAM) provides accurate physical sensing area for individual nodes using controlled or monitored events, while virtual sensing area modeling (V-SAM) provides continuous sensing similarity between nodes using natural events in an environment. With these two models, we pioneer an investigation of the impact of sensing irregularity on application performance, such as coverage scheduling. We evaluate SAM extensively in real-world settings, using testbeds consisting of 14 XSM motes. To study the performance at scale, we also provide an extensive 1,400-node simulation. Evaluation results reveal several serious issues concerning circular models and demonstrate significant improvements in several applications when SAM is used instead.


Jupyter notebook allows data scientists to write machine learning code together with its documentation in cells. In this paper, we propose a new task of code documentation generation (CDG) for computational notebooks. In contrast to the previous CDG tasks which focus on generating documentation for single code snippets, in a computational notebook, one documentation in a markdown cell often corresponds to multiple code cells, and these code cells have an inherent structure. We proposed a new model (HAConvGNN) that uses a hierarchical attention mechanism to consider the relevant code cells and the relevant code tokens information when generating the documentation. Tested on a new corpus constructed from well-documented Kaggle notebooks, we show that our model outperforms other baseline models.


The 80-kb plasmid pSDL2 of Salmonella dublin Lane is essential for lethal systemic infection in experimental mice. A cluster of five plasmid genes, designated spvR, spvA, spvB, spvC, and spvD, is sufficient to express the plasmid-related virulent phenotype. The spvR gene product has recently been identified as a positive regulator of spvB expression in the stationary phase of bacterial growth (F. C. Fang, M. Krause, C. Roudier, J. Fierer, and D. G. Guiney, J. Bacteriol. 173:6783-6789, 1991). In this study, we evaluated the role of SpvR in the transcription of the downstream virulence genes spvABCD. Analysis of mRNA synthesis revealed that SpvR promotes transcription of the downstream spvABCD genes in the stationary growth phase. Transcript mapping of the spv region demonstrated an unusual operon structure involving messages for spvA, spvAB, spvABC, and spvABCD. Quantitative measurement of transcription and of gene expression by use of translational spv-lacZ fusions suggested that SpvA, SpvB, SpvC, and SpvD are produced in decreasing abundance. Primer extension assays identified two transcriptional start sites 70 and 98 bp upstream of the start codon of spvA, but none upstream of spvB, spvC, or spvD. Deletion of a 320-bp EcoRI-ApaI segment that contains both start sites abolished expression of the downstream spvB and spvC genes. Our results establish a central function of SpvR as a positive regulator of the downstream spvABCD genes in the stationary phase of bacterial growth and indicate that the primary mechanism of regulation is by activation of promoters upstream of spvA.


This study determined the plutonium particle size distribution and dissolution rate of PuO2 aerosol collected during the 16 March 2000 release of an undetermined amount of PuO2 in a room within a plutonium facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The facility has been in operation since 1978 to support the development, fabrication, and testing of Pu heat sources for the U.S. Department of Energy. Several workers were in the room at the time of the release and in vivo study of five of the workers began the day after the exposure event. Four of the subjects subsequently received chelation therapy. Over 30 fixed air filter samplers (FASs) and four continuous air monitors (CAMs) were operating in the room during the radiological release. One 47-mm-diameter glass fiber FAS filter and one 25-cm-diameter mixed cellulose ester CAM filter containing Pu aerosol from the incident were examined in the study described here. Total alpha radioactivity on the filters was determined by gross alpha counting. Isotopic identification of the Pu was made by alpha spectrometry. Film autoradiography was used to characterize the spatial distribution of alpha-emitting particles on the filters. Track-etch autoradiography was used to estimate the distribution of alpha radioactivity in individual plutonium particles on the filters for particle size measurement. The glass fiber filter was then cut into six sections. Particles from two sections were resuspended in alcohol, dispersed as an aerosol using a Lovelace nebulizer, and characterized by aerodynamic diameter using a Lovelace Multi-jet cascade impactor. The measured activity median aerodynamic diameter from the cascade impactor was 4.8 mum with a geometric standard deviation of 1.5. That agreed with the size distribution obtained from the alpha track detection technique. The remaining four filter sections were used in an in vitro dissolution study with synthetic serum ultrafiltrate. The retention of undissolved Pu was consistent with a biphasic exponential function. The majority of the Pu dissolved with a half-time of 900 d. The information on particle size distribution and solubility from this study was useful in assigning a radiation dose to the exposed workers, supporting the decision to administer chelation therapy, and providing a model for characterizing accident-associated aerosols in the future.


