Cryptosporidium and Giardia are waterborne parasitic protozoons that have been associated with some diarrhoeal illness in most parts of the world. They are considered of major importance for drinking water safety as waterborne outbreaks still occur regularly in both developed and developing countries, sometimes with fatal consequences. To determine their incidence in the KwaZulu-Natal population, an epidemiological review of pathology laboratory data was compiled. Both protists were found to be endemic although their occurrence did not appear to correlate with climatic factors such as rainfall, season or year, possibly indicating that other factors such as personal hygiene, potable water supply, sanitation and education probably have a more significant impact here rather than waterborne transmission. The results, however, may not be representative of the entire population as detection techniques are not standardised and data were only collected from laboratories willing to supply in the Durban and Pietermaritzburg areas which represent under 10% of laboratories in KwaZulu-Natal that test for Cryptosporidium and Giardia. These laboratories, however, perform most of the testing from throughout KwaZulu-Natal and are situated in the metropolitan areas. In addition, poor recording of patient details made conciling of data difficult. Evaluation of a calcium carbonate flocculation, membrane filtration and membrane dissolution technique for concentrating Cryptosporidium oocysts and Giardia cysts from water is necessary to accurately quantify (oo)cysts in water. Methods currently used result in varying recoveries and the best method had to be identified and enhanced for this study. Greater (oo)cyst losses occurred as turbidity increased irrespective of the method used. The calcium carbonate flocculation method proved to have the best recovery for all water types and is recommended for use in the regular routine monitoring of smaller volumes of water. Pre-filtration prior to flocculation had the potential to make microscopy easier although losses of (oo)cysts still occurred. Sucrose flotation following flocculation reduced recovery whilst pH adjustment to 6 ± 0.5 following flocculation improved recovery and is recommended with turbid water samples. A cheap and simple detection method using the slide immunoenzymatic assay (SIA) which is based on the principles of enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), was adapted to detect Cryptosporidium and Giardia in potable and turbid water concentrates. The results were reproducible and sensitivity was improved using a spectrophotometer. A multi-phase SIA system, using reagents in liquid and dry ready-to-use forms, was investigated and the potential exists for its further development. Unfortunately this method does not indicate the viability status of (oo)cysts therefore a novel method to do so was developed using fluorescein diacetate (FDA) and tetramethyl red (TMR) labelled antiGiardia monoclonal antibodies. This combination stained viable cysts green internally with a red wall while non-viable cysts stained red only. While the use of FDA overestimates viability, any error would err in favour of safety, and could be complemented with fluorescein isothiocyanate / propidium iodide for confirmation of viability status. As Cryptosporidium and Giardia were found to be present in the KwaZulu-Natal population, monitoring of water bodies, water supplies, wastewaters and sludges, using the enhanced flocculation procedure and immunofluorescence assay, was undertaken to determine their source. Oocysts and cysts were detected in dam, river and raw waters, treated effluent and sludge samples. No oocysts or cysts were detected in the treated water samples although this may be due to the inability of the method used to detect low numbers of (oo)cysts. This research confirmed the occurrence of Cryptosporidium and Giardia in the KwaZuluNatal population and water matrices. The optimum concentration method for use with water samples was established and further enhanced for use with turbid waters while a simpler and cheaper means of detecting (oo)cysts and a novel viability-detection stain for cysts were developed.


The carbon source markedly influenced the qualitative and quantitative composition of cellular hydrocarbons in Cladosporium resinae. Total lipid and hydrocarbon content was greater in cells grown on n-alkanes than in cells grown on glucose or glutamic acid. Glucose-grown cells contained a spectrum of aliphatic hydrocarbons from C7 to C36; pristane and n-hexadecane comprised 98% of the total. Cells grown on glutamic acid contained C7 to C23 hydrocarbons; n-tridecane, n-tetradecane, n-hexadecane, and pristane made up 74% of the total. n-Decane-grown cells yielded C8 to C32 compounds, and n-hexadecane (96%) was the major hydrocarbon. Cells grown on individual n-alkanes from C11 to C15 all contained C11 to C28 hydrocarbons, and cells grown on n-hexadecane contained C11 to C32 hydrocarbons. In n-undecane-grown cells, n-hexadecane and pristane made up 92% of the total, but in cells grown on C12 to C16n-alkanes the major cellular hydrocarbon was the one on which the cells were grown. This suggests that cells cultured on n-alkanes of C12 or longer accumulate n-alkanes prior to oxidizing them.


Real and Imaginary Properties of Epsilon-near-Zero Materials

Mohammad H. Javani and Mark I. Stockman
Department of Physics and Astronomy and Center for Nano-Optics, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30340, USA
E-mail address:email@example.com

Abstract: From the fundamental principle of causality we show that epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) materials with very low (asymptotically zero) intrinsic dielectric loss do necessarily possess a very low (asymptotically zero) group velocity of electromagnetic wave propagation. This leads to the loss function being singular and causes high non-radiative damping of optical resonators and emitters (plasmonic nanoparticles, quantum dots, chromophore molecules) embedded into them or placed at their surfaces. Rough ENZ surfaces do not exhibit hot spots of local fields suggesting that surface modes are overdamped. Reflectors and waveguides also show very large losses both for realistic and idealized ENZ.

1. Introduction
Recently, materials at frequencies close to the bulk plasmon frequency, , which are characterized by dielectric permittivity being small enough, , and are usually referred to as Epsilon Near Zero (ENZ) materials, have attracted a great deal of attention, see, e.g., [1-3].
Their optical properties are expected to be quite remarkable: ENZ should totally reflect light at all angles, the phase velocity of light tends to infinity and, correspondingly, the light wave carries almost constant phase, the density of photonic states diverges at , a waveguide formed inside an ENZ material can confine light at deep sub-wavelength dimensions, there is no reflections even at sharp bands, and the unavoidable roughness of the waveguide walls does not significantly spoil the wave-guiding. As in many other cases in nanooptics \cite[4], dielectric losses present a significant problem deteriorating these unique properties and limiting useful applications of ENZ materials.
2. Results
Following Ref. [5], we show that the fundamental principle of causality [as given by dictates that any ENZ material with a very low (asymptotically zero) loss at the observation frequency has necessarily asymptotically zero group velocity at that frequency. Physically, this leads to enhanced scattering and dissipative losses as given by the diverging energy-loss function. Paradoxically, a reduction of the intrinsic loss, , leads to an increase of energy-loss function and further deterioration of performance of reflectors and waveguides built from ENZ materials. Both analytically and numerically we have shown that a realistic ENZ material ITO at the bulk plasma frequency causes high reflection and propagation losses. The singular loss function is also responsible for anomalously strong optical damping of resonant systems (plasmonic nanoparticles, dye molecules, quantum dots, etc.) embedded into or positioned at the surfaces of ENZ materials. In contrast to plasmonic metals, there are no pronounced hot spots of local fields at rough ENZ surfaces. Structured dielectric media with practically zero loss in the optical region cannot function as true ENZ materials because of the singular response; they necessarily are diffractive photonic crystals, and not refractive effective media. Obviously, this anomalous loss of ENZ materials can be gainfully used in energy absorbers, which begets analogy with heating of plasmas at plasma frequency with charged particles or electromagnetic waves. These losses and singularities are fundamental, local properties of the ENZ media, which cannot be eliminated by micro- or nano-structuring.
4. References
1. N. Engheta, Pursuing near-Zero Response, Science 340, 286-287 (2013).
2. R. Marques, J. Martel, F. Mesa, and F. Medina, Left-Handed-Media Simulation and Transmission of Em Waves in Subwavelength Split-Ring-Resonator-Loaded Metallic Waveguides, Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 183901-1-4 (2002).
3. M. Silveirinha and N. Engheta, Tunneling of Electromagnetic Energy through Subwavelength Channels and Bends Using Epsilon-near-Zero Materials, Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 157403 (2006).
4. M. I. Stockman, Nanoplasmonics: Past, Present, and Glimpse into Future, Opt. Express 19, 22029-22106 (2011).
5. M. H. Javani and M. I. Stockman, Real and Imaginary Properties of Epsilon-near-Zero Materials, Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 107404-1-6 (2016).


Despite the important role of Metalloproteinase (MMP) in β-cellular matrix remodeling there is clearly not enough data concerning the MMP proteolytic activity during first three weeks (early scar changes) of postoperative gastric ulcers. Thus the main aim of our work was the MMP, TIMP-1 and bFGF overall activity determination as well as their role in post-burn wound healing in case of the 2nd degree esophagus acid burn infliction. The greatest increase in the metalloproteinase activity and bFGF level was observed at 21st d of our experiment. In addition, the greatest increase in the TIMP-1 level in the esophageal mucosal was observed at 7th d after burn. These changes may be an evidence of chronic inflammatory processes and scar changes in rat esophagus after the EAB infliction.


Due to their pleiotropic activities, network-like interactions, unknown mode of action and peculiar pharmacokinetics, the in vivo application of cytokines in clinical therapy studies is a difficult task. This paper deals with two therapeutic strategies which imply either maximum tolerated or biological active doses of human recombinant cytokines. Evidence is presented that the serum markers beta-2-microglobulin, which relates to HLA-AB antigen biosynthesis, and neopterin, which relates to macrophage activation, are useful response parameters for the definition of biological activity of IFN-alpha and IFN-gamma. Defined by such means, biological active doses are shown to be considerably less toxic than maximum tolerated doses, but are equally or more effective in the treatment of certain malignant disease states.


