A NFE model is constructed to analyze the convective heat transfer steady thermal stress in a ZrO2/FGM/Ti-6Al-4V composite ECBF plate with temperature-dependent material properties. From numerical calculation, when , T0=300K, Ta=550K and Tb=1800K, the stress distributions in the plate were obtained. The results are as follows. With the increase of the FGM gradient layer thickness, the stress distribution in the composite plate is more reasonable. With the increase of M, the thermal stress change increases obviously in metal and ceramic layers, and the stress on the ceramic surface reduces. With the increase of porosity, the change of stress at the bonding interfaces increases, and the tensile stress on the surface of ceramics reaches the maximum. Compared with , when , the stress on the metal surface reduces by 25.1%, and the maximum compressive stress on the surface of ceramics increases about 1.2GPa. Compared with the nongraded two-layered ceramic/metal composite plate, the thermal stress of ZrO2/FGM/Ti-6Al -4V composite ECBF plate is very gentle. When we consider the temperature dependency of the material properties, the thermal stress in graded three-layered composite plate becomes small obviously. The results provide the foundations of theoretical calculation for the design and application of the composite plate.


The charge of complicity has been raised in debates over the ethics of fetal tissue transplantation and embryonic stem cell research. However, the applicability of the concept of complicity to these types of research is neither clear nor uncontroversial. This article discusses the historical case of Julius Hallervorden, a distinguished German neuropathologist who conducted research on brains of mentally handicapped patients killed in the context of the Nazi 'euthanasia' programme. It is argued that this case constitutes a paradigm of complicity in research that is useful in assessing complicity in contemporary research ethics.


Recent research has documented the high prevalence of having children with more than one partner termed "multipartnered fertility." Because childbearing is an important mechanism for building kin networks we theorize that multipartnered fertility will influence the availability of social support for mothers. Analyzing three waves of data from the Fragile Families study (N = 12132) we find that multipartnered fertility is negatively associated with the availability of instrumental support particularly financial support. Our longitudinal evidence suggests a bidirectional relationship in which multipartnered fertility reduces the availability of support and the availability of support inhibits multipartnered fertility. We conclude that smaller and denser kin networks seem to be superior to broader but weaker kin ties in terms of perceived instrumental support. (authors)


Background: Smartphone-based applications (apps) become increasingly popular when it comes to individual health. A link between these apps and occupational health can be seen as an innovative approach to raise motivation and participation in occupational health projects. The aim of our study is to investigate, how apps can be implemented in an occupational health project. Method: Two studies were conducted: First, 438 Austrian and German leaders were asked about their opinion of using apps in occupational health. Second, a pilot study was conducted in a medium-sized enterprise, where the process of including an app in an occupational health project was constantly evaluated. Findings: Among other results, study I shows that 33% of German and Austrian leaders would like to use an app in occupational health programs and see its main benefits in getting an instant feedback or advice. Study II shows the effects of the app in different phases of the project. Discussion: Our study can be seen as a first step in the direction of creating innovative occupational health projects with apps.


While the predominant focus of the rise of cyber Islamic environments has been on the West and the Middle East, this article is an exploratory study of the emergence of the Chinese Islamic websites. With the rapid proliferation and usage of new informational and communicative technologies and the Chinese government's relentless policy in regulating the internet, this article put the peculiar situations of Chinese cyber Islamic environments in the political background of China's rise. On a patriotic note of Aiguo Aijiao ("love one's country, love one's religion"), Chinese digital Islam has transformed into the negotiating space between state's sovereign boundary in countering against separatist movements and the Sino-Muslims' imagined realm for connecting to the ummah, the solidarity with the global Muslim brotherhood. By considering a Chinese Islamic website in response to the Danish Cartoon Affair as an example, this article considers Sino-Muslims have been appropriating the residual cyberspace for re-imagining the global ummah through the loyalty to the political project of national integration. In the concluding remarks, the article suggests the importance of the rise of Chinese language as a global soft power, the status of Islamic authority as well as the sovereignty dilemma China's Muslims face in the future research of Sino-cyber Islamic environments.


We propose an efficient method for estimating a time-mean state of an ocean model subject to given observations using implicit time-stepping. The new method uses (i) an implicit implementation of the 4D-Var method to fit the model trajectory to the observations, and (ii) a preprocessor which applies a multi-channel singular spectrum analysis to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio of the observational data and to filter out the high frequency variability. This approach enables one to estimate the time-mean model state using larger time-steps than is possible with an explicit model. The performance of the method is presented for two test cases within a barotropic quasi-geostrophic nonlinear model of the wind-driven double-gyre ocean circulation. The method turns out to be accurate and, in comparison with the time-mean state computed with an explicit version of the model, relatively cheap in computational cost.


Abstract A multiphase study was performed to find an effective method to evaluate electromagnetic field (EMF) sensitivity of patients. The first phase developed criteria for controlled testing using an environment low in chemical, particulate, and EMF pollution. Monitoring devices were used in an effort to ensure that extraneous EMF would not interfere with the tests. A second phase involved a single-blind challenge of 100 patients who complained of EMF sensitivity to a series of fields ranging from 0 to 5 MHz in frequency, plus 5 blank challenges. Twenty-five patients were found who were sensitive to the fields, but did not react to the blanks. These were compared in the third phase to 25 healthy naive volunteer controls. None of the volunteers reacted to any challenge, active or blank, but 16 of the EMF-sensitive patients (64%) had positive signs and symptoms scores, plus autonomic nervous system changes. In the fourth phase, the 16 EMF-sensitive patients wer rechallengd twice to the frequencies to which they were most sensitive during the previous challenge. The active frequency was found to be positive in 100% of the challenges, while all of the placebo tests were negative. We concluded that this study gives strong evidence that electromagnetic field sensitivity exists, and can be elicited under environmentally controlled conditions.


Alpha–Delta platelet storage pool deficiency (αδ SPD) is a rare inherited bleeding disorder affecting both males and females, occurring in families, as well as sporadically. Patient platelets in most cases are moderately deficient in both α granules and dense bodies. Only one patient has been severely deficient in both organelles. The present study is the first to document a severe decrease in both platelet α granules and dense bodies in four members in three generations of the same family. Efforts to differentiate this disorder from other hypogranular platelets syndromes in the present investigation suggested that the α granules and dense bodies become connected to channels of the open canalicular system (OCS) and lose their contents to the exterior without prior activation of the cells. In contrast, α granule formation in the white platelet syndrome is too slow, and cells leave the bone marrow still in the process of producing organelles. Gray platelet syndrome platelets can make α granules, but their enclosing membranes are unable to retain stored products. As a result, the organelles lose their contents to surrounding cytoplasm in megakaryocytes and platelets, not selectively through the demarcation system channels and OCS channels. Thus, the pathogenesis of αδ SPD is unique.


ABSTRACT This paper analyzes how in predictive policing, data 'make' criminal futures that can be subjected to crime prevention. In doing so, it shows that the production of specific accounts of the future is predicated on the data practices of police departments. Specifically, the analysis identifies two sets of data practices that play a key role in how predictive policing brings specific criminal futures into being and renders them amenable to crime prevention measures. The first one pertains to the production of crime data and draws attention to the digital devices and interfaces that co-constitute how criminal phenomena are recorded and classified. The second one relates to 'quality control', i.e. the corrections and updates that keep on transforming crime data even after their original production. Theoretically, the analysis builds on Law and Urry's concept of 'enactment' and substantiates how data-driven analytics perform fluid versions of social realities and simultaneously subject them to interventions. The conceptual lens of enactment allows us to understand how seemingly mundane activities such as producing reports from crime scenes and amending case files throughout an investigation are performative in the sense that they contribute to the making of crime forecasts and corresponding prevention measures. The criminal futures that the police target in an effort to render crime prevention more effective and efficient should thus be understood as contingent on the everyday practices of field officers and analysts.


BACKGROUND
Family members provide essential support for ICU patients, contributing to their mental and physical recovery. Empowering ICU patients' families may help them overcome inadequacies and meet their own and patients' acknowledged needs. Nursing should understand and address patients' families' empowerment status.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
To develop a tool, the Nurses' Empowerment Scale for Intensive Care Unit (ICU) Patients' Families (NESIPF), to help ICU nursing staff assess the empowerment status of patients' families.

DESIGN
Four-phase instrument development study.

METHODS
A 19-item instrument was initially generated based on literature review and interviews with family members of ICU patients. The Delphi research method was applied to gain expert opinion and consensus via rounds of questionnaires. A panel of 27 experts experienced in critical care medicine, nursing and psychology participated in two Delphi rounds and their input helped formulate an 18-item pretest instrument. Families of 20 patients were recruited to examine instrument readability. After a 2-week interval, another 20 patients' families were recruited to examine test-retest reliability. Two hundred questionnaires were then administered and analysed to examine the instrument's construct validity, criterion-related validity and internal consistency.

RESULTS
Expert authority coefficients of two Delphi rounds reached 0·89 and 0·91. Kendall' W coefficients of 0·113 (P < 0·001) in round 1 and 0·220 (P < 0·001) in round 2 indicated slight to fair agreement among experts. Content validity index (CVI) reached 1·0 for 12 items; the CVI for item 13 was <0·7 so it was excluded. Cronbach's α coefficient was 0·92, indicating acceptable internal consistency reliability. The coefficient of internal consistency of each dimension was 0·717-0·921. The Pearson correlation coefficient >0·9 (P < 0·05) showed an acceptable test-retest reliability.

CONCLUSIONS
The instrument has acceptable reliability and validity and can assess the empowerment status of families of critically ill patients.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE
Knowledge of families' empowerment status may help to address their psychological needs and their ability to provide family support.