OBJECTIVES
To compare available nomograms in the literature defining trends in bilirubin levels across populations with different risk factor profiles and to study a mathematical bilirubin kinetics model describing the natural course of jaundice and the bilirubin rate of rise needed to cross percentile curves.

DATA SOURCES
We searched PubMed for publications between March 1999 and March 2009 that created transcutaneous nomograms. We performed the same search among abstracts presented in the past 2 years at meetings of the Pediatric Academic Societies or the European Society for Paediatric Research.

STUDY SELECTION
Inclusion criteria were gestational age of at least 35 weeks among study subjects, the use of an electronic transcutaneous bilirubinometer, and creation of a nomogram based on hour-specific bilirubin values. Four articles met the selection criteria.

DATA EXTRACTION
Jaundice risk factors were analyzed, and raw data were analyzed using nonlinear regression to describe trends in bilirubin levels and kinetics. The bilirubin exaggerated rate of rise needed to cross percentile curves was calculated.

DATA SYNTHESIS
Significant differences in bilirubin values exist across populations, and there is substantial variability in rates of rise. Hispanic neonates demonstrate higher rates of rise and later plateaus. Bilirubin rates of rise tend to plateau and become null (equilibrium between bilirubin production and elimination) at about 96 hours of life. Rates of rise needed to cross percentile curves decrease over time but are lower (approximately 0.11 mg/dL/h [to convert bilirubin level to micromoles per liter, multiply by 17.104]) in the first 48 hours of life than previously thought.

CONCLUSIONS
Transcutaneous bilirubin levels plateau and then decrease after about 96 hours of life in healthy neonates, with some differences across populations. A bilirubin rate of rise higher than in the previous period implies that bilirubin production exceeds elimination and indicates high risk for subsequent hyperbilirubinemia in neonates.


Herein, a vertical finger-like asymmetric supercapacitor (VFASC) comprising a reduced graphene oxide–manganese dioxide–polypyrrole (RGO–MnO2–PPy) positive electrode and reduced graphene oxide–molybdenum trioxide (RGO–MoO3) negative electrode was fabricated for the first time. The relationship between specific capacitance and mass loading of the VFASC was systematically studied. To our surprise, contrary to the general problem faced by supercapacitors, the specific capacitance of VFASC increased with an increase in the mass loading of the electrode. Furthermore, as the VFASC supplied a potential and MoO3 guaranteed photodetection capacity, the VFASC also acted as a photodetector with excellent sensitivity for the detection of white light without the use of additional external connected systems. This study presents an essential strategy for the preparation of high performance supercapacitors with high mass loading, low production cost, energy efficiency, space saving and simple integrated photodetection systems.


Coordination and collaboration are naturally used by groups for carrying out activities and solving problems that require cooperation. However, getting a set of computer agents to do that same has been a problem -- primarily addressed by the AI community and recently by the database community as workflow and process management problems (e.g. in business processes, electronic commerce, logistics). Not surprisingly, the problem has been addressed at different levels of abstraction by the two communities. Coordination protocols (both static and dynamic) as well as task and result sharing have been investigated by the AI community; system level support as well as specification and execution of relaxed notions of transaction (sometimes termed an activity) have been addressed by the database community. It is evident that combining the two will provide an effective unified solution for a class of problems that require cooperation. This paper classifies problems addressed in the AI and database literature according to degree of coordination and collaboration. It reports on work done by the authors in utilising the reactive paradigm to synthesize, from the yechniques in these areas, a common framework for the support of multi-agent problem solving, workflow, and process management. In addition to resolving the terminology used by different groups, task sharing is used to demonstrate the approach described. It is accomplished by creating either static or dynamic plans that are coordinated by ECA rules -- both pre-defined and dynamically created. The paper details the applicability of ECA rules in this domain, their adequacy, and a prototype implementation.


: In this paper the treatment of left abomasal displacement in cattle is discussed. Special attention is paid to the different surgical methods. Each method has advantages and disadvantages that, together with economical aspects, should be considered when choosing the approach to be used.