In this work, multiple hierarchical language modeling strategies for a zero OOV rate large vocabulary continuous speech recognition system are investigated. In our previously proposed hierarchical approach, a full-word language model and a context independent character-level LM (CLM) are directly used during search. The novelty of this work is to jointly model the character-level prior and the pronunciation probabilities, to introduce across-word context into the characterlevel LM, and to properly normalize the character-level LM using prefix-tree based normalization for the hierarchical approach. Significant reductions in-terms of word error rates (WER) on the best full-word Quaero Polish LVCSR system are reported.


"Linux in a Nutshell" covers the core commands available on common Linux distributions. This isn't a scaled-down quick reference of common commands, but a complete reference containing all user, programming, administration, and networking commands.Contents include: Commands with complete lists of optionsShell syntax for the "bash," "csh," and "tcsh" shellsPattern matching"emacs," "vi," and "ex" editing commands"sed" and "gawk" commandsSoftware development commandsThis book also documents a wide range of GNU tools for UNIX users who have GNU versions of standard UNIX tools. You'll find all the essential commands you need to run your system, as well as all the commands that historically have been included on UNIX systems. Specialized packages included in most distributions of Linux are not covered."Linux in a Nutshell" is a must for any Linux user; it weighs less than a stack of manual pages, but gives you everything you need for common, day-to-day use.


Discrete dislocation dynamics (DDD) has been used to model the deformation of nickelbased single crystal superalloys with a high volume fraction of precipitates at high temperature. A representative volume cell (RVC), comprising of both the precipitate and the matrix phase, was employed in the simulation where a periodic boundary condition was applied. The dislocation Frank-Read sources were randomly assigned with an initial density on the 12 octahedral slip systems in the matrix channel. Precipitate shearing by superdislocations was modelled using a back force model, and the coherency stress was considered by applying an initial internal stress field. Strain-controlled loading was applied to the RVC in the [001] direction. In addition to dislocation structure and density evolution, global stress-strain responses were also modelled considering the influence of precipitate shearing, precipitate morphology, internal microstructure scale (channel width and precipitate size) and coherency stress. A three-stage stress-strain response observed in the experiments was modelled when precipitate shearing by superdislocations was considered. The polarized dislocation structure deposited on the precipitate/matrix interface was found to be the dominant strain hardening mechanism. Internal microstructure size, precipitate shape and arrangement can significantly affect the deformation of the single crystal superalloy by changing the constraint effect and dislocation mobility. The coherency stress field has a negligible influence on the stress-strain response, at least for cuboidal precipitates considered in the simulation. Preliminary work was also carried out to simulate the cyclic deformation in a single crystal Ni-based superalloy using the DDD model, although no cyclic hardening or softening was captured due to the lack of precipitate shearing and dislocation cross slip in this alloy.


Background The SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for COVID-19 poses a significant challenge to healthcare systems worldwide. Despite governmental initiatives aimed at containing the spread of the disease, several countries are experiencing unmanageable increases in the demand for ICU beds, medical equipment, and larger testing capacity. Efficient COVID-19 diagnosis enables healthcare systems to provide better care for patients while protecting caregivers from the disease. However, many countries are constrained by the limited amount of test kits available, lack of equipment and trained professionals. In the case of patients visiting emergency rooms (ERs) with a suspect of COVID-19, prompt diagnosis may improve the outcome and even provide information for efficient hospital management. In such a context, a quick, inexpensive and readily available test to perform an initial triage in ERs could help to smooth patient flow, provide better patient care, and reduce the backlog of exams.


In order to ensure the safety of parenterals, international pharmacopoeias and national standards have set up stringent guidelines and standards. Particulate contamination is a potential health risk caused by intravenous injection of particles large enough to potentially clog the small arteries. Particles could be produced through manufacturing and packaging or even dispensing of the pharmaceuticals. The nature of the particles are varied and could be of drug itself, packaging debris, rubber, plastic, cotton, fiber and glass particles, which might be produced during the breakage of an ampoule. In this study, some of the small volume parenterals available in Iranian drug market have been investigated for the presence of particles. Although, most of the tested samples passed national standard tests for particulate contamination of small volume parenterals, 40% of the samples were rejected using the same protocols. Therefore, it appears that particulate contamination of parenterals creates an additional source of risk for patients who receive these medications, intravenously.


Women with a diagnosis of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) have a high risk of developing a second breast event (SBE). The immune system might play a role in trying to prevent a SBE. Patients diagnosed with DCIS were identified in the population-based cancer registry of Area Vasta Romagna from 1997 to 2010. Median follow-up is 8.5 years. Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) were evaluated both in index DCIS and in SBE. The main endpoint was to assess the association between TILs' levels in index DCIS and risk of a SBE. Out of 496 DCIS patients, 100 SBEs (20.2%) were identified: 55 ipsilateral (11.1%) and 43 contralateral (8.7%). The distribution of TILs was heterogeneous, but significantly associated with grade, necrosis, screen detection and type of surgery. Patients stratified according to TILs percentage (≤5% and >5%) did not show a statistically significant difference in the 5-year cumulative incidence of SBEs: 14.9% (95% CI 11.3–19.1) and 11.0% (95% CI, 6.9–16.2), respectively (p = 0.147). In the subgroup of patients who did not receive radiotherapy, TILs >5% were associated with a reduced risk of SBE (HR 0.34, 95% CI 0.14–0.82, p = 0.016). Although we did not find any significant association between TILs and SBE, further studies evaluating their role according to radiotherapy are warranted.


Aim: The paper presents a bibliometric analysisis of high-cited papers (HCPs) on Covid-19 published during 2019-2021. The study provides evidence on current research trends in the subject, identifies influential countries, organizations, research papers and journals on Covid-19 research. The study evaluates publication and citation performance of highly-cited papers and maps network interactions amongst the key global players using VOSviewer software. Materials and Methods: The data for the study was sourced from Web of Science for the period 2019-2021. Results: The USA, China and the UK dominate global Covid-19 research in terms of research productivity. In terms of citation performance China leads the tally with the USA at the second position. The USA, China and the UK account for a 88% share of total HCPs in the subject. The study identified top eleven centers of excellence based on the criteria of most productivity as well as most-cited organizations. New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, JAMA - Journal of the American Medical Association, Science and Nature are the most favoured journals for publishing HCPs. The relationship networks of most productive countries, organizations, and keywords are also given in the paper.


This paper deals with the translation phenomenon as a cultural transfer. We try to show the importance of the translation factor in this globalized world and to what extent the translation is important in people's daily life. Actually translation factor was existed in all areas of time and we can say that it was a kind of the bridge between the people of the different origins. This article points out that the professional translator is a kind of intercultural expert. Translation can be defined as inercultural practice. Some aspects will be given to show the special interrelation between the language and the culture. Culture can be different according to everyone. Culture means nation where nation means language, tradition and believes. Every nation has proper culture to live. Successful translation can be defined as a cultural transfer. So the translation is one of the essential way in transferring culture. The translation is a kind of transfer beween cultures. Language must be understandable as a cultural practice because by the help of the language we transfer our cultural scenes. So the translation of the particular language can be called as the cultural process. Though we cannot imagine how much ethnic and cultural values differ through language, where language preserves the history and traditions of the people. Language is the construction of our identities and cultures.


Significant efforts have been made to improve the educational system in the Western Highlands of Guatemala to foster economic growth and social development in the country. However, given the country's linguistic and cultural diversity, challenges in terms of coverage and quality of education persist. Inadequate teacher preparation training, and the absence of an induction and pedagogical coaching system for new teachers are some of the impeding factors. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has executed targeted educational projects to support the National Ministry of Education in strengthening the human capital in education. A transformative pedagogical leadership and coaching model was developed that focuses efforts from an oversight system to a mentoring system that strengthens leadership and the capacities of teachers in the application of innovative methodologies that contribute to educational improvement. This model allows for a continuous cycle of improvement to teaching by providing new teachers with feedback on teaching practices in the classroom and opportunities for teachers to self-reflect and be empowered in their own learning process and professional growth. This approach has shown positive effects with respect to teaching practices at the school-level; however, additional measures are required to gain the support of stakeholders to expand its implementation to bilingual and multicultural contexts to maximize the country's potential to improve the quality of education.


ABSTRACT A 3.2 km profile of mixed carbonates and clastics is superbly exposed in Slaughter Canyon in the Guadalupe Mountains of southern New Mexico and provides a seismic-scale panorama of stratal architecture and cyclic facies relationships across the Upper Permian shelf margin of the Delaware basin. The upper Seven Rivers and Yates Formations exposed in the mapped profile behind the Capitan reef margin are characterized by extreme seaward thickening and strongly progradational architecture. Meter-scale cycles exhibit systematic lithofacies changes in a seaward direction, spanning pisolitic shelf-crest to skeletal outer-shelf facies tracts. Retrogradational, aggradational, and progradational stacking patterns of meter-scale cycles in the Yates define four complete high-frequency sequences (Y1-Y4) and the lower half of a fifth (Y5) that continues into the overlying Tansill Formation. Individual Yates high-frequency sequences are fundamentally macroscale versions of Yates meter-scale cycles, on the basis of comparable internal arrangements of lithofacies and their seaward-thickening geometry. The evolution of the Yates-Capitan shelf margin from Y1 through Y4 is expressed by systematic trends in downdip thickness changes, lateral extent of facies tracts relative to the Capitan reef margin, aspect ratios of facies tracts, progradation:aggradation ratios and derived offlap angles, and progradation rates. These trends reflect the position of individual high-frequency sequences in the larger scale Yates-Tansill composite sequence. Long-term changes in aspect ratios record the progressive seaward migration and lateral expansion of the shelf-crest facies tract from Y1 through Y4 and the reciprocal seaward-stepping architecture and lateral contraction of the outer-shelf facies tract. The four Yates high-frequency sequences in Slaughter Canyon are characterized by an average offlap angle of 3.6°, whereas the corresponding average growth angle for the time-equivalent Capitan reef is 5.2°. The higher reef growth angle reflects the greater amount of accommodation available near the outer shelf-to-reef transition as well as limitations to seaward growth imposed by the steepness of the reef front. The Yates shelf prograded at an average rate of 2.1 m/k.y., whereas the time-equivalent Capitan reef prograded at a rate of 1.7 m/k.y. The strongly progradational architecture of the Yates shelf resulted in a progressive decrease in the depth of the Capitan reef through time from a maximum of ~ 65 m during early Yates time to near sea level during the latest stages of the Yates platform. The abrupt seaward expansion within each Yates high-frequency sequence occurs directly above the terminal reef margin of the preceding high-frequency sequence. The underlying reef likely acted as a foundation to localize the basinward shift in deposition associated with sea-level fall along high-frequency sequence boundaries, contributing to the seaward thickening and progradational "step-out" of the outer shelf. Architectural changes controlled by the interaction between relative sea level and antecedent depositional topography may be a fundamental characteristic of many progradational shelf margins.