Jeremy Corbyn's election as Leader of the Labour Party in 2015 stunned observers and practitioners of British politics alike. In this article, we first outline a theoretical framework that purports to explain why political parties operating in parliamentary systems choose the leaders they do. We then examine 32 leadership successions involving five major British parties since 1963, and note that many of these were unexpected, in that they were triggered by unforeseen circumstances, such as the sudden death or resignation of the incumbent. Examining each party in turn, we briefly explain why the winners won and identify at least eight cases (a quarter of our sample) where a candidate widely expected to prevail at the outset was ultimately defeated by a 'dark horse', 'second favourite' or even 'rank outsider'. Of these, Corbyn's election in 2015 was the most unexpected and, consistent with the findings of studies of party leadership conventions in other parliamentary systems, namely Canada and Spain, suggests that ideological and policy concerns are sometimes more important than considerations of party unity and electability, especially when a leadership contest is dominated by party activists.


The upswing in finance in recent decades has led to rising inequality, but do downswings in finance lead to a symmetric decline in inequality? We analyze the asymmetry of the effect of ups and downs in finance, and the effect of increased capital requirements and the bonus cap on national earnings inequality. We use administrative employer–employee-linked data from 1990 to 2019 for 12 countries and data from bank reports, from 2009 to 2017 in 13 European countries. We find a strong asymmetry in the effect of upswings and downswings in finance on earnings inequality, a weak, if any, mitigating effect of capital requirements on finance's contribution to inequality, and a restructuring but no absolute effect of the bonus cap on financiers' earnings. We suggest that while rising financiers' wages increase inequality in upswings, they are resilient in downswings and thus downswings do not contribute to a symmetric decline in inequality.


approach to osteoporosis is to attempt to maintain a positive calcium balance throughout its management, and sodium fluoride is given to promote this, when indicated, in a minority of patients. The initial dosage of sodium fluoride is 20 mg. t.d.s., or occasionally q.d.s., and treatment is normally continued for 500 days, until 30 g. have been given. During this period and after cessation of treatment progress is monitored biochemically and by balance studies. Further smaller courses of treatment are given, as indicated. We have looked carefully for signs of toxicity, particularly optic neuritis, and with the above regimen have found none, except for gastric irritation. The latter is eliminated in most patients by taking the drug in capsules and with meals.-I am, etc., W. H. TAYLOR.


A variety of extraesophageal presentations of chronic acid reflux disease may be encountered in practice, and it is important to diagnose and manage them appropriately. Some of these patients are asymptomatic; others have symptoms most commonly associated with a pulmonary or otolaryngologic disorder. An aggressive trial of antireflux medication can often improve or resolve these symptoms, indicating that gastroesophageal reflux disease is the primary contributing component. In cases where such medication trials fail, additional diagnostic methods may be needed to determine the source of the symptoms.


Star formation in molecular clouds is clumpy, hierarchically subclustered. Fractal structure also emerges in hydro-dynamical simulations of star-forming clouds. Simulating the formation of realistic star clusters with hydro-dynamical simulations is a computational challenge, considering that only the statistically averaged results of large batches of simulations are reliable, due to the chaotic nature of the gravitational N-body problem. While large sets of initial conditions for N-body runs can be produced by hydro-dynamical simulations of star formation, this is prohibitively expensive in terms of computational time. Here we address this issue by introducing a new technique for generating many sets of new initial conditions from a given set of star masses, positions and velocities from a hydro-dynamical simulation. We use hierarchical clustering in phase space to inform a tree representation of the spatial and kinematic relations between stars. This constitutes the basis for the random generation of new sets of stars which share the clustering structure of the original ones but have individually different masses, positions, and velocities. We apply this method to the output of a number of hydro-dynamical star-formation simulations, comparing the generated initial conditions to the original ones through a series of quantitative tests, including comparing mass and velocity distributions and fractal dimension. Finally, we evolve both the original and the generated star clusters using a direct N-body code, obtaining a qualitatively similar evolution.


Time-resolved mass injection rates of an outward opening piezoactuated and a solenoid actuated multi-hole GDI injector were measured to investigate (1) the influence of both hardware and software settings and (2) the influence on the injection rates from a wide range of operational parameters and (3) discuss limitations and issues with this measurement technique. The varied operating parameters were fuel pressure, back-pressure, electrical pulse width, single/double injection and injection frequency. The varied hardware/software parameters were injector protrusion, upstream fuel pressure condition and the cut-off frequency of the software's low-pass filter. Signal quality was found to be dependent on both hardware and software settings, especially the cut-off frequency of the low-pass filter. Measurements with high signal quality were not possible for back-pressures lower than 0.5 MPa. For the smallest possible injections, the piezo-actuated injector was found to be superior since it can inject very small amounts of fuel very accurately with little fuel pressure dependency. For engine realistic back-pressures, the multi-hole injector was found to be back-pressure independent. The piezo injector however was found to be strongly influenced by the back-pressure. The dynamic range was found to be much higher for the piezo injector, and the non-linear flow area was much larger for the multi-hole injector. Both injectors were capable of double injections but the piezo can use shorter dwell times. Effects of upstream fuel pressure fluctuations, especially on the second injection of a double injection, must be carefully taken into account.


OBJECTIVES
Medical imaging, which is expensive, is frequently repeated for the same patient within a relatively short period of time due to lack of access to previous images. Health information exchange (HIE) may reduce repeat imaging by facilitating provider access to prior images and reports. We sought to determine the effect of an HIE system on the occurrence of repeat imaging.

STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS
We conducted a cohort study of adult patients who consented to participate in a community-based HIE system in an 11-county region in New York. Using data from 2009-2010, we linked log files of provider HIE usage to administrative claims data from 2 commercial health plans. Using generalized estimation equations, we measured the association between HIE system access and repeat imaging within 90 days.

RESULTS
Of 196,314 patients in the cohort, 34,604 (18%) of patients had at least 1 imaging procedure, which was equivalent to a rate of 28.7 imaging procedures per 100 patients. Overall, 7.7% of images were repeated within 90 days. If the HIE system was accessed within the 90 days following an initial imaging procedure, imaging was significantly less likely to be repeated (5% repeated with HIE access vs 8% repeated without HIE access, P < .001). HIE system access reduced the adjusted odds of a repeat image by 25% (95% CI, 13%-35%).

CONCLUSIONS
Use of the HIE system to access previous patient information was associated with a reduction in repeated imaging.


Objective: To characterize the morphology of 18 ecotypes of Elephant grass (Pennisetum purpureum Schumach) in Chiapas. Design/Methodology/Approach: The morphological characterization was carried out with 34 quantitative and qualitative descriptors. A principal component analysis and a hierarchical cluster analysis were performed based on the average data. Results: In the principal component analysis, five of the principal components accounted for 70.7% of the total variability in the 18 ecotypes of Elephant grass. The variables that made the most significant contributions in each CP were: in CP1, internode diameter (p<0.01), internode length (p<0.05), color of internode without wax (p<0.01), number of innovations (p<0.01 ), prophylls (p<0.01), number of prophylls (p<0.01), external length of the sheath (p<0.01), internal length of the sheath at its opening point (p<0.01), opening of the auricle (p<0.01 ); for CP2, the number of visible internodes (p<0.05), channel width (p<0.05), size of innovations (p<0.05), adventitious root, number of internodes (p<0.01), wax under the sheath (p<0.05); and for CP3, number of visible internodes (p<0.05), color of the internode with wax (p<0.001), channel depth (p<0.001), ligule shape (p<0.05) and leaflet tip (p< 0.05). As a result of the hierarchical cluster analysis and the semipartial correlation coefficient, five morphologically distinct groups were determined.
Study Limitations: A more accurate description of the morphological diversity of the grasses requires the characterization of the inflorescence and the spikelet.
Findings/Conclusions: The 18 ecotypes of the Elephant grass (Pennisetum purpureum Schumach) collected and characterized were dissimilar with each other; consequently, they are considered a genetic resource with potential importance as forage on the Chiapas coast.


Improvements in the healthfulness of packaged foods and beverages through reformulation could help reduce the prevalence of obesity among children and adolescents through improved diet quality. This study assessed changes in calories and four nutrients (saturated fat, total sugars, sodium, and dietary fiber) from 2012 through 2014 for packaged products frequently consumed by children and adolescents, simulated effects of potential improvements in 12 frequently consumed product categories based on actual purchasing patterns, and compared differences in prices of healthier versus less healthy products. Analysis of trends showed limited evidence that healthfulness of foods improved over the years examined. Simulation results showed minimal changes for calories and sodium, but daily intake of saturated fat could decrease by 4%, sugar consumption could decrease by 5%, and dietary fiber consumption could increase by 11% if products were reformulated to meet an existing healthfulness standard. Using a higher standard, caloric intake could decline by 4%, saturated fat by 6%, sugar by 9%, and sodium by 4%, and dietary fiber could increase by 14%. Healthier versions of most products ranged from an average of 3 to 12 cents more per serving, but not all healthier versions were more costly. Overall, reformulation is a potential avenue for improving diet quality in households with children and adolescents, but price could be a barrier to purchasing healthier products for some households.


Most techniques for real-time construction of a signed distance field, whether on a CPU or GPU, involve approximate distances. We use a GPU to build an exact adaptive distance field, constructed from an octree by using the Morton code. We use rectangle-swept spheres to construct a bounding volume hierarchy (BVH) around a triangulated model. To speed up BVH construction, we can use a multi-BVH structure to improve the workload balance between GPU processors. An upper bound on distance to the model provided by the octree itself allows us to reduce the number of BVHs involved in determining the distances from the centers of octree nodes at successively lower levels, prior to an exact distance query involving the remaining BVHs. Distance fields can be constructed 35-64 times as fast as a serial CPU implementation of a similar algorithm, allowing us to simulate a piece of fabric interacting with the Stanford Bunny at 20 frames per second.