The ventral nerve cord (VNC) of Drosophila exhibits significant segmental-specific characteristics during embryonic development. Homeotic genes are expressed over long periods of time and confer identity to the different segments. castor (cas) is one of the genes which are expressed in neuroblasts along the VNC. However, at late embryonic stages, cas transcripts are found only in head and thoracic segments and terminal abdominal segments, while Cas protein lasts longer in all segments. In this study, we investigated the regulation of temporal and spatial expression of cas by the bithorax complex genes. In the loss-of-function mutants of Ultrabithorax (Ubx) and abdominal-A (abdA), cas transcripts were ectopically expressed in abdominal segments at late embryonic stage. However, unlike in Ubx and abdA mutants, in Abdominal-B (AbdB) loss-of-function mutant embryos, cas disappeared in the terminal region. Ectopic Ubx and abdA suppressed cas expression, but ectopic AbdB activated cas expression in most abdominal segments. Moreover, cas was co-expressed in the cells in which AbdB was normally expressed, and overexpressed in the ectopically expressed AbdB embryos. These results suggest that the expression of cas is segment-specifically regulated negatively by Ubx and abdA genes, but positively by the AbdB gene.


Introduction: In recent studies, MRIs have shown to be of value for evaluating the osteological maturation of different skeletal areas. However, numerous limitations exist regarding reproducibility and comparison of these studies and available information concerning the development of the distal end of the femur is limited. One of the largest issues with these studies is the lack of methodology in relation to identifying where and on which slice of the MRI maturation is happening and how this compares to other MRIs.Aims: This study aims to develop a new method for the analysis of T1 weighted Magnetic Resonance Images (MRIs) in the coronal plane that can be used to visualise, describe and compare the osteological maturation of the distal end of the femur.Material & methods: The T1 weighted MRIs used for this study were acquired using a 1.5 T scanner, with a slice thickness of 3mm, TE: 10-12 and TR: 466-553. MRIs were accessed from the radiology department of Ninewells hospital in Dundee (Scotland)through the Pictures Archiving and Communication System (PACS) and included both male and female individuals with an age between 10 and 20 years. To develop the new method, all slices in each MRI set were taken into consideration at all times, and the MRIs used included individuals from both sexes and from all age groups. Initially, 37 MRIs were ordered and analysed youngest to oldest, and the main morphological changes within the growth plate were recorded. The morphological changes observed were then classified into different stages which took into account the morphology of metaphyseal end plate and epiphyseal plate, signal intensity of the growth plate, presence/absence of bone bridges and presence/absence of an epiphyseal scar. The classification system was applied to 30 further MRIs and 7 final stages were determined. For each stage, an image, a drawing and a written description is provided. To apply this new classification method, in each slice within each set of MRI, the distal epiphysis of the femur has to be divided into nine equal sections that are kept constant in width in all slices. Section width is determined using the MRI slice where the distal femoral epiphysis is the widest, in the coronal plane. Each section is then scored according to the classification system.Conclusion: These scoring and data collection systems allow the creation of a maturational map which is intuitive and provides a direct way to visualise and describe the osteological maturation of the distal end of the femur growth plate allowing comparison between individuals. This new classification system and the maturational map could be used to develop a new method for age assessment in the living individuals as the morphological changes observed at the growth plate can be related to chronological age.


Advanced CMOS processes need new methodologies to extract, characterize and model process variations and their sources. Most prior studies have focused on understanding the effect of local layout features on transistor performance; limited work has been done to characterize medium-range (≈ 10μm to 2mm) pattern density effects. We propose a new methodology to extract the radius of influence, or the range of neighboring layout that should be taken into account in determining transistor characteristics, for shallow trench isolation (STI) and polysilicon pattern density. A test chip, with 130k devices under test (DUTs) and step-like pattern density layout changes, is designed in 65nm bulk CMOS technology as a case study. The extraction result of the measured data suggests that the local layout geometry, within the DUT cell size of 6μm × 8μm, is the dominant contributor to systematic device variation. Across-die medium-range layout pattern densities are found to have a statistically significant and detectable effect, but this effect is small and contributes only 2-5% of the total variation in this technology.