The use of fructose as a pure sugar has considerably increased in the last 3 decades, especially as a sweetener in carbonated beverages. Our previous studies showed that long-term fructose intake adversely affected several age-related metabolic parameters. The purpose of the present study was to compare the consequences of long-term fructose intake with those of glucose or sucrose on renal morphology and on several biochemical parameters used to estimate renal function. Male rats were fed a commercial diet for 16 months, and had free access either to water (control) or to 250 g/L solutions of fructose, glucose, or sucrose. Fructose-drinking rats exhibited higher liver weights compare to the other dietary groups. Control rats excreted significantly less urinary output than all sugar groups, which did not differ from each other. No differences were observed in fasting plasma fructose, glucose, and creatinine levels, or in urinary glucose levels. Fructose consumption resulted in elevated urinary fructose levels, higher creatinine clearance, and marked proteinuria. The tested sugars had influence on the molecular weight distribution of urinary proteins in the ranges of 10 to 16, 25 to 35, and 75 to 85 kd. Histological examination revealed that fructose consumption led to the formation of foci of cortical tubular necrosis with chronic inflammatory infiltrate, accumulation of tubular hyaline casts, thickening of the Bowman's capsule, mesangial thickening due to collagen deposits, and the occurrence of hemosiderin in tubular cells. These data suggest that fructose has a negative impact on kidney function and morphology. Further research is required to elucidate the precise mechanisms by which long-term fructose consumption hampers renal metabolism.


A two-part model is used to examine the demand for ambulatory mental health services in the specialty sector. In the first equation, the probability of having a mental health visit is estimated. In the second part of the model, variations in levels of use expressed in terms of visits and expenditures are examined in turn, with each of these equations conditional on positive utilization of mental health services. In the second part of the model, users are additionally grouped into those with and without out-of-pocket payment for services. This specification accounts for special characteristics regarding the utilization of ambulatory mental health services: (1) a large part of the population does not use these services; (2) of those who use services, the distribution of use is highly skewed; and (3) a large number of users have zero out-of-pocket expenditures. Cost-sharing does indeed matter in the demand for ambulatory mental health services from specialty providers; however, the decision to use mental health services is affected by the level of cost-sharing to a lesser degree than is the decision regarding the level of use of services. The results also show that price is only one of several important factors in determining the demand for services. The lack of significance of family income and of being female is notable. Evidence is presented for the existence of bandwagon effects. The importance of Medicaid in the probability of use equations is noted.


Tuberous sclerosis (TSC) is an autosomal dominant disorder characterized by a broad phenotypic spectrum that includes seizures, mental retardation, renal dysfunction and dermatological abnormalities. Inactivating mutations to either of the TSC1 and TSC2 tumour suppressor genes are responsible for the disease. TSC1 and TSC2 encode two large novel proteins called hamartin and tuberin, respectively. Hamartin and tuberin interact directly with each other and it has been reported that tuberin may act as a chaperone, preventing hamartin self-aggregation and maintaining the tuberin-hamartin complex in a soluble form. In this study, the ability of tuberin to act as a chaperone for hamartin was used to investigate the tuberin-hamartin interaction in more detail. A domain within tuberin necessary for the chaperone function was identified, and the effects of TSC2 missense mutations on the tuberin-hamartin interaction were investigated to allow specific residues within the central domain of tuberin that are important for the interaction with hamartin to be pin-pointed. In addition, the results confirm that phosphorylation may play an important role in the formation of the tuberin-hamartin complex. Although mutations that prevent tuberin tyrosine phosphorylation also inhibit tuberin-hamartin binding and the chaperone function, our results indicate that only hamartin is phosphorylated in the tuberin-hamartin complex.


A simulated curved root canal in a resin block was enlarged to size 40 and used to compare the depth of accessory cone penetration and weight of obturation occurring with the use of different obturation techniques and spreader-accessory cone combinations. Twelve groups, each consisting of 10 obturations, were created. A conventional lateral condensation technique was used in six groups and a mechanical lateral condensation (MLC) technique was used in six matched groups. The six spreader-accessory cone combinations were either Fine-Medium or Fine nickel-titanium finger spreaders with either Fine, Medium-Fine, or size 25 accessory cones. Seven accessory cones were placed in every obturation. The depth of each accessory cone penetration into the canal was measured. After each obturation the gutta-percha was removed, sectioned, and the resulting mass was weighed. The means for each variable were determined and compared. MLC fills were significantly heavier and had greater depth of penetration on average than conventional lateral condensation. The best combination for heavy fills was MLC, Fine-Medium spreaders, and Fine accessory cones. The greatest mean accessory cone depth occurred with MLC, Fine-Medium spreaders, and size 25 accessory cones.


Abstract The subject of research in this paper is higher-education competitiveness on account of its impact on the enhancement of social and economic competitiveness, as well as on the growth of human capital and creation of social knowledge. The purpose of this paper is to group the selected European countries according to higher-education competitiveness, by means of the hierarchical cluster analysis method, with a special focus on the position of Serbia. Higher-education competitiveness in the chosen countries is analysed by means of three indicators of competitiveness: the ratio of the number of students per number of inhabitants, the number of students per number of employed, as well as the amount of budgetary funds allocated per student. The research results indicate different higher-education competitiveness in the analysed countries and also the fact that, according to this analysis, Serbia is in the group of countries with low competitiveness of higher education.


Summary The KO Labyrinth is a colorful spherical puzzle with 26 chambers, some of which can be connected via holes through which a small ball can pass when the chambers are aligned correctly. The puzzle can be realigned by performing physical rotations of the sphere in the same way one manipulates a Rubik's Cube, which alters the configuration of the puzzle. The goal is to navigate the ball from the entrance chamber to the exit chamber. We find the shortest path through the puzzle using Dijkstra's algorithm and explore questions related to connectivity of puzzle with the adjacency matrix, distance matrix, and first passage time analysis. We show that the shortest path through the maze takes only 10 moves, whereas a random walk through the maze requires, on average, about 340 moves before reaching the end. We pose an analogue of the gambler's ruin problem and separately consider whether we are able to solve the puzzle if certain chambers are off limits. We conclude with comments and questions for future investigation.


Loss assessments are undertaken to support decisions about disaster mitigation. There is considerable pressure to use economic principles and to make such assessments a condition of funding for all mitigation. A fundamental underlying assumption is that loss assessments are accurate and comparable—and that this accuracy makes comparisons more valid. Unfortunately, it appears that this is not the case. A key question concerns whether loss assessments can be made accurate and comparable through improved knowledge and training— as implied by many critics of the approach—or whether the problems are inherent in the idea of loss assessment. Drawing primarily on Australian flood loss assessment work, these issues are examined. Results suggest that the uncertainties may be larger than generally acknowledged, that at least some are irreducible, and that comparisons may not be assisted by improved accuracy. The implication is that loss assessment methods should aim to make comparisons valid and reliable rather than chase unachievable precision.


In ventricular myocytes, α1-AR stimulates Gas proteins and reduces the transient outward K+ current (Ito) via a cAMP/PKA-mediated pathway and thus regulates cardiac contraction and excitability. This Ito reduction is compartmentalized and limited to discrete membrane regions since PKA-dependent phosphorylation of the Ito channels after α1-AR stimulation requires the integrity of both the sarcoplasmic membrane and the cytoskeleton. The aim of this work was to investigate the mechanisms involved in the compartmentalization of the PKA-dependent modulation of Ito in response to α1-AR activation. Ito current recordings were performed by the Patch-Clamp technique. Membrane rafts from isolated ventricular myocytes were extracted by centrifugation in a sucrose density gradient. The different proteins were visualized by western blot and protein-protein interactions determined by coimmunoprecipitation experiments. Localization of Ito channel in caveolae, particular subtypes of membrane rafts, was achieved by electron microscopy. Patch-Clamp recordings show that a functional supramolecular complex, kept together by the A kinase anchoring protein AKAP100, exist in caveolae in living myocytes. Density gradients and immunoprecipitation experiments show that the components of the a1-AR/Ito pathway localize in caveolae, forming two different groups of proteins. The KV4.2/KV4.3 channel forms a supramolecular complex with PKA through AKAP100 and is attached to caveolae by interacting with caveolin-3. On the other hand, α1-AR, Gas and adenylate cyclase gather in a second group also connected to caveolin-3. Therefore, both groups of preassembled proteins are maintained in close proximity by caveolin-3. A different Ito channel population localizes in non-caveolar membrane rafts and is not sensitive to a1-adrenergic regulation.