Background/content Simulation has been relatively under-used in psychiatric training1 and has focused on psychiatric and medical emergencies.2 However, other events, such as interaction with the legal system, have serious implications for mental health professionals' clinical practice but often little practical training is provided. In order to meet this need pilot courses were designed, developed and piloted to simulate legal aspects of psychiatric practice, in particular the coroner's inquest court and mental health tribunals, both situations which clinicians find anxiety provoking.3 Methodology Participants (n = 24) were asked to prepare reports prior to the course day based upon simulated casenotes. Participants presented their evidence in a simulated court or tribunal, consisting of a panel of judges and other relevant professionals, followed by a structured debrief. To balance fidelity with maximising learning, different models of organising the presentation of evidence and the debrief were piloted. Results/outcomes Candidates filled out pre- and post-course questionnaires relating to knowledge, attitudes and confidence in these situations. Pre-course data for tribunals showed that participants felt that their "professional identity is threatened" by these situations or for the inquests that "relatives would blame me for the death". Participants lacked confidence in many aspects of both of these environments, for example around preparing reports or answering questions in court. Attitudes and confidence were positively affected by both courses and, although a significance analysis has not been conducted for the tribunal course, the results were statistically significant for the coroner's course. There was no change in levels of knowledge. All participants said they would recommend the course to their colleagues. Conclusions and recommendations These pilots suggest that simulating legal aspects of mental health can improve confidence and change attitudes of healthcare professionals and appears to be a useful adjunct to the training of mental health professionals. Further research is ongoing. References Dave S. Simulation in psychiatric teaching. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment 2012;18(4):292–298 Thomson AB, Cross S, Key S, et al. How we developed an emergency psychiatry training course for new residents using principles of high-fidelity simulation. Medical Teacher 2013;35(10):797–800 Calthorpe B, Choong S. The coroner's court and the psychiatrist. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment 2004;10(2):146–152


Fine-grained power monitoring of software-defined infrastructures is unavoidable to maximize the power usage efficiency of data centers. However, the design of the underlying power models that estimate the power consumption of the monitored software components keeps being a long and fragile process that remains tightly coupled to the host machine and prevents a wider adoption by the industry beyond the rich literature on this topic.To overcome these limitations, this paper introduces SELFWATTS: a lightweight power monitoring system that explores and selects the relevant performance events to automatically optimize the power models to the underlying architecture. Unlike state-of-the-art techniques, SELFWATTS does not require any a priori training phase or specific hardware to configure the power models and can be deployed on a wide range of machines, including heterogeneous environments.


Purpose: The human epigenome is profoundly altered in cancers, with a characteristic loss of methylation in repetitive regions and concomitant accumulation of gene promoter methylation. The degree to which these processes are coordinated is unclear so we investigated both in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas. Experimental Design: Global methylation was measured using the luminometric methylation assay (LUMA) and pyrosequencing of LINE-1Hs and AluYb8 repetitive elements in a series of 138 tumors.We also measured methylation of more than 27,000 CpG loci with the Illumina HumanMethylation27 Microarray (n 1⁄4 91). Results: LINE-1 methylation was significantly associated with LUMA and Infinium loci methylation (Spearman's r 1⁄4 0.52/r 1⁄4 0.56, both P < 0.001) but not that of AluYb8. Methylation of LINE-1, AluYb8, and Infinium loci differed by tumor site (each Kruskal–Wallis, P < 0.05). Also, LINE-1 and LUMA methylation were associated with HPV16 E6 serology (each Mann–Whitney, P < 0.05). Comparing LINE-1 methylation to gene-associated methylation, we identified a distinct subset of CpG loci with significant hypermethylation associated with LINE-1 hypomethylation. An investigation of sequence features for these CpG loci revealed that they were significantly less likely to reside in repetitive elements (Gene Set Enrichment Analysis, P < 0.02), enriched in CpG islands (P < 0.001) and were proximal to transcription factor–binding sites (P < 0.05). We validated the top CpG loci that had significant hypermethylation associated with LINE-1 hypomethylation (at EVI2A, IFRD1, KLHL6, and PTPRCAP) by pyrosequencing independent tumors. Conclusions: These data indicate that global hypomethylation and gene-specific methylation processes are associated in a sequence-dependent manner, and that clinical characteristics and exposures leading to HNSCC may be influencing these processes. Clin Cancer Res; 17(11); 3579–89. 2011 AACR.


The major objective of our studies was the thermodynamic analysis of the nSiС+SiO2 system and revealing potentialities for the implementation of the SiC gas-phase transport conditions. As a result of thermodynamic scanning of the chemical activity of nSiС+SiO2 system the conditions for implementing the SiC gas-phase transport were found out within a wide temperature range. It was found out that the basic process in the gas-phase transport of silicon carbide is: SiCs + SiOg→ 2Sig + СОg SiC evaporation at T2 2Sig + СОg → SiCnanowhiskers + SiOg SiC deposition at T1 Sequential evaporation and deposition of silicon carbide result in the growth of SiC crystals from a gas phase. The processes of SiC gas-phase transport and deposition were experimentally realized. Synthesized were SiC nanocrystals over 300 μm long, ~ 300 nm in diameter that forms a three-dimensional subskeleton inside the carbon skeleton.


This article examines Australian legal responses to filicide in circumstances where mothers have killed their young children. We consider the potential legal defences that may be raised where postnatal depression ('PND') and other psychiatric disorders are present in cases of filicide: insanity/mental impairment, diminished responsibility/substantial impairment by abnormality of mind, and infanticide. We then examine 28 cases of filicide, including both cases where PND evidence was adduced, and cases where no PND evidence was adduced but other mental health issues were considered. We look at the forensic use of and judicial responses to PND and other evidence of mental illness: how do medical practitioners and judicial officers present impairment of the defendant's mental capacity? We also speculate on differences in sentencing outcomes and consider the policy and research implications of our findings.


Throughout the human history, the fight against bacterial infections had never stopped but the remedies for bacterial infections were often insufficient and for many infectious diseases, there was no treatment available. The revolution in antimicrobial infection therapy began with the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928. However, since the first introduction of antibiotics, bacteria over time have evolved sophisticated resistant strains against almost all the available antibiotics which cause selection pressure on the bacteria to evolve their genetic makeup and develop resistance against such agents. Furthermore, bacteria can form surface attached multicellular communities known as biofilms. Bacteria residing within biofilms are protected by biofilms which renders the bacteria more difficult to eliminate because of the low permeability of antibiotics through outer membranes. Combating such resistant bacteria is an extremely difficult task if using antibiotics alone. Hence scientific community continuously seeks new strategies to overpower these resistant bacteria. The focus of the research work presented here is to develop a class of chimera ligands that can bind to both pili and LecA protein of Pseudomonas aeruginosa to inhibit both swarming motility and biofilm formation. The potential adjuvant agents of these chimera ligands that can increase the effectiveness of antibiotics were demonstrated. In addition, the ability of our adjuvant molecules to eliminate drug-tolerant bacteria and to reduce persisters, in combination with antibiotics was demonstrated. The binding property of chimera ligands was demonstrated by competitive fluorescence polarization assay (LecA) and by adding a functional group to a ligand that can covalently attach to the receptor protein only when the physical ligand-receptor binding takes place (Pili). In addition, the effect of externally added pili on the swarming motility of Pseudomonas aeruginosa was tested to support the mechanistic study of the pili as the receptor (or one of the receptors) that will bind to rhamnolipids and our synthetic agents, and upon binding, causing the bacterial activities. For quantification of polysaccharides, two efficient detection and quantification methods that make use of the negative charges of the alginate polymer and do not involve degradation of the targeted polysaccharide were described. Both approaches provide efficient methods for monitoring alginate production by mucoid Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The effect of a class of synthetic analogs of rhamnolipids at controlling (promoting and inhibiting) the biofilm formation activities of a non-rhamnolipid-producing strain – rhlA – of Pseudomonas aeruginosa was demonstrated. The bioactive synthetic analogs of rhamnolipids promote biofilm formation by rhlA mutant at low concentrations but inhibit the biofilm formation at high concentrations. To explore the internal structures formed by the biofilms, the wild-type biofilms formed with substantial topography (hills and valleys) when the sample is under shaking conditions were observed by confocal microscope. Using this observation as a comparison, the effect of synthetic analogs of rhamnolipids on promoting structured (porous) biofilm of rhlA mutant, at intermediate concentrations between the low ones that promoted biofilm formation and the high ones that inhibited biofilm formation was demonstrated. This study suggests a potential chemical signaling approach to control multiple bacterial activities. Chimera Ligand for Pili and Lectin A Protein Controls Antibiotic-Promoted Biofilm Formation, Swarming Motility, Tolerance and Persister Formation by Pseudomonas aeruginosa by Hewen Zheng M. Phil., Syracuse University, 2015 B.Sc., Dalian University of Technology, China, 2013 Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry Syracuse University December 2018 Copyright © Hewen Zheng 2018 All Rights Reserved


Amateur films, home movies, home videos – whatever they might be called – have been described as providing authentic, alternative, and personalised views of life, on subjects ranging from simple family rituals to cataclysmic events such as natural disasters and war. The importance of these records as resources for historical and social research is increasingly being acknowledged by the academic community, as well as by commercial program makers who have long been aware of their potential. This paper focuses on one collection, the amateur films shot by Australian troops during their deployment in Vietnam. These films present a view of the Vietnam War distinctly different to the perspective offered by official records and other sources of information, and they offer an insight into the soldiers' own perspective which is not necessarily available elsewhere. As such, they represent a significant research resource in their own right, providing rich primary material for a wide range of researcher activities.