This report details current seasonal influenza circulation patterns as of Feb 2018 and makes projections up to Feb 2019 to coincide with selection of the 2018-2019 Northern Hemisphere vaccine strain. This is not meant as a comprehensive report, but is instead intended as particular observations that we've made that may be of relevance. Please also note that observed patterns reflect the GISAID database and may not be entirely representative of underlying dynamics. All analyses are based on the nextflu pipeline [1] with continual updates posted to nextflu.org. A/H3N2: H3N2 diversity has largely been replaced by subclades A1b, A2 and A3 within 3c2.A. Subclades A1b and A2 predominate in the population and each shows increases in frequency, mutations at epitope sites and evidence for minor changes to antigenic phenotype. Clade A1b may be marginally fitter than clade A2, but we expect both clades to persist into the future without a clear immediate winner. A/H1N1pdm: A clade comprising mutations S74R, S164T and I295V has recently swept to fixation. The rapidity of this sweep suggests a selective origin. However, there is no evidence of antigenic change. B/Vic: Very little B/Vic activity has been observed in recent months. A clade with a two codon deletion at sites HA1:162/163 has gradually risen in frequency. HI measurements suggest an 8 to 16-fold titer drop relative to the vaccine strain, but this antigenic change has not yet resulted in a rapid rise of this variant. B/Yam: Europe experienced a strong and early B/Yam season in absence of amino acid variation in HA or antigenic diversity. However, several mutations in NA have rapidly swept or risen to intermediate frequencies.


New abscisic acid analogs possessing a cyano or methoxycarbonyl group at the 6'alpha-position of methyl abscisate were synthesized by regioselective hydrocyanation. These compounds had weak activity in the rice second leaf sheath elongation test.


Abstract In academic and popular debates about sexualisation, the "mainstreaming of sex in the West" is a common catchphrase. As noted by post-colonial and critical race scholars, categories such as "the West" remain powerful discursive ideas shaping how both researchers and researched border and construct race, difference, and sexuality. However, there is very little research that employs a post-colonial analysis of young people's negotiations of sexualised media, most particularly studies that elucidate how the oppositional frameworks of colonial discourse sets up normative and "othered" subjectivities. In order to address this gap, I turn to Stuart Hall's classic paper The West and the Rest to reflect on a project undertaken in South Australia with young people from a broad range of cultural backgrounds. In a fascinating set of reflections, the young people present a powerful set of challenges to the binary of the West and the Rest through their narratives on sexualised media. Taken together, these complex and sometimes contradictory narratives remind us of the problems associated with talking in generalised and universalising ways about "sexualisation in the West."


Self-sufficiency in food production can be guaranteed when agriculture is practiced on the basis of reasonable policy and optimal system. In doing so, the possibility of
securing food production becomes possible in sub-SaharanAfrica. In this regard cooperatives have played a significant role. The present food production system in many
sub-Saharan African countries is such that much of the food supply is produced by the small-scale farmers owning less than 5 hectares of arable land and with 75 percent or moreowning less than one hectare. Obviously this is a strong reason for the creation of poverty to which attention should be drawn to. Farmer controlled cooperatives can assist poor farmers in strengthening their position in the food chain.
In addition to the present agricultural crisis prevalent and the foreseeable danger of undernourishment in sub-Saharan Africa, from where the small-scale farmers suffer the most the other major problem is the fact that sub-Saharan African economies still exhibit economic characteristics inherited from the colonial era which still continues to influence the lives of the small-scale farmers. This situation might take time to shift the whole economic structure.
One way to explain further the above issue is by looking into the two main agricultural production lines; 1) food crop production and 2) cash crop production. In general,
food crops are produced by the small-scale farmers on little land in remote areas for home consumption and marketing purposes. On the other hand, cash crops are export
commodities, which through trading fetch earnings more than the food crops. Thus,income distribution of the cash crops among the small-scale farmers is minimal, even
if they are engaged in producing them as portfolio entrepreneurs. Instead, since the cash crops earn export revenues, they are the backbone of state budgets for the
producing countries. Another problem related to cash crops is that the prices are low in real terms in world market which can be the cause of economic crisis at the state
level. Certainly, this is one of the determinant factors of the future of the small-scale farmers in sub-Saharan and the challenge to the problem of food security in sub-
Saharan Africa. Agriculture and rural development become sustainable when they are economically viable and evenly distributed.
Thus, co-operatives can play a significant role in the promotion of food security policy in sub-Saharan Africa if they are rooted in communities and respond to their members
and the interests of those communities (Tenaw, 2008).