Ceramic microbeads are increasingly being used for wear applications, especially for milling ultrafine powder. Research on friction and wear behavior of ceramics has become a more and more important subject in the area. In this paper, three kinds of ceramic microbeads ––mullite-zirconia, zirconium silicate and 95 alumina microbeads which were produced by Colloidal injection moulding technique were tested by SRV high temperature friction and wear test system, which the working condition of the ceramic microbeads as grinding media can be simulated to a certainty. The tests were done under dry friction and water lubrication respectively. Then their worn surfaces were observed using scanning electron microscopy. Through these experiments, the tribological properties and wear mechanisms of the self-wearing ceramic microbeads were investigated.


The expansion of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) has provided building operators and researchers detailed information on building energy consumption. The majority of AMI systems, however, record data at relatively low resolutions of 15, 30, or 60 minutes, due to cost, storage and bandwidth limitations. Emerging applications in power flow analysis, Quasi-Static Time-Series Simulation (QSTS), smart grid integration and load matching, however, require data at higher resolutions. Short-term energy demand can deviate significantly from long-term averages, with an unknown magnitude and frequency when only low-resolution load profile data is available. This paper presents a novel data-driven approach to predict characteristics of the missing high-resolution information in a low-resolution signal, applicable to both measured and modeled building load profile data, utilizing machine learning regression algorithms. In the proposed framework, the relationship between characteristics of high-resolution and low-resolution signals is learned from the decomposition and characterization of a subset of high-resolution building data. This paper validates the underlying hypotheses and methodology of this approach through a single-building case study, training a variety of machine learning models on one year of data, and using the resulting models to predict high-resolution characteristics in a different year. An Ensemble Tree regression model demonstrates a high predictive accuracy (R2 of 0.79-0.92) for several statistical metrics of the high-resolution load profile. These results support the broader potential for leveraging low-resolution information to accurately constrain predictions of missing high-resolution information in building load profiles, which may greatly increase the utility of both measured and modeled data in many practical and research applications. Generalizing such models will require analysis of high-resolution data from a diverse set of building types.


Numerous beta-carboline-3-carboxamides were synthesized by amidation of beta-carboline-3-carboxylic acid, with various amino acids and amino acid esters serving as amine components, and tested in respect to their affinity for the benzodiazepine receptor in mouse brain membranes. The title compounds have affinities in the low micromolar range. The results are discussed with respect to their relevance for a possible beta-carboline structure containing the endogenous ligand of the benzodiazepine receptor.


Land cover changes (LCC) are an important component of Global Change. LCC can be described not only by its occurrence, but also by the land cover replacement, causal agent and change duration or recuperation. Nowadays, remote sensing offers the opportunity to assemble reliable time series, however this fails to make a characterization of LCC since the series represents dynamics due to the combination of several processes occurring simultaneously. In this article we proposed an approach to the study of LCC using wavelet transform (WT) and MODIS vegetation time series. Through this work we have demonstrated the capacity of this tool in order to recognize and characterize four different LLC documented in scientific publications, presenting the results divided in frequency scales as interannual, seasonal and rapid changes. The information decomposed in frequency allows the interpretation of each involved process without the interference of others. The uses of WT in an image time series give us the possibility of joining temporal and spatial dimension in a single raster. Layers generated with WT might be used to pattern recognition in LCC and to improve an image classification.


BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Computer-assisted pyeloplasty with the daVinci system is an emerging technique to treat ureteropelvic junction (UPJ) obstruction. A relative cost analysis was performed assessing this technology in comparison with purely laparoscopic pyeloplasty.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Eight patients underwent computer-assisted (daVinci) dismembered pyeloplasty (CP) via a transperitoneal four-port approach. They were compared with 13 patients who underwent purely laparoscopic pyeloplasty (LP). All patients had a primary UPJ obstruction and were matched for age, sex, and body mass index. The cost of equipment and capital depreciation for both procedures, as well as assessment of room set-up time, takedown time, and personnel were analyzed. Surgeons and nursing staff for both groups were experienced in both laparoscopy and daVinci procedures. One- and two-way financial analysis was performed to assess relative costs.

RESULTS
The mean set-up and takedown time was 71 minutes for CP and 49 minutes for LP. The mean length of stay was 2.3 days for CP and 2.5 days for LP. The mean operating room (OR) times for CP and LP were 176 and 210 minutes, respectively. There were no complications in either group. One-way cost analysis with an economic model showed that LP is more cost effective than CP at our hospital if LP OR time is <338 minutes. With adjustment to a volume of 500 daVinci cases/year, CP is still not as cost effective as LP. Two-way sensitivity analysis shows that in-room time must still be <130 minutes and yearly cases must be >500 to obtain cost equivalence for CP.

CONCLUSIONS
Perioperative parameters for CP are encouraging. However, the costs are a clear disadvantage. In our hospital, it is more cost effective to teach and perform LP than to perform CP.


Shedding by cultured human melanoma cells of a well-characterised cell- surface glycoprotein antigen known as "melanotransferrin" was studied with two monoclonal antibodies, 140.240 and 96.5. By means of [35S]-cysteine metabolically-labelled melanoma cells and immunoprecipitation studies, identification was made, by 140.240 in the spent media of two of six melanoma cell lines, of a new molecule of 100-kDa, aside from the 88-kDa molecule. Only the 88-kDa shed molecule was detected in the remaining four melanoma cell lines with both antibodies. None of nine clonal sublines derived from the two melanoma cell lines were found to shed the 100-kDa or 88-kDa molecule exclusively. Both shed antigens were released spontaneously to the medium from the live melanoma cells rather than as a result of cell death and lysis, since there was no obvious cell death or debris in the spent medium nor in the monolayer cells detected at the time of spent medium collection. Digestion of the isolated 100-kDa and 88-kDa shed molecules with N-glycanase followed by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis resulted in the appearance of a single band of the 77-kDa molecule, which is deduced to be the polypeptide precursor of the cell-associated 87-kDa antigen. It is concluded that some melanoma lines shed the variant 100-kDa molecule, in addition to the 88-kDa molecule, and that both shed molecules and their cellular counterpart 87-kDa differ in their degrees of glycosylation.


The semantic web promises automates invocation, discovery and composition of Web services by enhancing services with semantic descriptions. This paper describes a model driven approach to facilitate the construction of OWL-S specifications. The methodology is divided into three main steps. In the first step we reverse engineered WSDL documents into UML profile models that enable the use of high-level graphical models as an integration platform for semantic web services. In the second step, suitable domain ontologies are used for the semantic annotation of the UML models. Finally, in the third step a conversion tool will generate automatically the OWL-S description from these UML models. The UML profile provides flexibility as it can expresses multiple semantic web service concepts.


This essentially popular book views breast-feeding from the psychological standpoint. A timely attack is made on the artificial regimes often imposed on " nursing couples" and a plea is made for a more understanding consideration of each case. Unfortunately the study is based on a small number of cases. No detailed reports are given from which to assess the validity of the elaborate behaviouristic classification. The biological support for certain interpretations may be questioned. However, though patchy, the book is quite readable, and may encourage in the mother a sane approach to nursing.


The laboring uterus is a complex fluid system. The pulsing, elastic boundary interacts directly with the (mostly) solid fetus and with the amniotic fluid, which aids in transferring force to the baby during labor. Additionally, there is a continuous flux of fluid in the uterus throughout. A better understanding of the mechanics of delivery may reduce the need for C-sections in less severe cases—prolonged labors and slightly abnormal fetal presentations. We are investigating several aspects of this problem, including the role of the departure from vertical of the major axis of the fetus and amniotic fluid properties on the force required to deliver a baby. This experimental study was conducted by filling an elastic latex uterus with a fluid that shares the average bulk properties of amniotic fluid. The latex uterus was custom made to replicate the relative size and flexibility of the pregnant human uterus. The volume of fluid used matched the percentage of the uterus generally filled with amniotic fluid after the rupture of the fetal membrane. An oblong, solid fetus was placed in the uterus and pulled through the latex birth canal. This "pull out" experiment approximates an assisted delivery (with forceps or a vacuum extractor). The amniotic fluid remained constant (properties were matched to average human amniotic fluid) and the fetus was tilted from its major axis by 0-30. The force required to remove the fetus in each case was recorded. The results of this study indicate that there is an optimal fetal position for vaginal delivery in which the force to remove the fetus is the lowest. Additionally, beyond a certain point, vaginal delivery may become no longer feasible and surgical delivery necessary. In the future, the static latex uterus will be replaced with an active contracting uterus to replicate an unassisted vaginal delivery, and we will work to increase anatomical correctness.


When Judith Summers's husband and father both died within the space of two weeks, she found herself floundering. Life for her and her eight-year-old son Joshua seemed relentlessly bleak. Then George bounced into their lives. A loving Cavalier King Charles Spaniel with film-star looks, George reawoke their joie de vivre. Yet Judith soon discovered that living with George had its drawbacks. He was a full-time job and as expensive to run as a Ferrari. Wilful and badly behaved, he refused to eat anything other than roast chicken, preferred travelling by car to walking, and became as jealous as a spurned lover if any man dared show an interest in her. And when a near-death tangle with a Staffordshire Bull terrier resulted in costly sessions with an animal psychologist, Judith found that it was she who was put on the couch ...