Streamflow in arid and semi-arid regions is predominantly temporary, an integral part of mountain block hydrology and of significant importance for groundwater recharge and biogeochemical processes. However, temporary streamflow regimes, especially ephemeral flow, remain poorly quantified. We use electrical resistance sensors and USGS stream gauge data in 15 southern Arizona streams spanning a climate gradient (mean annual precipitation from 160 to 750 mm) to quantify temporary streamflow as streamflow presence and water presence, which includes streamflow, ponding and soil moisture. We use stream channel sediment data to estimate saturated hydraulic conductivity and potential annual infiltration. Annual streamflow ranged 0.6–82.4% or 2–301 days; while water presence ranged from 2.6 to 82.4% or 10 to over 301 days, or 4–33 times longer than streamflow. We identified 5 statistically distinct flow regimes based on the annual percent streamflow and water presence: (1) dry-ephemeral, (2) wet-ephemeral, (3) dry-intermittent, (4) wet-intermittent, and (5) seasonally-intermittent. In contrast to our expectations, stream channel density was a better predictor of annual streamflow and water presence than annual rainfall alone. Whereas, the dry-ephemeral and wet-ephemeral flow regimes varied with seasonal precipitation, the dry-intermittent, wet intermittent and seasonally-intermittent flow regimes did not. These results coupled with the potential infiltration estimates indicate that streamflow at the driest sites occurs in response to rainfall and overland flow while groundwater discharge and vadose zone contributions enhance streamflow at the wetter sites. We suggest that on a short temporal scale, and with respect to water presence, wetter sites might be buffered better against shifts in the timing and distribution of precipitation in response to climate change. Flow regime classifications that include both stream flow and water presence, rather than on stream flow alone, may be important for predicting thresholds in ecological functions and refugia in these dryland systems.


abstract:Critics in both philosophy and literary studies have rightly emphasized a "poetics of transition" relating the thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson to that of William James. However, less attention has been given to the ways that Emerson's philosophy of rhetoric correlates with James's rhetorical perspectives on psychology and philosophy. Fundamentally rhetorical interests in the contiguous circumstances and contingent reception of thinking link James to Emerson beyond matters of poetics and style. This article correlates Emerson's understanding of a rhetoric of metonymy as the basis of thinking with the principle of contiguity crucial to James's philosophy of mind. This relation between rhetoric and philosophy reiterates a rhetoric of mind that both Emerson and James associate with the older liberal education of the college just at the point that this curriculum is displaced by the professional, specialized disciplines of the emerging university in late nineteenth-century America.


Numerical analysis confirms that in some cases the prepeak in the structure factor causes obvious change in the coordination number, but change in the interatomic distance can be neglected for the study of the medium range order(MRO). In order to model the MRO, it is not possible to get enough information based on the pair correlation function; however the quasi-Bragg equation can be employed to characterize the quasi-period of MRO corresponding to the prepeak position. By assuming that the interatomic distance between Fe and Al atoms hardly varies with composition, structural models were constructed based on the B2-type structure units of ordered FeAl alloy.The quasi-periods for different alloys obtained from the model structures are in reasonable agreement with the experimental ones.


Differential display polymerase chain reaction (DD-PCR) is a novel method for identification of differentially expressed genes by comparative display of arbitrarily amplified cDNA subsets. The basic principle of the DD-PCR is to systematically amplify messenger RNAs and then distribute their 3' termini on a denaturing polyacrylamide gel. Although this technology has been successfully applied in a large number of studies, few novel genes of interest have been identified, suggesting that the method needs further improvement. We discovered that primer purity is crucial. We show that by purifying primers using reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography, sampling of differentially expressed genes can be greatly enhanced, and relevant genes can be isolated. Using these purified primers in DD-PCR, when compared with the unpurified primers, it should be possible to identify threefold to fourfold differences in expression or differential expression in a fraction of the cell population.


PURPOSE
Children with complex medical and communication needs often experience extensive or frequent hospital stays and rely on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) strategies to communicate in this environment. Health care providers seldom receive training to effectively communicate with these children, which may lead to limited participation opportunities for the child during inpatient interactions.

METHOD
A pretest-posttest experimental group design was completed to evaluate the effects of a brief mobile training designed to teach providers a procedure to support children with complex communication needs to communicate choices. Each provider participated in two pretest and two posttest interactions with children with complex communication needs during naturally occurring inpatient activities. Providers in the treatment group completed the video training, whereas providers in the control group did not.

RESULTS
Following the training, (a) more providers offered choices to the children during hospital routines, (b) providers implemented the trained procedure with increased accuracy, and (c) the children with complex communication needs consistently communicated their choices when given the opportunity to do so. The providers rated the training as easy to use, effective, and suited to the needs of the inpatient setting.

CONCLUSIONS
This is the first AAC training designed to promote child-provider interactions in inpatient settings that demonstrates results that are efficient, socially valid, and effective in a real-world context. Future work is needed to develop additional brief and focused AAC partner trainings to teach providers to support the participation of children with complex communication needs in health care interactions.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL
https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.22029008.


This article concerns the problem of adaptive output regulation for multivariable nonlinear systems in normal form. We present a regulator employing an adaptive internal model of the exogenous signals based on the theory of nonlinear Luenberger observers. Adaptation is performed by means of discrete-time system identification schemes, in which every algorithm fulfilling some optimality and stability conditions can be used. Practical and approximate regulation results are given relating the prediction capabilities of the identified model to the asymptotic bound on the regulated variables, which become asymptotic whenever a "right" internal model exists in the identifier's model set. The proposed approach, moreover, does not require "high-gain" stabilization actions.


Introduction: Nonketotic hyperglycemic hemichorea-hemiballism (NKHH) is an uncommon hyperkinetic movement disorder. It is the second most common etiology after stroke affecting basal ganglion. Only a few hundred cases are reported so far in literature.
Objectives: The study attempts to systematically highlight clinical profile and neuroimaging findings in 15 patients of Nonketotic hyperglycemic hemichorea-hemiballism.
Materials and Methods: Patients with hemichorea/ hemiballism associated with hyperglycemia were included in the study. The period of the study was from January 2008 to September 2018. Neurological examination, Demographic data, clinical, biochemical, and neuroimaging findings were captured from the medical records. Details of the involuntary hyperkinetic movements such as type and side(s) involved were noted. Treatment was aimed to control glycemic status and neuroleptic drugs. Descriptive statistics were used wherever necessary.
Results: During the study period, 52 patients had hemichorea/ hemiballismus.27 patients had stroke affecting basal ganglia.6 patients had granuloma affecting basal ganglia. 4 patients had Wilson's disease.15 patients had NKHH. Among 15 patients of NKHH, 9 patients were females and 6 were males. (Female to male 1.5:1).The mean age at the onset was 70.2 years (Range 58 -85). The mean serum glucose levels measured after the onset of NKHH was 439.93 mg/dL (Range 342-532).The mean glycated haemoglobin was 10.98% (Range 9.1-18.5.Neuroimaging showed involvement of striatum in 13 patients.
Conclusion: NKHH is a rare hyperkinetic movement disorder. Elderly poorly controlled diabetics and female sex are most commonly affected. Neuroimaging findings are distinct. Further studies are needed to elucidate pathogenesis of this disease and for determining prognosticating factors.

Keywords: Non ketotic, hyperglycemia, Hemichorea-hemiballism, Putamen, Striatum.


Objective The aim of the current paper was to investigate the association between the patterns of duration, timing and sequencing of exposure to low family income during childhood, and symptoms of mental health problems in adolescence. Setting Survey administered to a large population-based sample of Norwegian adolescents. Participants Survey data from 9154 participants of 16–19 years age (53% participation rate; 52.7% girls) were linked to registry-based information about childhood family income from tax return data. Outcome measures Mental health outcomes were symptoms of emotional, conduct, hyperactivity, peer problems and general mental health problems measured with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, symptoms of depression measured with Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire and symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) measured with the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale. Results Latent class analysis and the BCH approach in Mplus were used to examine associations between patterns of poverty exposure and mental health outcomes. Four latent classes of poverty exposure emerged from the analysis. Participants moving into poverty (2.3%), out of poverty (3.5%) or those chronically poor (3.1%) had more symptoms of mental health problems (Cohen's d=16-.50) than those with no poverty exposure (91.1%). This pattern was, however, not found for symptoms of ADHD. The pattern of results was confirmed in robustness checks using observed data. Conclusions Exposure to poverty in childhood was found to be associated with most mental health problems in adolescence. There was no strong suggestion of any timing or sequencing effects in the patterns of associations.


Built on the foundation of four years of research and implementation of mobile learning projects (m-learning), this paper provides an overview of the potential of the integration of mobile Web 2.0 tools (based around smartphones) to facilitate social constructivist pedagogies and engage students in tertiary education. Pedagogical affordances of mobile Web 2.0 tools are evaluated, and student usage and feedback is outlined via an interactive multimedia timeline (using YouTube videos) illustrating how these mobile Web 2.0 pedagogical affordances have transformed pedagogy and facilitated student engagement in a variety of course contexts. A rubric for evaluating appropriate smartphone choices is provided, and a model for implementing mobile Web 2.0 pedagogical integration is presented.