Hydroxyurea is an inhibitor of ribonucleotide reductase and is specifically directed at the non-heme iron subunit (which contains the free radical) of this enzyme. Leukemia L1210 cells, grown in the presence of increasing concentrations of hydroxyurea, developed resistance to hydroxyurea. For hydroxyurea, the wild-type L1210 cells required a drug concentration of 85 microM to inhibit cell growth by 50%, and the hydroxyurea-resistant (HU-7-S7) cells required a concentration of approximately 2000 microM. The resistant L1210 cells were cross-resistant to 2,3-dihydro-1H-pyrazolo[2,3-a]imidazole/Desferal. However, these HU-7-S7 cells remained sensitive to 4-methyl-5-amino-1-formylisoquinoline thiosemicarbazone and 1-isoquinolylmethylene-N-hydroxy-N'-amino-guanidine tosylate (inhibitors directed at the same subunit as hydroxyurea). The HU-7-S7 cells retained their sensitivity to deoxyadenosine/erythro-9-(2-hydroxy-3-nonyl)adenine and deoxyguanosine/8-amino-guanosine (inhibitors directed at the effector-binding subunit of ribonucleotide reductase). The L1210 cells developed for resistance to hydroxyurea were sensitive to the non-ribonucleotide reductase inhibitors, methotrexate and 1-beta-D-arabinofuranosylcytosine. Ribonucleotide reductase activity was elevated in the HU-7-S7 cells (CDP reductase, 5.5-fold increase; ADP reductase, 13.2-fold increase). The addition of exogenous effector-binding subunit caused much greater stimulation of reductase activities in the extracts from the resistant cells than from the wild-type cells. The reductase activity in cell-free extracts from the resistant cells was inhibited by hydroxyurea, 2,3-dihydro-1H-pyrazolo[2,3-a]imidazole and dATP to the same extent as the activity from the wild-type L1210 cells. These data indicate that resistance to hydroxyurea in these L1210 cells is to some extent related to increased reductase activity. However, the specificity of resistance of these L1210 cells to inhibitors of ribonucleotide reductase depends on the nature of the inhibitor and the subunit at which the inhibitor is directed.


When a classical conservation law is broken by quantum corrections, the associated symmetry is said to be anomalous. This type of symmetry breaking can lead to interesting physics. For instance in strong interactions, the anomaly in the chiral current is important in the pion decay to two photons. In weak interactions, there is an anomaly in the baryon number current. Although anomalous baryon number violating transitions are strongly suppressed at small energies, they could be at the origin of the baryon asymmetry of the universe. In this thesis, we consider several issues related to the theoretical and phenomenological aspects of anomalies. Although our main aim is the study of the electroweak theory, most of the theoretical questions do not rely on its precise setup. In order to solve these problems, we design a 1+1 dimensional chiral Abelian Higgs model displaying similar nonperturbative physics as the electroweak theory and leading to many simplifications. This model contains sphaleron and instanton transitions and, as the electroweak theory, leads to anomalous fermion number nonconservation. The one-loop fermionic contribution to the probability of an instanton transition with fermion number violation is calculated in the chiral Abelian Higgs model where the fermions have a Yukawa coupling to the scalar field. These contributions are given by the determinant of the fermionic fluctuations. The dependence of the determinant on fermionic, scalar and vector mass is determined. We also show in detail how to renormalize the fermionic determinant in partial wave analysis. The 1+1 dimensional model has the remarkable property to enable the creation of an odd number of fractionally charged fermions. We point out that for 1+1 dimensions this process does not violate any symmetries of the theory, nor does it lead to any mathematical inconsistencies. We construct the proper definition of the fermionic determinant in this model and underline its non-trivial features that are of importance for realistic 3+1 dimensional models with fermion number violation. In theories with anomalous fermion number nonconservation, the level crossing picture is considered a faithful representation of the fermionic quantum number variation. It represents each created fermion by an energy level that crosses the zero-energy line from below. If several fermions of various masses are created, the level crossing picture contains several levels that cross the zero-energy line and cross each other. However, we know from quantum mechanics that the corresponding levels cannot cross if the different fermions are mixed via some interaction potential. The simultaneous application of these two requirements on the level behavior leads to paradoxes. For instance, a naive interpretation of the resulting level crossing picture gives rise to charge nonconservation. We resolve this paradox by a precise calculation of the transition probability, and discuss what are the implications for the electroweak theory. In particular, the nonperturbative transition probability is higher if top quarks are present in the initial state. Coming back to the electroweak theory, we point out that the results of many baryogenesis scenarios operating at or below the TeV scale are rather sensitive to the rate of anomalous fermion number violation across the electroweak crossover. Assuming the validity of the Standard Model of electroweak interactions, we estimate this rate for experimentally allowed values of the Higgs mass (mH = 100…300 GeV). We also discuss where the rate enters in the particle density evolution and how to compute the leading baryonic asymmetry.