This chapter discusses closed-loop control development and simulation results for a semi-active aboveknee prosthesis. This closed-loop control is a delta control that is added to previously developed openloop control. The control signal consists of two hydraulic valve settings. These valves control a rotary actuator that provides torque to the prosthetic knee. Closed-loop control using artificial neural networks (ANNs) are developed, which is an intelligent control method. The ANNs are trained with biogeographybased optimization (BBO), which is a recently developed evolutionary algorithm. This research contributes to the field of evolutionary algorithms by demonstrating that BBO is successful at finding optimal solutions to real-world, nonlinear, time varying control problems. The research contributes to the field of prosthetics by showing that it is possible to find effective closed-loop control signals for a newly proposed semi-active hydraulic knee prosthesis. The research also contributes to the field of ANNs; it shows that they are able to mitigate some of the effects of noise and disturbances that will be common in normal operation of a prosthesis and that they can provide better robustness and safer operation with less risk of stumbles and falls. It is demonstrated that ANNs are able to improve average performance over open-loop control by up to 8% and that they show the greatest improvement in performance when there is high risk of stumbles. William Smith Cleveland Clinic, USA DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-3942-3.ch007


Introduction Using Tribe in Banyuwangi untill today still using natural resources as a traditional treatment or care. This study was purposed to gain value and meaning of Using Tribe experience for utilizing complementary therapies in traditional healing practice. Method Phenomenology study with qualitative methods based on ethnonursing models was used for this research. There were 13 respondents gathered by purposive sampling from three districs Glagah, Rogojampi and Banyuwangi Kota. The data were obtained by conducting in-depth interviews on respondents and field observations as well as observations while interview. The analysis carried out by sorting and selecting a word or phrase that has value and meaning to the goal related with subthemes grouped into themes and categories. Result The results had showed that Using Tribe's characteristic were social cohesion, appreciate arts, performing daily activities on the river, consume foods of animal and vegetable, not too close with health service, the myth factor was a strong factor in health and physical maintenance's behavior, the the use of herbs and shaman to treat health problems. Conclusion and discussion The use of herbs is suitable with modern health science as a complementary therapy, but this point almost faded because it tends to rarely performed. So, the Using Tribe need positive reinforcement from nurses, as an effort to improve their health status.


The study of memory for texts has had an long tradition of research in psychology. According to most general accounts of text memory, the recognition or recall of items in a text is based on querying a memory representation that is built up on the basis of background knowledge. The objective of this paper is to describe and thoroughly test a Bayesian model of this general account. In particular, we develop a model that describes how we use our background knowledge to form memories as a process of Bayesian inference of the statistical patterns that are inherent in a text, followed by posterior predictive inference of the words that are typical of those inferred patterns. This provides us with precise predictions about what words will be remembered, whether veridically or erroneously, from any given text. We then test these predictions using data from a memory experiment using a relatively large sample of randomly chosen texts from a representative corpus of British English.


Understanding how population-level dynamics contribute to ecosystem-level processes is a primary focus of ecological research and has led to important breakthroughs in the ecology of macroscopic organisms. However, the inability to measure population-specific rates, such as growth, for microbial taxa within natural assemblages has limited ecologists' understanding of how microbial populations interact to regulate ecosystem processes. Here, we use isotope incorporation within DNA molecules to model taxonspecific population growth in the presence of O-labeled water. By applying this model to phylogenetic marker sequencing data collected from stable-isotope probing studies, we estimate rates of growth, mortality, and turnover for individual microbial populations within soil assemblages. When summed across the entire bacterial community, our taxon-specific estimates are within the range of other whole-assemblage measurements of bacterial turnover. Because it can be applied to environmental samples, the approach we present is broadly applicable to measuring population growth, mortality, and associated biogeochemical process rates of microbial taxa for a wide range of ecosystems and can help reveal how individual microbial populations drive biogeochemical fluxes.


The folate receptor (FR) has proven a valuable target for nuclear imaging using folic acid radioconjugates. However, using folate-based radiopharmaceuticals for therapy has long been regarded as an unattainable goal because of their considerable renal accumulation. Herein, we present a novel strategy in which a DOTA–folate conjugate with an albumin-binding entity (cm09) was designed with the aim of prolonging circulation in the blood and therewith potentially improving tumor-to-kidney ratios. Methods: The folate conjugate cm09 was radiolabeled with 177LuCl3, and stability experiments were performed in plasma. Cell uptake studies were performed on FR-positive KB tumor cells, and an ultrafiltration assay was used to determine the plasma protein–binding properties of 177Lu-cm09. In vivo, 177Lu-cm09 was tested in KB tumor–bearing mice using SPECT/CT. The therapeutic anticancer effect of 177Lu-cm09 (20 MBq) applied as a single injection or as fractionated injections was investigated in different groups of mice (n = 5) by monitoring tumor size and the survival time of treated mice, compared with untreated controls. Results: Compound cm09 was radiolabeled at a specific activity of 40 MBq/nmol, a radiochemical yield of more than 98%, and a stability of more than 99% over 5 d in plasma. Ultrafiltration revealed significant binding of 177Lu-cm09 to serum proteins (∼91%) in plasma, compared with folate radioconjugate without an albumin-binding entity. Cell uptake and internalization of 177Lu-cm09 was FR-specific and comparable to other folate radioconjugates. In vivo studies resulted in high tumor uptake (17.56 percentage injected dose per gram [%ID/g] at 4 h after injection), which was almost completely retained for at least 72 h. Renal accumulation was significantly reduced (28 %ID/g at 4 h after injection), compared with folate conjugates that lack an albumin-binding entity (∼70 %ID/g at 4 h after injection). These circumstances enabled SPECT imaging of excellent quality. Radionuclide therapy (1 × 20 MBq) revealed complete remission of tumors in 4 of 5 cases and a significantly prolonged survival time, compared with untreated controls. Conclusion: The modification of a folate radioconjugate with an albumin-binding entity resulted in a significant increase of the tumor-to-kidney ratio of radioactivity, enabling for the first time, to our knowledge, the preclinical application of folic acid–targeted radionuclide therapy in mice.


January 2005 The report has not undergone review accorded to official World Bank publications. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/the World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data involved in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on the map do not imply any judgment on part of the World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. P ub lic D is cl os ur e A ut ho riz ed


This paper was written in November 2008 - two months after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and immediately triggered the financial crisis: The credit-default swap (CDS) is a type of financial tool that has created system-wide benefits. These derivative contracts, however, have also created the potential for relatively few market participants to destabilize the entire economic system. This Paper will explore (1) how CDS could hypothetically create systemic risk, (2) how CDS have recently exacerbated the current financial crisis, and (3) how the U.S. legislature could best regulate CDS to minimize systemic risk in the future. In theory, CDS could foster systemic crisis by means of (1) encouraging the growth of dangerous asset bubbles, (2) causing the collapse or failure of an institution that is systemically significant, or (3) creating perverse incentives that subvert policies underpinning business law on a system-wide scale. This Paper will question whether, with respect to the first theoretical risk, CDS have helped support the growth of the sub-prime mortgaged-backed securities asset bubble that has been blamed as the ultimate basis of the current financial crisis. Ultimately, there is evidence cutting both ways, thereby encouraging further research into the issue. That said, the second of these theoretical risks has certainly come into realization within the last few months when the trillion-dollar company, AIG, nearly destroyed itself by blundering in the CDS market and causing system-wide instability. As for the third theoretical risk, there is currently no empirical evidence that CDS create perverse incentives on a system-wide scale. How should the government regulate CDS to minimize systemic risk? After examining seven distinct proposals, this Paper (modestly) proposes that legislators require CDS market participants to (1) maintain increased capital reserve requirements when involved in the purchase or sale of CDS tied to highly speculative debt; and (2) confidentially disclose their CDS positions to the Federal Reserve. Increasing the capital reserve requirements for companies that trade in junk-grade CDS is essential for two reasons. First, higher capital reserve requirements protect the solvency of systemically significant institutions that attempt to profit from the riskiest CDS. Second, specifically targeting CDS that are associated with the junk lending business will discourage banks from extending cheap credit to unworthy borrowers, thereby reducing the potential for markets to generate precarious asset bubbles. As a second regulatory measure, confidential disclosure of CDS positions to the Federal Reserve is an efficient but relatively non- intrusive way to greatly facilitate the monitoring of systemic risk going forward. While the proposed legislative action would invariably impose costs on both market participants and society in general, the benefits of enhanced economic stability are incalculable.


The paper focused on the challenges impacting Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) within Trinidad and Tobago (T&T). The study highlighted issues plaguing TVET, with insights emanated from stakeholders within TVET institutions. The challenges that presented itself showed TVET in T&T faces copious amount of problems. Stigma, Attrition, and Quality teaching were some of the key problems affecting TVET in T&T. The researcher utilised a qualitative approach to gather data from stakeholders within the institutions. The data was put forward by way of a thematic analysis approach. Focus groups and interviews were used to extract many details that gave the study deep and rich insights on TVET and the challenges emanating at present. Two main themes emerged from the data: challenges and resources. These two areas were further broken down into sub themes. The study also showed that TVET institutions are incapable of treating with some of the issues they faced, and it requires intervention from the central government to address the macro problems that plagued TVET. The research focused on four TVET institutions that are tertiary level institutions of learning. Additionally, the study showed very persuasively that TVET is experiencing a number of significant challenges in T&T. The issues that face the institutions are very complex and which they may not be able to address in a significant way. These challenges require intervention from the governmental level, these matters require the right and adequate leadership as a very important factor in moving TVET forward.