Many empirical studies in software engineering involve relationships between various process and product characteristics derived via linear regression analysis. We propose an alternative modeling approach using radial basis functions (RBFs) which provide a flexible way to generalize linear regression function. Further, RBF models possess strong mathematical properties of universal and best approximation. We present an objective modeling methodology for determining model parameters using our recent SG algorithm, followed by a model selection procedure based on generalization ability. Finally, we describe a detailed RBF modeling study for software effort estimation using a well-known NASA dataset.


The aim of the paper is to prove that the philosophical revolution attempted by Dworkin in his book Justice for Hedgehogs ended as a failure. There are two reasons why this revolution did not succeed. First, Dworkin's critique of the influence that science has on ethics is closely dependent on the scientific perspective. The author criticizes the subjugation of ethics by science and still wants to link it with science. Second, Dworkin's critique of metaethics is too narrow, he confines himself to polemics with external scepticism which was imposed on it by scientific epistemology. Metaethics is a philosophical mistake of a much bigger scale than Dworkin thinks. Science plays an influence not only on ethical theories, but also on the level of "ordinary view". Dworkin declares the philosophical revolution that does not deserve the name of a revolution. It is only a proposal to return to the earlier philosophical revolutions, those that are associated with the names of Hume and Kant. Theoretical attachment to Hume's moral philosophy makes Dworkin's philosophical critique less radical. He criticizes the principles of scientific epistemology that were imposed on ethical theory and at the same time he is not hiding his sympathy for science. This is a great inconsistency of his philosophical views. Not only does he defend the independence of ethics from scientific epistemology, but he also highlights the importance of the links between ethics and science. This position results in a halfway character of his philosophical critique. Moreover, Dworkin operates according to a too narrow Anglo-Saxon critique of metaethics. He does not mention the demoralizing impact this discipline has on practical understanding of morals.


Article analyzed student's difficulties and abilities in writing their final projects, which were undergraduate theses and undergraduate paper conducted by some students at the English Department, Bina Nusantara University. This was a preliminary study to support an appropriate student guideline in writing their final project. The study was conducted by applying qualitative methods that was by analyzing the four theses and one paper in terms of their format: titles, introduction, theoretical background, analysis, conclusion, bibliography, and paper rubric to analyze the contents. It can be concluded that generally, students, guided by their mentor/lecturer, understand the final paper guidelines and they are able to apply it in their thesis and paper. But, there are still lack of clarity and relevancy in expressing their ideas properly, and their ability in writing in both English and Bahasa Indonesia must be improved. These problems can be overcome by socializing the writing guidelines to both students and lecturers, providing them with critical thinking skills, cooperation with library that will guide them in information literacy skills, and language center that will improve their writing skills.


Image colors are biased by the color of the prevailing illumination. As such the color at pixel cannot always be used directly in solving vision tasks from recognition, to tracking to general scene understanding. Illuminant estimation algorithms attempt to infer the color of the light incident in a scene and then a color cast removal step discounts the color bias due to illumination. However, despite sustained research since almost the inception of computer vision, progress has been modest. The best algorithms - now often built on top of expensive feature extraction and machine learning - are only about twice as good as the simplest approaches. This paper, in effect, will show how simple moment based algorithms - such as Gray-World - can, with the addition of a simple correction step, deliver much improved illuminant estimation performance. The corrected Gray-World algorithm maps the mean image color using a fixed (per camera) 3x3 matrix transform. More generally, our moment approach employs 1st, 2nd and higher order moments - of colors or features such as color derivatives - and these again are linearly corrected to give an illuminant estimate. The question of how to correct the moments is an important one yet we will show a simple alternating least-squares training procedure suffices. Remarkably, across the major datasets - evaluated using a 3-fold cross validation procedure - our simple corrected moment approach always delivers the best results (and the performance increment is often large compared with the prior art). Significantly, outlier performance was found to be much improved.


Hierarchical organization of human auditory cortex has been inferred from functional imaging observations that core regions respond to simple stimuli (tones) whereas downstream regions are selectively responsive to more complex stimuli (band-pass noise, speech). It is assumed that core regions code low-level features, which are combined at higher levels in the auditory system to yield more abstract neural codes. However, this hypothesis has not been critically evaluated in the auditory domain. We assessed sensitivity to acoustic variation within intelligible versus unintelligible speech using functional magnetic resonance imaging and a multivariate pattern analysis. Core auditory regions on the dorsal plane of the superior temporal gyrus exhibited high levels of sensitivity to acoustic features, whereas downstream auditory regions in both anterior superior temporal sulcus and posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) bilaterally showed greater sensitivity to whether speech was intelligible or not and less sensitivity to acoustic variation (acoustic invariance). Acoustic invariance was most pronounced in more pSTS regions of both hemispheres, which we argue support phonological level representations. This finding provides direct evidence for a hierarchical organization of human auditory cortex and clarifies the cortical pathways supporting the processing of intelligible speech.


Owing to the extensive development of drug resistance in pathogens against the available antibiotic arsenal, antimicrobial resistance is now an emerging major threat to public healthcare. Anti-virulence drugs are a new type of therapeutic agent aiming at virulence factors rather than killing the pathogen, thus providing less selective pressure for evolution of resistance. One promising example of this therapeutic concept targets bacterial quorum sensing (QS), because QS controls many virulence factors responsible for bacterial infections. Marine sponges and their associated bacteria are considered a still untapped source for unique chemical leads with a wide range of biological activities. In the present study, we screened extracts of 14 sponge species collected from the Red and Mediterranean Sea for their quorum-quenching (QQ) potential. Half of the species showed QQ activity in at least 2 out of 3 replicates. Six out of the 14 species were selected for bacteria isolation, to test for QQ activity also in isolates, which, once cultured, represent an unlimited source of compounds. We show that ≈20% of the isolates showed QQ activity based on a Chromobacterium violaceum CV026 screen, and that the presence or absence of QQ activity in a sponge extract did not correlate with the abundance of isolates with the same activity from the same sponge species. This can be explained by the unknown source of QQ compounds in sponge-holobionts (host or symbionts), and further by the possible non-symbiotic nature of bacteria isolated from sponges. The potential symbiotic nature of the isolates showing QQ activity was tested according to the distribution and abundance of taxonomically close bacterial Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) in a dataset including 97 sponge species and 178 environmental samples (i.e., seawater, freshwater, and marine sediments). Most isolates were found not to be enriched in sponges and may simply have been trapped in the filtration channels of the sponge at the time of collection. Our results highlight potential for QQ-bioactive lead molecules for anti-virulence therapy both from sponges and the bacteria isolated thereof, independently on the symbiotic nature of the latter.


The outcome of an anatomical shoulder replacement depends on an intact rotator cuff. In 1981 Grammont designed a novel large-head reverse shoulder replacement for patients with cuff deficiency. Such has been the success of this replacement that it has led to a rapid expansion of the indications. We performed a systematic review of the literature to evaluate the functional outcome of each indication for the reverse shoulder replacement. Secondary outcome measures of range of movement, pain scores and complication rates are also presented.IN this review, there are not figures and outcomes.


Muscovite-bearing granitic rocks, rare in the great coastal batholiths of the western margin of North America, are common in an inland belt that stretches from Sonora to British Columbia. Compositional characteristics of these inland plutons (strongly peraluminous, high 87Sr/86Sr) ally them with the S-type granitoids, whereas the coastal batholiths are best described as I-type. Although a simple S-type origin by anatexis of metasediment is not required, compositions of these plutons imply a far greater contribution from ancient crustal material than do those of marginal batholiths. The distinction between margin and inner Cordillera in nature of plutonism suggests important regional differences in magmagenic processes; these differences must have been a function of variations in composition of and/or conditions in the preexisting crust. It is noteworthy that the muscovite-bearing belt is located at the edge of inferred Precambrian crust and generally corresponds to areas of intense deformation and regional metamorphism of Mesozoic through early Cenozoic time.


OITAF-NACS : tenth symposium, August 17 - 19, 2009, Hampton Inn, Denver West, Lakewood Colorado -- USA / The International Organization for Transportation by Rope, North American Continental Section.


There are several variations of efficiency definitions and of course ratios concerned with efficiency. A better understanding of the notion of efficiency is critical to dissolve ambiguity about it. Many confuse efficiency with other supposedly synonymous notions such as profitability, successfulness, competitiveness, liquidity or productivity. This ambiguity originates not only in subjective reasons, but the lack of hierarchical order among certain ideas. The primary driver in our research is, to systematize efficiency in general, and formulate a new categorical approach of the efficiency in corporate level.


Background The Livongo for Diabetes Program offers members (1) a cellular technology-enabled, two-way messaging device that measures blood glucose (BG), centrally stores the glucose data, and delivers messages back to the individual in real time; (2) unlimited BG test strips; and (3) access to a diabetes coaching team for questions, goal setting, and automated support for abnormal glucose excursions. The program is sponsored by at-risk self-insured employers, health plans and provider organizations where it is free to members with diabetes or it is available directly to the person with diabetes where they cover the cost. Objective The objective of our study was to evaluate BG data from 4544 individuals with diabetes who were enrolled in the Livongo program from October 2014 through December 2015. Methods Members used the Livongo glucose meter to measure their BG levels an average of 1.8 times per day. We estimated the probability of having a day with a BG reading outside of the normal range (70-180 mg/dL, or 3.9-10.0 mmol/L) in months 2 to 12 compared with month 1 of the program, using individual fixed effects to control for individual characteristics. Results Livongo members experienced an average 18.4% decrease in the likelihood of having a day with hypoglycemia (BG <70 mg/dL) and an average 16.4% decrease in hyperglycemia (BG >180 mg/dL) in months 2-12 compared with month 1 as the baseline. The biggest impact was seen on hyperglycemia for nonusers of insulin. We do not know all of the contributing factors such as medication or other treatment changes during the study period. Conclusions These findings suggest that access to a connected glucose meter and certified diabetes educator coaching is associated with a decrease in the likelihood of abnormal glucose excursions, which can lead to diabetes-related health care savings.