An important task of public health officials is to keep track of spreading epidemics, and the locations and speed with which they appear. Furthermore, there is interest in understanding how concerned the population is about a disease outbreak. Twitter can serve as an important data source to provide this information in real time. In this paper, we focus on sentiment classification of Twitter messages to measure the Degree of Concern (DOC) of the Twitter users. In order to achieve this goal, we develop a novel two-step sentiment classification workflow to automatically identify personal tweets and negative tweets. Based on this workflow, we present an Epidemic Sentiment Monitoring System (ESMOS) that provides tools for visualizing Twitter users' concern towards different diseases. The visual concern map and chart in ESMOS can help public health officials to identify the progression and peaks of concern for a disease in space and time, so that appropriate preventive actions can be taken. The DOC measure is based on the sentiment-based classifications. We compare clue-based and different Machine Learning methods to classify sentiments of Twitter users regarding diseases, first into personal and neutral tweets and then into negative from neutral personal tweets. In our experiments, Multinomial Naïve Bayes achieved overall the best results and took significantly less time to build the classifier than other methods.


The abuse of women has reached epidemic proportions. There are an estimated 12 million abused women in the United States. Reported cases of abuse, however, range from 2 to 4 million. Less than 15% of these women ever seek medical care. Of women who do seek care, an estimated 75% use the emergency department, often presenting with complaints not readily suggestive of abuse. Reports indicate, however, that emergency departments consistently identify less than 10% of all abuse cases. In 1991 and 1992, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations established standards for emergency departments to develop policies and procedures for the identification, treatment, and referral of female and elderly victims of abuse. Virtually all emergency medicine professional societies have official policies to encourage development of protocols for abuse identification and management. The American Medical Association and the Department of Health and Human Services have likewise developed guidelines to help emergency departments achieve these national health care objectives. Currently, less than 50% of all emergency departments have established algorithms to address abused women who present to the emergency department for treatment. This article reviews current health policy, examines the impediments to the detection of abuse in the emergency department, and recommends mechanisms to enhance the awareness of abuse among emergency department personnel.


A search of the recently completed genomic database of rice (Oryza sativa) identified a 29-member xyloglucan endotransglucosylase/hydrolase (OsXTH) gene family. This first report of a complete XTH family from a monocotyledonous species reveals that the OsXTH family is comparable in size with that of the dicotyledon Arabidopsis thaliana, which consists of 33 AtXTH genes. This is surprising because xyloglucan, the specific substrate of XTHs, is considerably less abundant in cell walls of monocotyledons than dicotyledons and is not typically ascribed an important structural role in monocotyledons. As a first step toward determining the roles of rice XTHs, the expression patterns of all 29 OsXTH genes were examined using a quantitative DNA microarray procedure with gene-specific oligonucleotide probes. The analysis showed that most members of the rice XTH family exhibited organ- and growth stage-specific expression. This was confirmed by quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction analysis of representative OsXTH members. This revealed in more detail the temporally and spatially controlled expression profiles of individual OsXTH genes at particular sites in rice. Previous reports indicated that grasses have relatively greater xyloglucan endotransglucosylase activities, one of the two enzyme activities catalyzed by XTHs, than in equivalent tissues in dicotyledons. This observation, together with the tissue-specific and growth stage-dependent expression of a large rice XTH gene family, suggests that xyloglucan metabolism plays a more central role in monocotyledon cell wall restructuring than has been reported previously.


Manure allocation on large-scale confinement animal feeding operations is a complex management decision. This study assesses the cost effectiveness and the risk of P loss associated with various combinations of manure management options for a typical midsized dairy farm in New York State. The farm has 587 adult dairy cows (Bos taurus) and 430 young animals (1202 animal units). Fifty-three fields (26 cornfields and 27 pastures) ranging in size from 1 to 15 ha are available to receive livestock manure. Morgan's Soil Test P values range from 1.1 to 87.3 kg ha - 1 (mean of 20.1 kg ha - 1 ). Options included optimal allocation of manure in time and space, surface application, incorporation, and manure storage facilities of three-, six-, and eight-month storage capacities. The decision process considered nutrient management costs (manure handling and fertilization) and the New York State P Site Index (P Index) as an indicator of one of the environmental impacts of manure management. Mathematical programming techniques and utility functions are used to select the best combination of manure management practices. The results show a convergence indicating that the best management decision would be to follow a manure allocation scheme optimized in time and space, to have three months of manure storage capacity, and to surface-apply manure. Compared with current practices, the recommended combination of practices results in an approximate 45% reduction in the mean area-weighted P Index (64.2 vs. 36.1) for a cost increase of less than 2% ($146 573 vs. $148 821).