In this study, published intensive field surveys, from different regions on the Italian peninsula, are revisited from a range of different methodological and theoretical perspectives. With its emphasis on the Late Republican to Early Imperial period, the outcome of this research should lead to a better understanding of comparative regional differences, in terms of settlement patterns and hierarchy, demography, urbanisation processes, and how society could have functioned. This study intends to build on existing notions of regional variations and bring them into better focus. For the theoretical and methodological framework, models and interpretive schemes are assessed originating from archaeology, social geography and ethnography using archaeological evidence. The field surveys or regions covered include the Potenza Val, the 'extended' suburbium of Rome, the Pontine region and the Biferno Valley.


Interferences in vibrational wave packets of Br2 molecules are controlled in the presence of a solid Ar environment that provides decoherence. By applying a negatively or positively chirped excitation pulse, one can set the clock backward, respectively forward, in the wave packet propagation. Based on this mechanism, we present a general scheme to record vibrational decoherence. Wave packets are spatially focused at Topt by applying negatively chirped pulses. From the focussing contrast, we determine a vibrational dephasing time on the B state of Tvibdeph
 = 3 ps. We use positively chirped pulses to bring the formation of fractional revival structures forward with respect to Tvibdeph. By exciting four vibrational levels with such a pulse, we observe a 1/6 revival indicating the vibrational coherence time T4deph for exactly four levels. The required chirp prolongs the pulse duration by a factor of ten to Δτ
 = 300 fs. Electronic dephasing Teldeph restricts the revival control efficiency to parts of the pulse with Δτ 300 fs.


Reversible protein phosphorylation is a major mechanism in the regulation of fundamental signalling events in all living organisms. Bacteria have been shown to possess a versatile repertoire of protein kinases, including histidine and aspartic acid kinases, serine/threonine kinases, and more recently tyrosine and arginine kinases. Tyrosine phosphorylation is today recognized as a key regulatory device of bacterial physiology, linked to exopolysaccharide production, virulence, stress response and DNA metabolism. However, bacteria have evolved tyrosine kinases that share no resemblance with their eukaryotic counterparts and are unique in exploiting the ATP/GTP-binding Walker motif to catalyse autophosphorylation and substrate phosphorylation on tyrosine. These enzymes, named BY-kinases (for Bacterial tYrosine kinases), have been identified in a majority of sequenced bacterial genomes, and to date no orthologues have been found in Eukarya. The aim of this review was to present the most recent knowledge about BY-kinases by focusing primarily on their evolutionary origin, structural and functional aspects, and emerging regulatory potential based on recent bacterial phosphoproteomic studies.


BACKGROUND/AIMS
We aimed to compare the response rates to hepatitis B virus vaccination in the first year of life, using two different immunization protocols, in children with celiac disease.

METHODS
Study Group 1 included patients with celiac disease who received 10 μg of hepatitis B vaccine intramuscularly at birth (0), 2 and 9-12 months of life. Group 2 included those who received hepatitis B vaccine at 0, 1 and 6 months of life. Healthy children were divided into two control groups according to the above schedules.

RESULTS
The total study group included 64 patients and 49 healthy controls. Celiac patients were found to have lower response rates with respect to controls (78.1% vs. 95.9%, respectively). The difference in response rates in the two patient groups was not statistically significant.

CONCLUSIONS
The response rates of celiac patients to the two different hepatitis B vaccination schedules showed no statistically significant difference.


We present a novel technique based on a multi-resolutional clustering and nonlinear multi-dimensional scaling of earthquake patterns to investigate observed and synthetic seismic catalogs. The observed data represent seismic activities around the Japanese islands during 1997–2003. The synthetic data were generated by numerical simulations for various cases of a heterogeneous fault governed by 3-D elastic dislocation and power-law creep. At the highest resolution , we analyze the local cluster structures in the data space of seismic events for the two types of catalogs by using an agglomerative clustering algorithm. We demonstrate that small magnitude events produce local spatio-temporal patches delineating neighboring large events. Seismic events, quantized in space and time, generate the multi-dimensional feature space characterized by the earthquake parameters. Using a non-hierarchical clustering algorithm and nonlinear multi-dimensional scaling, we explore the multitudinous earthquakes by real-time 3-D visualization and inspection of the multivariate clusters. At the spatial resolutions characteristic of the earthquake parameters, all of the ongoing seismicity both before and after the largest events accumulates to a global structure consisting of a few separate clusters in the feature space. We show that by combining the results of clustering in both low and high resolution spaces, we can recognize precursory events more precisely and unravel vital information that cannot be discerned at a single resolution.


The adaptive active noise control problem of a multichannel system is studied. The general structure of the multichannel active noise control system is clarified and the perfect cancellation condition by feedforward control is analyzed. A new LMS type of robust multichannel adaptive algorithm for updating the feedforward controllers is proposed which can assure the stability of the adaptation and keep each cancelling error within a tight bound by efficiently using prior information of each upper bound of the uncertainty terms. The algorithm is scalar normalized and does not need to calculate the inverse matrix. A fully adaptive scheme for dealing with the case when all the channel dynamics are unknown and changeable is also presented. The proposed robust algorithm is examined and validated in the experiment of noise attenuation for an air duct system.


Based on the introduction of the general situation of the research area, the SWOT analysis is applied to study the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats of the industrial development in Three Gorges Reservoir area. The strengths are represented by the following four aspects: abundant agricultural resources, rich tourism resources, rich mineral resources and rich hydro energy. The weaknesses are analyzed from the following three aspects: the backward infrastructure, the acute conflict of the emigration of manufactures and the poor exploitation of advantageous resources. The opportunities of industrial development, which cover the opportunities bought by the guidance of national policies and preferential policies, by the improvement of traffic conditions in the reservoir area and by the completion and operation of the Three Gorges Reservoir Project. From the analysis of poor investment environment, irrational industrial structure and serious shortage of capitals, the threats of the industrial development are analyzed. In order to promote further the industrial development of the Three Gorges Reservoir area, the countermeasures are put forward. In the first place, optimizing the industrial structure and developing leading industries; in the second place, strengthening the construction of infrastructure and improving the investment environment; in the third place, optimizing human resources so as to provide intellectual support for industrial development.


A two-mirror laser beam expander can be used to provide small amounts of beam steering by moving one mirror. Such a motion would generally introduce aberrations into the output wavefront that would restrict the amount of diffraction-limited beam steering achievable to very small amounts. This paper describes how some or all of the third-order aberrations introduced by moving one mirror can be eliminated. By proper design, substantial amounts of diffraction-limited beam steering can be achieved.


Objective: Describe the use of a radiographic parameter (pelvic incidence) to assess the sagittal plane reduction of H-type sacral fractures associated with spinopelvic dissociation, and assess the relationship between standing lumbar lordosis to pelvic incidence after spinopelvic dissociation. Design: Retrospective radiographic and clinical review of treatment outcomes for patients with spinopelvic dissociation injuries secondary to H-type sacral fractures. Setting: Level I Trauma Center. Intervention: Pelvic incidence (PI), a radiographic parameter that measures the orientation of the lumbar spine relative to the pelvis, has been shown to have a correlation with the adequacy of surgical reduction as well as the risk of progression of high-grade spondylolisthesis. We used this parameter as a measure of sagittal plane reduction of spinopelvic dissociation injuries. Patients/Participants: The clinical records and radiographs of five patients with spinopelvic dissociation injuries were reviewed. Main Outcome Measurements: Radiographic measurements included standing PI and lumbar lordosis (LL). The relationship of lumbar lordosis on pelvic incidence was tested by a regression analysis. Clinical outcome was assessed by the self-reported ability of the patient to comfortably maintain an upright stance. Results: The average follow-up period was 32 (range: 12-53) months. The average final PI was 82 (60-115) degrees. The average final lumbar lordosis was 58.2 (42-77) degrees. LL was found to be significantly related to PI (P < 0.05). One patient with an abnormally high PI had lumbar fatigue with persistent stance. Conclusions: Pelvic incidence is a potentially useful radiographic parameter that can be used to assess the adequacy of sagittal plane reduction in patients with spinopelvic dissociation injuries.


Abstract As a fundamental operator in genetic algorithms (GAs), crossover may not only make an existing schema survive, but also construct a new one from other existing schemata. Unfortunately, the existing schema theorems do not exactly quantify the positive effects of schema construction by a crossover. Consequently, they cannot well characterize the evolution of a schema. In this paper, a new ternary representation is proposed through which the survival and construction of a schema for any crossover operator can be distinguished easily. Subsequently, the probabilities that a schema will survive and be constructed from other schemata can be estimated for an arbitrary crossover. As a result, we present four new schema theorems, through which the survival and construction abilities of different crossover operations are easier to be compared. Moreover, these results generalize the existing schema theorems.


Abstract It has been generally argued that, despite the emergence and wide adoption of second screen devices (SSD) as ancillary tools, television screens continue to be the medium of choice for watching live sport. In this article, however, we maintain that a transition of SSD to first screen status is already underway. First, we dispute that SSD content and screen size present barriers to use. Second, we suggest that a first screen transition of SSD is a fact in many emerging economies. Finally, we argue that the transformation of screens as payment and tracking devices, to which we intimately relate, has been largely overlooked when assessing the likelihood of SSD becoming first screens, and that the replacement of television by SSD is symptomatic of a broader transition from collective to individual consumption devices.