This essay reviews scientific literature regarding the possible effect of exercise on sleep physiology in non-clinical individuals. Exercise and sleep as research phenomena in the literature is examined, documented experimental evidence and theories on the possible mechanisms of a sleep-exercise relationship is reviewed, and suggestions for future research is made. Exercise and sleep are wide-ranging phenomena with a multitude of variables and aspects, making them difficult to research. Although exercise having historically and popularly being favorably associated with sleep, the objective scientific evidence for such a relationship is conflicting.This possibly due to studies using differing methods of various quality and focusing on different aspects of the object of research. There are several theories regarding how an exercise-sleep connection could function, none has yet to be substantiated by existing evidence.


The gas flow field in hydrocyclone separator was numerically simulated by applying RSM turbulence model, and the gas flow velocity distribution and stress distribution were calculated. According to the characteristics of gas flow distribution within the separator, it is found that: (1) the rotating strength of gas flow is related to the outlet angle of guide blade, the greater the outlet angle, the smaller the tangential velocity; (2) the obvious short circuit flow distribution under the exhaust pipe mouth area is easy to carry droplets and roll them out, causing a decrease in separation efficiency; (3) the high strength of turbulence pulse at mouth area of vent and drainage is easy to break the droplets and decrease their diameter, which affects the separation efficiency. The above research results lay the foundation for the structure optimization and the improvement of separation properties of axial guide vane cyclone gas-liquid separator.


Soft DC Links are power electronic converters enabling the control of power flow between distribution feeders or networks. This thesis considers the use of Soft DC Links in Medium Voltage (MV) distribution networks to improve network operation while facilitating the integration of distributed generators (DGs). Soft DC Links include Soft Open Points (SOPs) and Medium Voltage Direct Current (MVDC) links. An SOP can be installed to replace mechanical switchgear in a network, providing controllable active power exchange between connected feeders, as well as reactive power compensation at each interface terminal. The deployment of an MVDC link enables power and voltage controls over a wider area, and facilitates the effective use of available capacity between adjacent networks. The benefits of using SOP and MVDC link in MV distribution networks were investigated.
A multi-objective optimisation framework was proposed to quantify the operational benefits of a distribution network with an SOP. An optimisation method integrating both global and local search techniques was developed to determine the set-points of an SOP. It was found that an SOP can improve network operation along multiple criteria and facilitate the integration capacity of DGs.
A Grid Transformer-based control method of an MVDC link was proposed, which requires only measurements at the grid transformers to determine the operation of an MVDC link. Control strategies considering different objectives were developed. The proposed control method is used in the ANGLE-DC project, which aims to trial the first MVDC link in Europe by converting an existing AC circuit to DC operation. It was found that an MVDC link can significantly increase the network hosting capacity for DG connections while reducing network losses compared to an AC line.
An impact quantification of Soft DC Links was carried out on statistically-similar distribution networks, which refer to a set of networks with similar but different topological and electrical properties. A model was developed to determine the optimal allocation of Soft DC Links. It was found that a Soft DC Link can reduce the network annual cost under a wide range of DG penetration conditions. The statistical analysis provides distribution network planners with more robust decisions on the implementation of Soft DC Links.


Objectives — To determinate prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection in a group of symptomatic patients between 2 and 18 years old who were submitted to gastric biopsy during upper endoscopy done in the period of 1990-97. To correlate the histological findings with clinical and endoscopical data. Methods — A cross-sectional study done after review of clinical and histopathological data. Histopathological sections were reviewed by a pathologist, who did not know the clinical information and the previous histopathological reports. Results — Among 181 patients evaluated, prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection was 24.86% (45 positive cases). In pathological analysis, gastritis was found in 38/45 of the positive Helicobacter pylori patients and in 45/136 negative Helicobacter pylori. Gastric ulceration was found in 6/45 positive Helicobacter pylori and in 3/136 negative Helicobacter pylori. Conclusion — This study stated a significative association between Helicobacter pylori infection and pathological abnormalities in children evaluated in the "Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre", RS, Brazil.


Neural stem cells (NSCs) contribute to plasticity and repair of the adult brain. Niches harboring NSCs are crucial for regulating stem cell self-renewal and differentiation. We used single-cell RNA profiling to generate an unbiased molecular atlas of all cell types in the largest neurogenic niche of the adult mouse brain, the subventricular zone (SVZ). We characterized > 20 neural and non-neural cell types and gained insights into the dynamics of neurogenesis by predicting future cell states based on computational analysis of RNA kinetics. Furthermore, we apply our single-cell approach to mice lacking LRP2, an endocytic receptor required for SVZ maintenance. The number of NSCs and proliferating progenitors was significantly reduced. Moreover, Wnt and BMP4 signaling was perturbed. We provide a valuable resource for adult neurogenesis, insights into SVZ neurogenesis regulation by LRP2, and a proof-of-principle demonstrating the power of single-cell RNA-seq in pinpointing neural cell type-specific functions in loss-of-function models. HIGHLIGHTS unbiased single-cell transcriptomics characterizes adult NSCs and their niche cell type-specific signatures and marker genes for 22 SVZ cell types Free online tool to assess gene expression across 9,804 single cells cell type-specific dysfunctions underlying impaired adult neurogenesis


The present study provides a comprehensive review of the psychological literature on the barriers to seeking formal and informal mental health help-seeking for Asian immigrants and Asian Americans. Within the present review, the researcher utilizes Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory (1992) of human development (macrosystem, exosystem, mesosystem, and microsystem) to organize eight ecological factors that influence Asian immigrants and Americans' mental health help-seeking behaviors including; ethnicity, generational influence (acculturation), culture, stigma/shame associated with mental health, family structure/ environment, social support, gender, and age. The researcher offers a proposed model of treatment helpseeking and provides directions for future research. The latter section of this study focuses on the methodological problems inherent in the study of Asian immigrant and American mental health help-seeking. The implications and suggestions for current clinical research, training/education, and practice are explored.


The paper focuses on quantitative assessment of nitrogen flows in a livestock farm under transition to best available techniques BAT system in Russia. Comparative analysis of quantitative estimates of ammonia emissions from housing for dairy cows, fattening pigs, farrowing sows and laying hens was conducted using available literature data and information obtained through a survey of pilot livestock farms in Leningrad Region. Ammonia emission data for existing Russian enterprises were found in the range of BREF emission levels associated with BAT. The nitrogen farm-gate balance was calculated for the farm with 810 dairy cows, 2600 ha of agricultural land and milk yield of 22 kg/day. The nitrogen surplus was 48.3 kg/ha, which was below the limit values and indicated the possibility to increase the application amount of nitrogen fertilisers, however, nitrogen use efficiency of 0.21 was significantly below the European average. The viability of manure storage and spreading techniques recommended by European BREF, namely compost heaps covering and immediate incorporation of organic fertilisers after spreading, was estimated for this farm. The calculated values of total nitrogen losses are reduced by 20%; the saving of mineral fertilizers owing to higher nitrogen content in applied organic fertilisers can be 18 t / year. For the rough assessment of technologies on the initial stage of Russian reference books creation it is practicable to use the data from EU BREF on intensive rearing of pigs and poultry. When farms are assessed on the stage of integrated permits issue, it is feasible to use the measured air concentrations of hazardous substances along with the estimation of the whole-farm environmental impact by nitrogen use efficiency. For such estimates to be applied in Russia, the data needs to be collected and systematised for different categories of farms and for different climatic regions. Keywords: ammonia, environmental impact, livestock farm, farm-gate balance, nitrogen use efficiency Article DOI: http://doi.org/10.15544/RD.2017.189


OBJECTIVE
This study examined the extent to which community residential facilities that contract with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to treat substance abuse patients are providing more services and structure to meet the needs of a client population with increasingly severe problems.

METHODS
A nationwide sample of 249 community residential facilities with VA contracts was surveyed in 1995 and again in 1998.

RESULTS
In 1998 facilities were more likely than they were in 1995 to have psychiatrists and psychologists available to patients as well as specialized counseling and psychoeducational, rehabilitation, and medical services. Facilities also provided more social and recreational activities, and more structure was provided by discouraging patients' choice of individual daily living patterns. In 1998 the facilities were more likely to admit dual diagnosis patients, those with substance use disorders and psychiatric disorders. Programs that changed toward accepting dual diagnosis patients had more services and structure than programs that consistently accepted only substance abuse patients.

CONCLUSIONS
Community residential facilities that contract with VA are responding appropriately to an increasingly ill patient population by providing more services and structure.


Although steroids are widely known to affect behavior through activation of nuclear/cytosolic receptors ("genomic" effects), steroids can also rapidly affect behavior via modulation of signal transduction pathways ("nongenomic," fast actions, or rapid effects). In zebra finches, there is evidence that sex steroids have context-specific effects on pair-maintenance behavior, on both acute and chronic timescales. Here, we quantified the effects of orally administered testosterone and 17&bgr;-estradiol (E2) on pair-maintenance behavior. We show that E2 rapidly affects female, but not male, affiliative behavior profiles during a partner separation and reunion paradigm. More specifically, E2 rapidly (within 5–15 min of administration) increased females' spatial proximity to a partner. This effect was present regardless of breeding condition (water restriction or water ad libitum). Combined, these results contribute to a growing body of evidence implicating sex steroids in the regulation of prosocial behavior.


Transdisciplinary approaches (TDA) have provided a useful way to assess, formulate and monitor personalized individual strategies which share a common starting point where expertise from different disciplines come together in better and more efficiently understanding the individual's special needs and their autism. This paper aims to present through a single-case study how shared formulation informing interventions and strategies have been applied by adopting a transdisciplinary embedded approach through the adoption of a model of well-being – PERMA model. Differences between multi-disciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches are briefly discussed. Identification of barriers to accessing learning, evidence-based challenging behaviour profiles, identification of sensory and functional communication needs, a shared understanding of the individual and a consistent resilient team approach are presented and discussed. Qualitative and quantitative outcomes are ultimately presented and discussed with further reflections on the impact for the wider education practice and provision.


Digital library engagement is the extensive use of digital library features and services. Contrary to the traditional concept of usage, DL engagement evaluates the use of an information system based on multiple dimensions; affective, cognitive, and behavioural. Presently, there is scarce evidence and research on the level of DL engagement. Lack of such evidence caused under-utilization of DL resources. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the level of DL engagement in the context of Malaysian research universities. A quantitative study was conducted; an instrument was distributed to postgraduate students at five Malaysian research universities. A total of 492 responses were recorded and descriptively analyses using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 24. Frequency, Independent sample t-test, and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were performed to identify significance difference and mean distribution of data among the participating universities. Results show that respondent's age and research domain showed a significant effect on DL engagement, while gender, study mode, level of study, semester, and the university did not show any significant effect on DL engagement.


The aim of this study was to improve our understanding of the natural sources and processes of the dissolved manganese associated with the Southern Ocean and the Tropical North-Eastern (NE) Atlantic Ocean. A flow injection analyser (FIA) with chemiluminescence (CL) detection was first set up for the determination of dissolved manganese (DMn, ? 0.2 ?m). Extension work was undertaken to solve problems relating to our limited level of understanding of the CL reaction, and the behaviour of the resins used to either preconcentrate the manganese (i.e. Toyopearl AF-Chelate 650M) or to remove the interfering elements (cleaning resin, i.e. NTA Superflow and 8-Hydroxyquinoline). Using the system built in our laboratory, the determination of the interference of other dissolved trace metals (e.g. Fe, Ni, Cu, Co, Zn and Cd) were possible with dissolved manganese measurement in order to obtain a good measurable CL peak for dissolved manganese. The distribution of manganese around the Crozet Islands was examined and was used to provide a conceptual framework for future studies. Dissolved manganese concentrations were measured in samples collected from nine vertical profiles taken across the Crozet Plateau (80 - ~4500 m water depth) that show evidence of a range of processes influencing the manganese distributions. Dissolved manganese varied between 0.1 and 2.44 nM, and the resulting detailed section showed evidence of an island souce is identified which suggests that the plateau and the associated sediments are a source of manganese. Waters further north also appear to be affected by this input of both coastal and shelf origin, although dissolved manganese decrease as a function of distance to the north of the plateau with a gradient of 0.096 nM/km as a result of dispersion and mixing. This gradient was then combined with short-lived Radium isotopes profiles, allowing the determination of a lateral advective flux of manganese (up to 538 nmol/m2/d). Estimates of atmosphere and vertical fluxes of manganese to surface waters were also calculated. It was then possible to estimate a pre-bloom concentration of ~0.4 nM. A set of surface samples were collected from the Tropical NE Atlantic Ocean, and were analysed for dissolved manganese. Results suggest the land-sources of manganese near to the Canary Islands, the Cape Verde Islands and the African Continent, where high dissolved manganese concentrations were determined, with the highest is ~3.90 nM. The lateral advective flux of manganese was higher (47 ?mol/m2/d) than the atmospheric flux of manganese (0.17 ?mol/m2/d), thus making the shelf+sediment as the most prominent sources of dissolved manganese in the seawater close to the islands. From this atmospheric flux of manganese, it was then possible to estimate the manganese enrichment around the further offshore dust event regions of 0.73 nM/yr and consistent with the dissolved manganese background concentrations. This support the low residence time calculated in dust event regions of around 1 year.


A new method for removing the staircasing phenomenon in shear-warp algorithm is presented in this paper. During the shear-warp resampling process, bi-linear interpolation only occurs within each slice and the depth information between the slices is neglected. So staircasing phenomenon will occur in the result image at some viewing angles and affect the rendering quality of image. Based on the theory of interpolation and approximation, a quadratic curve is constructed from four ordinal original sampling points along the viewing orientation. A new resampling voxel is obtained from the quadratic curve. Then a new slice is constructed between two original neighboring slices so that the sampling precision can be improved. Based on the new sampling slices, staircasing phenomenon can be reduced in shear-warp rendering. The efficiency of the new method is demonstrated in experiments.


The peroxynitrite anion is a potent oxidizing agent, formed by the diffusion-limited combination of nitric oxide and superoxide, and its production under physiological conditions is associated with the pathologies of a number of inflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases. Nitration of Escherichia coli iron superoxide dismutase (Fe-SOD) by peroxynitrite was investigated, and demonstrated by spectral changes and electrospray mass spectroscopic analysis. HPLC and mass studies of the tryptic digests of the mono-nitrated Fe-SOD indicated that tyrosine-34 was the residue most susceptible to nitration by peroxynitrite. Exclusive nitration of this residue occurred when Fe-SOD was exposed to a cumulative dose of 0.4 mM peroxynitrite. Unlike with human Mn-SOD, this single modification did not inactivate E. coli Fe-SOD at pH 7.4. When Fe-SOD was exposed to higher concentrations of peroxynitrite (7 mM), eight tyrosine residues per subunit of the protein, of the nine available, were nitrated without loss of catalytic activity of the enzyme. The pK(a) of nitrated tyrosine-34 was determined to be 7.95+/-0.15, indicating that the peroxynitrite-modified enzyme appreciably maintains its protonation state under physiological conditions.


In this work we propose and demonstrate the use of a Tunnel FET (TFET) as capacitorless DRAM cell based on TCAD simulations and experiments. We report more experimental results on Tunnel FETs implemented as a double-gate (DG) fully-depleted Silicon-On-Insulator (FD-SOI) devices. The Tunnel FET based DRAM cell has an asymmetric body and a partial overlap of the top gate (LG1) with a total overlap of the back gate over the channel region (LG2). A potential well is created by biasing the back gate (VG2) in accumulation while the front gate (VG1) is in inversion. Holes from the p+ source are injected by the forward-biased source/channel junction and stored in the electrically induced potential well. Programming conditions and related transients are reported and the role of temperature is investigated.


Nepal is a Himalayan country, land-locked and sandwiched between two neighbouring mammoths, China and India. Kathmandu, the capital Valley, is a conglomeration of historical and World heritage cities in the central part of Nepal. All the rivers and rivulets that originate from this middle mountain valley, drain into the major river Bagmati, a tributary of the Ganges. Not so long ago the Bagmati, which is  sacred to all the Hindu populace, used to be the source of sustenance to the people, and abundant fauna and flora in the Valley and downstream. At present all the sewerage systems within the Valley directly discharge effluent into the streams nearby. The pollutants thus being fed into the tributary streams have rendered the river useless, just as a wastewater drain. Rapid urbanization and absence of reliable wastewater treatment facilities are the major causes of river pollution. A model Eco toilet has been designed such that urine and faeces get separated. The faeces are then dehydrated and decomposed with and without solar radiation. As against the normal condition, where the faeces are to be used as soil conditioner in the model with solar radiation, the faeces got decomposed in forty-eight days period. The diluted urine with eight parts of water is used as fertilizer for agriculture. Also, from the observation by many people on a cluster of the pilot project, annually per person recovered value of N (Nitrogen), P (Phosphorous) and K (Potassium) was found to be 5kg, 0.399Kg, 1.099 Kg, respectively. The combination of decomposed excreta thus received is expected to suffice the local fertilizer needs. The study thus found the Eco toilets to have a clear advantage over the traditional water borne sanitation. This paper presents an in-depth review of the present scenario of the water supply situation of Nepal. Similarly, this paper deals with different types of Eco toilets, their performance and feasibility in the context of Nepal, based on complete laboratory analysis and regular monitoring, as well as river restoration to a healthy state, including bio gas generation from excreta.


Peculiar cultures are symptomatic for areas of traditional industry. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and evaluate cultural and creative industries in Ostrava, the third largest town of the country that at the same time constitutes a typical representative of old industrial urban fabrics in the Czech Republic. Special attention will be devoted to the emerging cultural clusters that appear to be indispensable in terms of sustainable cultural management. Unique qualities of Ostrava's culture culminated in 2009, when the town decided to stand for the prestigious title of the European Capital of Culture. Finally, Ostrava did not succeed, nonetheless the contest vivified the discourse on Ostrava's culture and a distinctive potential for the creation of cultural clusters was revealed. Semi-structured interviews accomplished with relevant actors of the town's culture facilitated contextual interpretation of the role of cultural and creative industries as well as mapping the potential cultural clusters in the town. The research question posed in this article is as follows: do development effects formed by the concentration of creative and cultural industries in Ostrava exist? It turned out that the paths towards cultural management sustainability can differ substantially from recipes, which are well-proven in leading developed territories. The results of our analysis confirmed some developmental effects evoked by the concentration of cultural industries and cultural clusters in Ostrava can be identified, but genuine qualitative transformation towards a more cultural and sustainable milieu in Ostrava undoubtedly requires more time.