Abstract The origin of organic C supporting zoobenthic communities in 8 boreal lakes with different concentrations of dissolved organic C (DOC) was assessed by stable-isotope analysis. Profundal zoobenthos was depleted in 13C compared to littoral zoobenthos, and this difference increased with decreasing DOC concentration. The δ13C of littoral zoobenthos suggested reliance on benthic algae, whereas depleted 13C of profundal zoobenthos could be explained by contributions from allochthonous and autochthonous C sources. In deeper lakes, profundal zoobenthos diets also included C processed by methanotrophic bacteria. Littoral zoobenthos δ13C decreased with increasing DOC concentration in the lake water. Our results suggest that littoral benthic fauna are mainly supported by benthic algae in low-DOC lakes and by phytoplankton and allochthonous organic C in high-DOC lakes and that this difference is a result of light absorbance and energy supply by allochthonous organic C. Increasing allochthonous DOC inputs, as expected in a warmer and wetter climate, might reduce benthic algal production and alter the organic C base for benthic food webs in lake ecosystems.


By emphasizing the Terror Management Theory, this study investigated the participants' perceptions, psychological experiences, coping strategies, and behavioral changes during the pandemic in Bangladesh in two phases: first, after the pandemic's immediate outbreak, and second, after 3 months of the pandemic (daily infection cases were very high). To perform the research, an empirical-phenomenological method was used. Findings indicate that at the first stage, participants' death phobia was extremely high, and poor medical facilities, religious struggles, imprudent behavior of others, concerns for family members, and a tendency to compare the socioeconomic status with other developed countries affected participants' emotions severely. Later on, participants' perceptions of the disease changed significantly. This study highlights that people's behavior varies depending on whether the thought of death is in the center or on the periphery of their attention. In both stages, religious faith and rituals played a crucial role in coping with the crisis situation.


Many new varieties of winter annual legumes are now available for pastures in Mediterranean type climates. Since little work has been reported comparing the relative responses of these legumes to fertilization, 10 varieties of subclover, 6 of rose clover, 3 annual , and 2 other annual clovers were grown in the greenhouse on a soil known to be deficient in P and S. There were four levels of P with S applied. The nil and highest P levels were repeated without S.Yield differences between varieties and species were small where no P or S was applied. Responses to S alone were generally not significant, but responses to P only and P plus S varied significantly. Differences in response to P and S fertilization were as great among varieties of a given species as between species.Highest yielding clover varieties tended to have lowest percentages of P and S. Differences in P and S uptake by the clover varieties were significant; however, uptake responses to fertilization tended to be relatively smaller than yield response differences, indicating that some varieties utilized absorbed nutrients more efficiently than others.Response to fertilization apparently must be considered on a varietal basis rather than generalizing about species.


Motivation and Objectives Because of the amount of electronic literature now available, it is challenging for biologists to search biomedical corpuses for any kind of desired information beyond simple text retrieval. Several tools have been developed to make text mining easier for them. Some of these tools focus on extracting biomedical terms; such as protein names and biological processes, given any input text. The tools COREMINE Medical  (http://www.coremine.com, last accessed on 25 September 2012) and GoPubMed: http://www.gopubmed.com, last accessed on 25 September 2012) are just two examples. Other tools apply rule-based strategies to relate biomedical concepts to each other. E.g., BITOLA (http://ibmi.mf.uni-lj.si/bitola/last accessed on 25t September 2012) (Hristovski et al., 2005). We have been developing a methodology and tool to discover genes implicated in any given disease or disorder. In fact, our tool takes from the user any free text query as an input and attempts to identify those genes most strongly linked to the query. As an output, the tool returns an ordered list of the best genes matching the query. The core work of our tool is based on text mining. Basically, each gene is linked to a profile that contains the biological terms that are most significant for it. Similarly, we link the input query to a corresponding keyword profile. The genes appearing at the top of the output list are the ones whose profiles are highly similar to that of the input query. Methods The text mining strategies we use in our work are applied to the biomedical abstracts published in PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/, last accessed on 25 September 2012). We divide our work into two phases: a background phase, and a live phase. In the background phase, we collect all the abstracts annotated to every gene described in Entrez Gene (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/, last accessed on 25 September 2012). For this, we use GeneRIF http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/about-generif last accessed on 25 September 2012), which provides functional annotation between genes and PubMed references. Afterwards, we index all the referenced abstracts via MetaMap (http://metamap.nlm.nih.gov/, last accessed on 25 September 2012) (Aronson, 2001), which maps the given biological text to the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) Metathesaurus (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/, last accessed on 25 September 2012) (Bodenreider, 2004). Thus for each gene, we could maintain a list of UMLS biomedical terms that functionally-describe it. We call this list a gene keyword profile. Then for each gene, we build another weighted profile in the form of a vector of Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF). For a given gene, each entry in the vector measures how relevant a specific UMLS term is to the gene. We refer to the whole set of gene vectors as the "reference matrix". An example of this reference matrix is shown below in Table 1. In the live phase of our work, we take a free text query as an input from the user (e.g., sleep disorders). Then, we use the E-utilities from PubMed to retrieve the corresponding abstracts that are relevant to the user query. And as we did with the genes in the background phase, we generate a keyword profile for the query and consequently a corresponding TF-IDF vector. Finally we match this query vector against all the gene vector entries in the reference matrix. Each match corresponds to a score that is calculated via a dot-product. The higher the matching score of a given gene vector entry, the more probably the gene relates to the user query. We also take into account the frequency of citation of a given gene. So genes appearing early in the ordered output list, do not only share the most similar profiles with the user query, but they are also cited by the highest number of references. Besides, we consider the fraction of common references between the query and the candidate genes as an additional scoring factor. As the number of common references increases, the matching score of the candidate gene also increases. Results and Discussion The evaluation of the results is still ongoing. To validate the quality of our results, we use as a benchmark the phenotype-gene annotation provided by the Human-Phenotype-Ontology (HPO http://human-phenotype-ontology.org/, last accessed on 25 September 2012) (Robinson and Mundlos, 2010). For every phenotype in this annotation, a set of linked genes are recorded. The links are provided based on the information about the phenotypes of a given syndrome, and the genes known to cause that syndrome. Hence in our tool, we use each phenotype in the annotation file as a separate free text input. Then for each gene output list, we measure the percentage of recall against the HPO annotation. To assess the power of our tool, we use some general biomedical search systems as a baseline (e.g., Gene Ontology http://www.geneonto-logy.org/, last accessed on 25 September 2012). We are expecting our tool to perform better. That is because such general systems rely on clear evidence to associate a gene product with a given query (e.g., inference from experiments or by curators), while our tool digs deeper in all the published literature as discussed in the Methods section. References Aronson AR (2001) Effective mapping of biomedical text to the UMLS Metathesaurus: the MetaMap program. Proc AMIA Symp: 17. Bodenreider O (2004) The Unified Medical Language System (UMLS): integrating biomedical terminology. Nucleic Acids Res 32: D267. doi:10.1093/nar/gkh061 Hristovski D, Peterlin B, et al. (2005) Using literature-based discovery to identify disease candidate genes. Int J Med Inform 74: 289. Robinson PN, Mundlos S (2010) The Human Phenotype Ontology. Clin Genet 77: 525 Note: Figures and tables are available in PDF version only.


The effects of powders of three plant materials (neem leaves, ocimum leaves and red chilli fruits), three pharmaceutical
products (apron plus, bleaching powder and aspirin tablet) and a control treatment on freshly harvested seed lots of four
varieties of Kenaf were investigated at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria to determine their efficacy
on the maintenance of viability and seedling vigour. Seed lots treated with recommended doses were stored under ambient conditions (28.8oC, 61.10 RH %) for 240 days (8 months) and tested for seed viability and seedling vigour at 30-day intervals.
Significant differences were found among the varieties and seed treatments during storage. All seed lots showed notable
loss of viability during the storage periods, irrespective of variety and treatment. Seed treatments resulted in higher seed
viability and seedling vigour than untreated seeds at the end of the storage period. Seeds treated with ocimum leaf and
apron-plus powders consistently maintained higher viability of between 52 and 64 % in all the varieties whereas seedling
vigour of seeds treated with neem leaf, bleaching and aspirin powders were higher with values of between 11.9 - 20 units in
most of the varieties. Probit modeling indicated that storage life of 11 months is achievable for Ifeken 400 treated with
ocimum leaf and apron plus powders. Pre-storage treatment of freshly harvested kenaf seed with ocimum leaf powder at
10g/100g seed and apron-plus at 5g/1kg seed were therefore recommended as it will benefit low income and resource poor producers of Kenaf seed who lack air conditioned storage facilities in developing tropical countries.


Climate change is a global challenge to both sustainable livelihoods and economic development. In Tanzania as in most African countries, farming depends almost entirely on rainfall, a situation that makes agriculture and thus rural livelihoods especially in semiarid environments particularly vulnerable to climate change. This study analyses the impacts of climate change and variability on rural livelihoods with particular focus on agricultural production, food security and adaptive capacities in semiarid areas of Tanzania. The methods used in this study included focus group discussions, key informant interviews, household surveys and field observations. Results from the study indicate that communities understood climate change in terms of variability in rainfall patterns and amount, temperature patterns, wind, water availability, increased incidences of drought and decreased agricultural productivity. Communities in the study area acknowledged that while rainfall amounts have decreased over the last thirty years, temperatures have increased; an experience is also supported by meteorological data. Such changes were claimed to have reduced agricultural productivity particularly due to prolonged drought, inadequate and uneven distribution of rainfall as well as unpredictable onset and ending of rains. Stressors such as
crop diseases and pests, low soil fertility and inadequate extension services were also reported to contribute to the decline in agricultural productivity and re-occurrence of food insecurity. In response, communities have developed multiple adaptation strategies, including growing of drought tolerant and early maturing crop varieties, increasing wetlands cultivation, water harvesting for small-scale irrigation and livestock keeping. However, households with limited livelihood assets are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and food insecurity. The study argues that diversification of adaptive strategies, such as water harvesting for small-scale irrigation, integration of livestock and crop production are crucial to ensuring sustainable livelihood in a changing climate.