ABSTRACT Grounded in space yet facilitated by mobility, settler colonialism has adopted distinct architectural devices. Tents, prefabricated shelters, mobile homes, shipping containers, and other portable structures, have created the scaffoldings of new colonial settlements, allowing for rapid territorial expansion. These mobile spatial objects have also served as instruments of expulsion and expropriation, facilitating the creation of spaces of counterinsurgency and displacement for the containment of rebellious and expelled locals, who themselves used mobile architecture as an instrument of resistance. From the historical British 'Portable Colonial Cottage for Emigrants' to the caravans used by Israeli settlers in the occupied territories and the creation of humanitarian spaces, these mobile structures have been part of the toolkit enabling colonial powers to rapidly rearrange people in space. This article draws on critical mobility and architectural studies to examine settler colonialism's mobile architecture in both historical and contemporary contexts through the case of Israel-Palestine, from Mandatory Palestine's British and Zionist camps, through early statehood's spaces of displacement and emplacement, to current colonial environments. By doing so, the article highlights how settler colonialism's rapid spatial actions and counteractions require mobile spatial forms and their related infrastructure for the abrupt and often racialised territorial and demographic alterations and for related swift counteracts of resistance, protest and decolonisation.


The evolution of different cell types was a key process of early animal evolution1–3. Two fundamental cell types, epithelial cells and amoeboid cells, are broadly distributed across the animal tree of life4,5 but their origin and early evolution are unclear. Epithelial cells are polarized, have a fixed shape and often bear an apical cilium and microvilli. These features are shared with choanoflagellates – the closest living relatives of animals – and are thought to have been inherited from their last common ancestor with animals1,6,7. The deformable amoeboid cells of animals, on the other hand, seem strikingly different from choanoflagellates and instead evoke more distantly related eukaryotes, such as diverse amoebae – but it has been unclear whether that similarity reflects common ancestry or convergence8. Here, we show that choanoflagellates subjected to spatial confinement differentiate into an amoeboid phenotype by retracting their flagella and microvilli, generating blebs, and activating myosin-based motility. Choanoflagellate cell crawling is polarized by geometrical features of the substrate and allows escape from confined microenvironments. The confinement-induced amoeboid switch is conserved across diverse choanoflagellate species and greatly expands the known phenotypic repertoire of choanoflagellates. The broad phylogenetic distribution of the amoeboid cell phenotype across animals9–14 and choanoflagellates, as well as the conserved role of myosin, suggests that myosin-mediated amoeboid motility was present in the life history of their last common ancestor. Thus, the duality between animal epithelial and crawling cells might have evolved from a temporal phenotypic switch between flagellate and amoeboid forms in their single-celled ancestors3,15,16.


Diversity issues are taking on increased significance and are being included as a part of academic libraries' strategic plans, often with the goal of improving the overall climate for diversity. Empowering employees to discuss and resolve diversity-related conflicts themselves and offering them some practical strategies to do so are activities the literature supports for improving climate. Members of the Penn State University Libraries Diversity Committee created an interactive workshop using media and discussion to address these issues based on and adapted from Speak Up!, a program from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Other libraries can use this program as a model for meeting diversity objectives in their strategic plans.


Control of translation in eukaryotes is complex, depending on the binding of various factors to mRNAs. Available data for subsets of mRNAs that are translationally up- and down-regulated in yeast eIF4E-binding protein (4E-BP) deletion mutants are coupled with reported mRNA secondary structure measurements to investigate whether 5′-UTR secondary structure varies between the subsets. Genes with up-regulated translational efficiencies in the caf20Δ mutant have relatively high averaged 5′-UTR secondary structure. There is no apparent wide-scale correlation of RNA-binding protein preferences with the increased 5′-UTR secondary structure, leading us to speculate that the secondary structure itself may play a role in differential partitioning of mRNAs between eIF4E/4E-BP repression and eIF4E/eIF4G translation initiation. Both Caf20p and Eap1p contain stretches of positive charge in regions of predicted disorder. Such regions are also present in eIF4G and have been reported to associate with mRNA binding. The pattern of these segments, around the canonical eIF4E-binding motif, varies between each 4E-BP and eIF4G. Analysis of gene ontology shows that yeast proteins containing predicted disordered segments, with positive charge runs, are enriched for nucleic acid binding. We propose that the 4E-BPs act, in part, as differential, flexible, polyelectrostatic scaffolds for mRNAs.


Standard variational schemes for training deep latent variable models rely on biased gradient estimates of the target objective. Techniques based on the Evidence Lower Bound (ELBO), and tighter variants obtained via importance sampling, produce biased gradient estimates of the true loglikelihood. The family of Reweighted WakeSleep (RWS) methods further relies on a biased estimator of the inference objective, which biases training of the encoder also. In this work, we show how multilevel Monte Carlo (MLMC) can provide a natural framework for debiasing these methods with two different estimators. We prove rigorously that this approach yields unbiased gradient estimators with finite variance under reasonable conditions. Furthermore, we investigate methods that can reduce variance and ensure finite variance in practice. Finally, we show empirically that the proposed unbiased estimators outperform IWAE and other debiasing method on a variety of applications at the same expected cost.


Metal oxide clusters of sub-nm dimensions dispersed on a metal oxide support are an important class of catalytic materials for a number of key chemical reactions, showing enhanced reactivity over the corresponding bulk oxide. In this paper we present the results of a density functional theory study of small sub-nm TiO(2) clusters, Ti(2)O(4), Ti(3)O(6) and Ti(4)O(8) supported on the rutile (110) surface. We find that all three clusters adsorb strongly with adsorption energies ranging from -3 eV to -4.5 eV. The more stable adsorption structures show a larger number of new Ti-O bonds formed between the cluster and the surface. These new bonds increase the coordination of cluster Ti and O as well as surface oxygen, so that each has more neighbours. The electronic structure shows that the top of the valence band is made up of cluster derived states, while the conduction band is made up of Ti 3d states from the surface, resulting in a reduction of the effective band gap and spatial separation of electrons and holes after photon absorption, which shows their potential utility in photocatalysis. To examine reactivity, we study the formation of oxygen vacancies in the cluster-support system. The most stable oxygen vacancy sites on the cluster show formation energies that are significantly lower than in bulk TiO(2), demonstrating the usefulness of this composite system for redox catalysis.


Four major earthquakes of the 1811-1812 New Madrid series caused widespread ground disturbance, mostly in the form of sand blows, in the alluvial valley of the Mississippi River. Although a recurrence interval of 600-700 yr has been estimated for major shocks, recent excavations at an archeological site in northeastern Arkansas revealed no evidence of ground disturbance for at least 1.3 ka prior to 1811. Sand blows attributed to the New Madrid series show that such features can have multiple episodes of sand extrusion through a single dike and vent.


Buddhism is widely known to advocate a stance of total pacifism towards all sentient beings, and because of this, it is often thought that Buddhist doctrine would stipulate that non-violent food practices, such as vegetarianism, be mandatory. However, the Pali source materials do not encourage vegetarianism and most Buddhists do not practice it. Using research based on ethnographic evidence and interviews, this book discusses this issue by presenting an investigation of vegetarianism and animal ethics within a Buddhist cultural domain.

Focusing on Sri Lanka, a place of great historical significance to Buddhism, the book looks at how lay Buddhists and the clergy came to understand the role of vegetarianism and animal ethics in Buddhism. It analyses whether the Buddha preached a view that encouraged vegetarianism, and how this squares with his pacifism towards animals. The book goes on to question how Buddhist food practices intersect with other secular activities such as traditional medicine, as well as discussing the wider implications of Buddhist animal pacifism including vegetarian political movements and animal rights groups.

Shedding light on a subject that, until now, has only been tangentially treated by scholars, this interdisciplinary study will be of interest to those working in the fields of Buddhist Studies, Religion and Philosophy, as well as South Asian Studies.


Background: Understanding the mechanism behind the transcriptional regulation of genes is still a challenge. Recent findings indicate that the genomic repeat elements (such as LINES, SINES and LTRs) could play an important role in the transcription control. Hence, it is important to further explore the role of genomic repeat elements in the gene expression regulation, and perhaps in other molecular processes. Although many computational tools exists for repeat element analysis, almost all of them simply identify and/or classifying the genomic repeat elements within query sequence(s); none of them facilitate identification of repeat elements that are likely to have a functional significance, particularly in the context of transcriptional regulation. Result: We developed the 'Genomic Repeat Element Analyzer for Mammals' (GREAM) to allow gene-centric analysis of genomic repeat elements in 17 mammalian species, and validated it by comparing with some of the existing experimental data. The output provides a categorized list of the specific type of transposons, retro-transposons and other genome-wide repeat elements that are statistically over-represented across specific neighborhood regions of query genes. The position and frequency of these elements, within the specified regions, are displayed as well. The tool also offers queries for position-specific distribution of repeat elements within chromosomes. In addition, GREAM facilitates the analysis of repeat element distribution across the neighborhood of orthologous genes. Conclusion: GREAM allows researchers to short-list the potentially important repeat elements, from the genomic neighborhood of genes, for further experimental analysis. GREAM is free and available for all at http://resource.ibab.ac.in/GREAM/


ABSTRACT This manuscript provides a methodology for the reconstruction of a rainfall field when there are scarce rain-gauge stations available. This situation typically arises when measurements are taken from meteorological stations across time, and the information for the complete field is required as an input for larger scale models. The proposed method is based on a wavelet reconstruction technique that requires no distributional assumptions, but relies on the relation between rainfall and normalized difference vegetation index to account for the unobserved spatial variability of the field. The methodology is applied over a region of the southern Peruvian Andes where data gathered from meteorological stations provide enough statistical significance. A comparison with respect to an alternative source of spatial variability and common practices is provided.