We present an efficient method for evaluating current-induced forces in nanoscale junctions, which naturally integrates into the nonequilibrium Green's function formalism implemented within density functional theory. This allows us to perform dynamic atomic relaxation in the presence of an electric current while evaluating the current-voltage characteristics. The central idea consists of expressing the system energy density matrix in terms of Green's functions. To validate our implementation, we perform a series of benchmark calculations, both at zero and at finite bias. First we evaluate the current-induced forces acting over an Al nanowire and compare them with previously published results for fixed geometries. Then we perform structural relaxation of the same wires under bias and determine the critical voltage at which they break. We find that although a perfectly straight wire does not break at any of the voltages considered, a zigzag wire is more fragile and snaps at 1.4 V, with the Al atoms moving against the electron flow. The critical current density for the rupture is estimated to be 9.6 x 10(10) A/cm(2), in good agreement with the experimentally measured value of 5 x 10(10) A/cm(2). Finally, we demonstrate the capability of our scheme to tackle the electromigration problem by studying the current-induced motion of a single Si atom covalently attached to the sidewall of a (4,4) armchair single-walled carbon nanotube. Our calculations indicate that if Si is attached along the current path, then current-induced forces can induce migration. In contrast, if the bonding site is away from the current path, then the adatom remains stable regardless of the voltage. An analysis based on decomposing the total force into a wind and an electrostatic component, as well as on a detailed evaluation of the bond currents, shows that this remarkable electromigration phenomenon is due solely to the position-dependent wind force.


In this paper an auxiliary power supply scheme using photovoltaic power generation for air-conditioning system and its novel control strategy are proposed. The proposed auxiliary power supply system employs a boost converter, a bidirectional power converter and photovoltaic arrays. The boost converter controlled by a predictive control strategy provides maximum power track (MPT) state on the photovoltaic(PV) arrays as well as power generation facility function on the ac utility grid. Furthermore the bidirectional power converter controls the power flow balance between the loads and two different power sources according to the condition of the load power and the supplied power from photovoltaic arrays.
It is shown that the maximum power tracking of the PV arrays, the unit power factor of ac utility grid and the descent input dc voltage regulation of the air-conditioning system are achieved by the proposed predictive control strategy. The proposed switching strategy for the boost converter and the bidirectional power converter are based on the predictive control with ac line current and output voltage of the PV arrays. The bidirectional power converter is suitably modulation controlled to rectify the ac source during the power shortage under the poor power generation of PV arrays or over load conditions of airconditioner. During the opposite state, the bidirectional power converter is gated to function as a regeneration inverter. Controller design procedure for the proposed approach to achieve near sinusoidal input currents under the inverter mode and the rectifier mode is detailed. Simulation results on a laboratory proto-type system are discussed. Experimental results from the laboratory proto-type system will be presented in the near future.


Fifty sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) lines from the USDA-ARS Fort Collins sugar beet program and four check cultivars were screened for resistance to Beet necrotic yellow vein virus (BNYVV), the causal agent of rhizomania, and to fungal growth in storage, which is related to storage rot. The rhizomania (RZ) evaluation was conducted at the USDA-ARS North Farm in Kimberly, ID, which had been in barley in 2015. The field was fall plowed, fertilized and roller harrowed before plant to a density of 142,560 seed/A. The plots were single row 10-ft long with 22-in. row spacing and arranged in a randomized complete block design with 6 replications. The crop was managed according to standard cultural practices for southern Idaho and plants were thinned to 47,500 plants/A . The trial relied on endemic field inoculum for rhizomania and storage rot development. The plots were rated for foliar symptom (percentage of plants with yellow, stunted, upright leaves) development on August 18th, were mechanically topped and hand harvested on October 13th. At harvest, ten roots per plot were rated for rhizomania symptom development using a scale of 0 to 9 (0 = healthy and 9 = dead), with disease index (DI) treated as a continuous variable. At harvest, eight of the evaluated roots per plot also were placed in a mesh-onion bag and put on top of the pile in an indoor commercial storage facility (temperature set point 34°F) in Paul, ID. On February 9, 2017, after 118 days in storage, the roots were evaluated for the percentage of root surface area covered by any fungal growth. Data were analyzed in SAS using the general linear models procedure (Proc GLM), and Fisher's protected least significant difference (a = 0.05) was used for mean comparisons. The foliar data were square root transformed prior to analysis. Rhizomania symptom development was uniform and no other disease symptoms were evident in the plot area. The BNYVV susceptible check plots (Check 1) had 81% foliar symptoms and a high root disease severity rating of 46. The three resistant checks (2, 3, and 4) had 0 to 7% foliar symptoms and low root disease severity ratings (18 to 24). Based on root ratings, all but three entries had some resistance, because these were the only entries not different from the susceptible check. Four entries (20141007, 20141009, 20131010H11, and 20131010H10) had good rhizomania resistance based on both root symptoms and foliar ratings because these did not significantly differ from more of the resistant checks. A number of entries performed well in storage, four entries only had single digit fungal growth and 20 others were not significantly different from these four, although these were not always the same entries that showed resistance to BNYVV. Some of these entries may serve as a starting point for identifying additional sources of resistance to BNYVV and storage rots.


Abstract In mass spectrometry (MS) experiments, more than thousands of peaks are detected in the space of mass-to-charge ratio and chromatographic retention time, each associated with an abundance measurement. However, a large proportion of the peaks consists of experimental noise and low abundance compounds are typically masked by noise peaks, compromising the quality of the data. In this paper, we propose a new measure of similarity between a pair of MS experiments, called truncated rank correlation (TRC). To provide a robust metric of similarity in noisy high-dimensional data, TRC uses truncated top ranks (or top m-ranks) for calculating correlation. A comprehensive numerical study suggests that TRC outperforms traditional sample correlation and Kendall's τ. We apply TRC to measuring test-retest reliability of two MS experiments, including biological replicate analysis of the metabolome in HEK293 cells and metabolomic profiling of benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) patients. An R package trc of the proposed TRC and related functions is available at https://sites.google.com/site/dhyeonyu/software.


Abstract There has been an extensive amount of research into determining the compressive stress-strain properties of concrete for design. Difficulty has arisen in quantifying the softening or descending stress-strain relationship as it has been found to depend on the size and shape of the specimen being tested as well as on the confinement and eccentricity of compressive load applied to the specimen. This difficulty has restricted the development of design rules for reinforced concrete members not only for strength but also for ductility particularly for confined members. In this paper, a meso-scale model, which divides concrete into a three phase composite material consisting of the mortar matrix, aggregate and interfacial transition zone, is used to explain and quantify the softening mechanism of concrete specimens. It is shown that this meso-scale model can both simulate the cracking patterns and deformations which are seen to occur in concrete while softening and also quantify and explain the effects of size, shape, confinement and eccentricity of load. This realistic simulation of the softening mechanism should allow a better understanding and quantification of the compressive failure mechanism of concrete which should lead to the development of better design rules particularly for confined concrete


The objective of this paper is to investigate if and how capital adjustment departs from the smooth pattern implied by standard model based on convex adjustment costs. Using Norwegian micro data, we start by documenting the intermittent and lumpy nature of investment rates. We then present two pieces of econometric evidence on these issues. First, we estimate a discrete hazard model to determine the probability of having an episode of high investment, conditional on the length of the interval from the last high-investment episode. Second, we estimate a switching regression model that allows for the response of the investment rate to fundamentals to differ across regimes. In both cases we investigate the aggregate implications of our results.


&NA; Adipose tissue‐derived adipokines (i.e., leptin/adiponectin/resistin) play important roles in the regulation of several pathophysiologic processes through the activation of specific receptors. However, although adipokines and their receptors are widely distributed in many tissues and exhibit a clear modulation according to particular metabolic conditions (e.g., obesity and/or fasting), their expression, regulation, and putative action on normal prostate glands (PGs; a hormone‐dependent organ tightly regulated by the endocrine‐metabolic milieu) are still to be defined. Different in vivo/in vitro models were used to comprehensively characterize the expression pattern and actions of different adipokine systems (i.e., leptin/adiponectin/resistin/receptors) in mouse PGs. Adiponectin, resistin, and adiponectin receptors (1 and 2) and leptin receptor are coexpressed at different levels in PG cells, wherein they are finely regulated under fasting and/or obesity conditions. Furthermore, treatment with different adipokines exerted both homologous and heterologous regulation of specific adipokines/receptor‐synthesis and altered the expression of key proliferation and oncogenesis markers (i.e., Ki67/c‐Myc/p53) in mouse PG cell cultures, wherein some of these actions might be elicited through extracellular signal‐regulated kinase (ERK) activation. Moreover, treatment with leptin, adiponectin, and resistin differentially regulated key functional parameters [i.e., proliferation and migration capacity and/or prostate‐specific antigen (PSA) secretion] in human normal and/or tumoral prostate cell lines. Altogether, our data show that various adipokine and receptor systems are differentially expressed in normal PG cells; that their expression is under a complex ligand‐ and receptor‐selective regulation under extreme metabolic conditions; and that they mediate distinctive and common direct actions in normal and tumoral PG cells (i.e., homologous and heterologous regulation of ligand and receptor synthesis, ERK signaling activation, modulation of proliferation markers, proliferation and migration capacity, and PSA secretion), suggesting a relevant role of these systems in the regulation of PG pathophysiology.